This Iowa Golf Resort Just Landed the No. 2 Spot for Luck in America
Photo by Allan Nygren on UnSplash
TPC Deere Run hosts a PGA Tour stop every summer, so Quad Cities golfers are used to their patch of the Mississippi River valley punching above its weight. Now there’s another reason to feel smug about the neighborhood. A golf course casino a few hours up the road just got named the second-luckiest in the country, and Iowa has the National Golf Foundation’s own numbers to back up why this matters: US participation hit an all-time high of 48.1 million players in 2025, and resort operators have been quick to cash in on it.
The Falls at Grand Falls Casino & Golf Resort, in Larchwood, Iowa, took the #2 spot in a new study from Casinos.com, a site readers probably know better for ranking real money online casinos than fairways. The method was simple: comb Tripadvisor reviews at golf courses attached to casinos nationwide for the words “luck,” “lucky” and “happy,” then work out what share of each venue’s reviews used that language. Grand Falls scored a Lucky Review Percentage of 8%. Only one course beat it, Shenendoah at Turning Stone Resort Casino in New York, at 8.9%.
A Home-State Result Worth Noticing
Iowa isn’t exactly the first state that comes to mind when someone says “casino.” Cracking the national top ten twice, then, is a genuine surprise. Blue Top Ridge at Riverside Casino, near Iowa City, also made the list at #9 with 3.8%. Two entries in the top ten puts Iowa ahead of every state except a couple, and that’s worth remembering before anyone plans a weekend that mixes eighteen holes with a night at the tables.
The rest of the top five: Belterra Golf Club in Indiana (7.6%), the historic Greenbrier, Olde White course, in West Virginia (7.3%), and Journey at Pechanga in California (6.2%). The Greenbrier is worth a second mention. Its course pulled in the single highest raw number of “lucky” mentions in the whole study, it just has enough reviews overall that the percentage evened out lower.
Why Golf Resort Getaways Are Having A Moment
More golfers means more resorts leaning into the course-plus-casino combination, and it’s easy to see why. A group with mixed interests, some who want to play a round, some who’d rather sit at a table, can travel together without anyone compromising. That’s exactly what’s putting Grand Falls on the map. It isn’t just a course with a casino bolted on the side. Reviewers keep describing it as somewhere people actually win.
Quad Cities locals will recognize the pattern. The region sits a short drive from more than one riverboat casino, and pairing gaming with a day out, golf, a riverfront festival, an evening at the tables, has never been unusual here. A resort in northwest Iowa cracking a national lucky-review list just adds one more stop to that list.
A Reason To Look Beyond The Fairway
Numbers like these don’t guarantee anyone’s next round goes well. But Grand Falls now has a legitimate claim to being the luckiest golf resort in the Midwest, and it’s close enough that a weekend trip doesn’t mean crossing half the country to test the theory.
For golfers who’d rather not drive at all, the Quad Cities’ own courses hold their own, including TPC Deere Run and the rest of the local circuit. Play a round here first. Then decide whether Iowa’s luck stretches across the whole state or stays put in Larchwood.
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