Dude ranches offer all-inclusive vacations where guests immerse themselves in cowboy culture while partaking in a wide sweep of Western activities from horseback rides and hands-on livestock wrangling to learning how to spin your partner round and round, two-step and do-si-do. Southern Montana’s Mountain Sky, an hour and twenty-minute drive from Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, is for dudes looking to play cowboy, and a ‘lil golf too.
A father and son duo, fresh off a morning trail ride, saunter into the pro shop at Mountain Sky’s Rising Sun golf course. The dad is still sporting a ten-gallon hat and pair of cowboy boots. He swaps his headwear out for a ball cap, but then realizes he forgot to bring a change of shoes.
Mike Petersen, the track’s superintendent who also directed the construction of the Johnny Miller design, greets them warmly. Having worked on four other layouts with the Desert Fox, Petersen had usually moved on after the work was done, but he fell in love with this one and decided to stay put.
The elder guest informs Petersen of his footwear flub and asks if it’s cool if he plays with his Ariats on.
“You’d tear up my greens,” quips the genial super before hooking up the dude with a pair of golf kicks in his size.
Going straight from the saddle of a Quarter Horse to behind the wheel of a Club Car is a pretty singular experience that can be had at this nearly century-old dude ranch that sprawls over 17, 000 acres of Montana’s Paradise Valley, situated just 30 miles north of Yellowstone National Park.
The vast and varied unspoiled landscape is festooned with sagebrush meadows, yellow-leaved stands of aspen, dense pine forest, and nearly five miles of trout-filled streams that wend through the cinematic environs sandwiched by the gobsmackingly gorgeous backdrops of the Absaroka and Gallatin mountain ranges. The fictional Dutton ranch portrayed on the smash hit TV series Yellowstone may be 257 miles west in real life in Darby, MT but the show is meant to be set in Paradise Valley and in later seasons scenes of the Neo-Western drama were filmed in the vicinity.
Arthur Blank, the co-founder of Home Depot and the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United FC, and PGA Tour Superstore, first visited the ranch when he was still the CEO of the big box hardware store chain. He fell in love with the property and eventually bought it after retiring from Home Depot in 2001, adding golf to the menu a decade later.
Rising Sun Fun
Easily a contender for the top of the podium spot among the golf hall of famer and former NBC commentator’s couple dozen creations, from the road in you don’t even notice the Desert Fox’s handiwork till you pull up to the barn-style clubhouse.
The Miller design with infinite panoramic views just feels completely integrated into the aux naturel wilderness that surrounds it. Only open to resort guests on a dude ranch where saddling-up for a four-hour cattle drive or a shorter ride with no to-do list, other than bonding with your steed and drinking in the primo scenery are at the very top of an extensive activities leaderboard that includes guided sunrise hikes, yoga classes, a ropes course, fly fishing instruction and more, the chances of you running into another group during your round is slim to none. My group only spied a couple other golfers over our two eighteen-hole trips on both occasions they were a couple fairways over yonder.
The course measures 7207 yards from the tips, 6716 from the blues and 6168 from the whites, and the 360-degree with burbling streams, center-line bunkers and some blind second shots ratcheting up the challenge of what is ostensibly a target golf layout whose secrets are divulged with repeated play.
You know a course is going to be kickass when you’re already snapping pics in the driving range. The surrounding mountain will have your head on a swivel, taking in expansive and magnificent vistas that look almost too beautiful to be real.
As far as standout holes go, No. 4, a par-5 dubbed ‘Road Hole,’ sports a boomerang shaped fairway with a massive waste bunker on the left and native grasses circling the green. Its curves bear more resemblance to a double-apex increasing radius turn on a Grand Prix track than the 17th at Saint Andrews that it’s named after. Knowledge of F1 racing lines will come in handy when it comes to determining the optimum tee shot placement.
Then there’s No 6, a split fairway no-guts-no-glory risk/reward weighting affair that dares golfers to brave a direct flight over a creek to a skinnier landing strip or play it safe and lay up on the wider lefthand side.
Hitters used to simply smoking their opening salvo dead straight may be flummoxed by a series of center-line fairway bunkers Mr. Miller has deployed with relish on No. 8, No. 14, No. 16—all challenging, yet well-conceived tests. The course finishes especially strong with a pair of doozies that take groups out with a bang. A long downhill par 3 is followed up by a bodacious par 5 closer where the whole course comes into view and tee shots feel a little extra triumphant, thanks to a 60-foot drop zone down to the fairway below.
After a day of navigating fairways and greens, why not try your hand at a different kind of aim game. After all, what’s a Western paradise without a little rootin’ tootin’ gunslinging? The sporting clays range offers a chance to test your skills while getting a load of and absolutely killer view.
Both 20 gauge pump-action and over/under shot guns are available to flex your aim game, trailing and then splattering discs thrown from over a half dozen locations.
Communal Dining and Cowboy Camaraderie
Guests flock to the dining room at the appointed mealtime hours; everybody chows down at the same time like one big extended family. There’s even a dinner bell rung to get the cattle call going and everybody chowing down at the same time creates a communal vibe—we’re all learning the cowboy way together from Sunday to Sunday.
Whether it’s during activities, the buffet line, or shared shuttles there’s ample opportunity to make fast friends over shared experiences and the epicenter of hobnobbing with ranch visitors and staff takes place in the saloon where après dinner drinks are knocked back and yarns of the fun that was had before the sun went down are spun.
Often, it feels like you’re on the set of Westworld with guests cowboying up to the nines—even for meals and nightcaps. Keeping with the time travel theme, WiFi intentionally only works in the main lodge, and the only television on property is in the pro shop.
The grub and accommodations slightly deviate from the Old West script, but do so in a good way. The cuisine feels more Michelin-star-seeking than chuckwagon cookery or range fare—think pan-roasted Tasman salmon over a grilled citrus polenta and partnered up with buttered baby spinach lemon preserves and crispy artichokes or a Basque cake with a rum anglaise and red wine sauce.
Weeklong family high-season packages start on June 15 and run through August 24, 2025, with shorter stay options available during the spring and fall shoulder seasons. As with all great vacation destinations these days, it’s highly recommended to book a year in advance because this dude ranch fills up faster than a mountain stream after a snowmelt.
I was a guest of Mountain Sky Guest Resort and they covered my expenses for this trip. I didn’t receive any cash payments, and all thoughts and opinions of the property are my own.
