So Many Courses, So Little Time
That’s one reason close to 170 new courses were built in the U.S. in 2003. Golfers will gladly try almost any new course; if it’s good, they’ll come back. Hence our list of the best new courses to consider in 2004.
1. Black Mesa Golf Club
The accolades just keep pouring in for this Santa Clara Pueblo course, which opened only last May, 20 minutes north of Santa Fe. The Santa Clara tribe’s nearly 50,000-acre reservation ranges from the ancient cave dwellings in the Puye Cliffs to the Valley of the Wild Roses near the Rio Grande. It’s almost as though designer Baxter Spann was trying to mimic the distinctive red and black pottery of Santa Clara artisans in the way he’s carved holes through the distinctive sandstone ridges and native arroyos. The utterly natural setting is both stark and beautiful. But the desert never sleeps, and a golfer had better not doze here, either, or it could be a scorching experience by the time the score is added. Keeping the ball on the short grass is only the beginning of the fun, since the greens are rolling joy rides. Spann’s partner Ken Dye was responsible for the touted Pinon Hills and Paa-Ko-Ridge courses in the state. With Black Mesa, Finger Dye Spann, Inc., is coming close to cornering the market on excellent new New Mexico courses. Black Mesa Golf Club, La Mesilla, New Mexico, (505) 747-8946; www.blackmesagolfclub.com
2. Wintonbury Hills Golf Course
The only Pete Dye design in New England opened for limited play last fall, and a grand opening is scheduled this spring. About 15 minutes from Hartford, this Bloomfield, Connecticut, municipal golf course should help redefine munis in a highly positive way. The course is remarkable for a number of reasons, only one of which is that Dye did the work for the grand fee of $1, at the request of Golfweek architecture critic Bradley Klein, a Bloomfield resident, on behalf of the town. Eight years and three referenda later, the eventual construction cost was about $11.5 million, but residents and visitors will be well-served. Playing to 6,600 yards from the tips to a par of 70, the course opens with spacious, links-style holes in view of heavily forested ridges, while the return nine journey down more traditional New England corridors of old-growth birch, walnut, and oak, past a variety of designated environmentally sensitive areas. Dye and his project architect, Tim Liddy, sprinkled about 125 bunkers around the property, with 100 feet of elevation changes. Wintonbury Hills Golf Course, Bloomfield, Connecticut; (860) 242-1401; www.wintonburyhillsgolf.com
3. Kaluhyat Golf Club
At the debut of the course last August, designer Robert Trent Jones Jr. said that Kaluhyat, an Oneida Native American word meaning, “The Other Side of the Sky,” or heaven, was well-named: “In some areas of the course, it almost looks like the sky is moving, and the spirits are coming to play golf.” For the earthbound who come to play golf at the central New York State Turning Stone Casino Resort, the name could just as easily mean “Bring Your A-game.” This is a player’s course, rewarding accuracy on tight fairways with ample forced carries, particularly on tough par-5s like number 11, an almost-600-yard hole from the regular tees, over wetlands for the third shot to a postage stamp-size green. Jones begins the course fairly benignly, but steadily raises the ante until one wonders somewhere toward the end of the round whether Jones was heaven-sent or a spawn of the devil. Kaluhyat Golf Club at Turning Stone Casino Resort, Verona, New York, (800) 771-7711; www.turning-stone.com
4. SouthWood Golf Club
The SouthWood course is the cornerstone of a planned Arvida community that will create, over a 20-year build-out, a town within the capital city of Tallahassee, some 4,700 homes set on 3,200 acres of hills, open pastures, natural lakes, and stands of venerable live oak trees. It is the live oak, hung with Spanish moss, that gives the course its signature touch — along with Fred Couples. Boom Boom consulted on the course design with his partner, Gene Bates, and the pair worked to create a course with big tees, big greens and big fairways — one that appears more difficult than it plays. And they’ve succeeded. The course has 74 bunkers more visually appealing than diabolical, though play around some of the majestic live oaks that Couples insisted had to stay on the course can be tricky. The back tees, stretching to 7,172 yards, are called the Boom Boom tees. There is also a set of “wee tees” perfect for young players, at 2,698 yards, but which also serve to turn the entire course into a par-3 track for adults looking to practice their irons. SouthWood Golf Club, Tallahassee, Florida, (850) 942-4653; www.arvida.com
5. Royal Kunia Country Club
Robin Nelson, as far as this list goes, is the architect of the year, since the next three picks are all his designs. Yet the Royal Kunia course was completed in 1994. Explanation? Simple, as long as you don’t need the details of the Byzantine series of political, legal, and economic battles that kept the course shuttered. It continued to be maintained over the decade, and every now and then a golfer managed to find his way on, leading to Royal Kunia’s reputation as a ghost course. The curtain finally rose last year, and the wait was worth it. The course itself rises high above Pearl Harbor, with splendid views of the Pacific, Diamond Head, and the Koolau Mountains. Nelson began with a former sugar cane plantation and from a flat plain created swelling fairways, greens with plenty of movement, long par-3s, and really long par-5s. Royal Kunia Country Club, Waipahu, Oahu, Hawaii, (808) 688-9222
6. Ravenwood Golf Club
Robin Nelson earned the moniker “Mr. Hawaii” for all the work he has done in the 50th state, but his first stateside course in the Northeast has a classic look to it. Indeed, Nelson said the gently rolling topography of this site near the Finger Lakes wine region of New York State reminded him of Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, New York, where this year’s U.S. Open will be played, and he took a minimalist approach to the environment with a maximum impact on playing values. Ravenwood Golf Club, Victor, New York, (585) 924-5100; www.ravenwoodgolf.com
7. Puakea Golf Course
Another anomaly from Nelson’s hard-luck file, in that Puakea was designed as an 18-hole track, but opened as a 10-hole oddity after a devastating hurricane ripped through the island of Kauai in 1992. Sports Illustrated named the unfinished course one of the world’s best nine-holers, and pondered that Puakea would be ranked as one of the world’s great courses if only there were more of it. Now there is, and the speculation may be justified. The play is impressive, and the scenery out of Jurassic Park — which was filmed right next door. Puakea Golf Course, Lihue, Hawaii; (866) 773-5554; www.puakeagolf.com
8. Patriot Hills Golf Course
The name derives from the proximity to West Point and the plethora of elevated tees at this Rick Jacobson-designed course with elevation changes of up to 250 feet. But any golf nut worth his salt will find it most apt that part of the property once housed a state mental institution. Though the par-71 course stretches to 6,600 yards, Jacobson employs the sound psychology of making the course more playable than penal. Patriot Hills Golf Course, Stony Point, New York; (845) 947-7085
9. The Golf Club at Yarrow
This once-quiet rural corporate retreat was reborn like a phoenix in the wake of a 2001 storm that felled thousands of trees. The property, named for a local wildflower, is still quiet, but the new 14,000-square-foot lodge, private cottages, and challenging golf course will bring more visitors to south central Michigan. As befits a course in a town called Augusta, designer Raymond Hearn has fashioned a track as tough from the back tees as it is appealing to the eye. Yarrow Golf & Conference Center, Augusta, Michigan, (800) 563-4397; www.yarrowgolf.com
10. The Quarry at Giants Ridge
It’s Paul Bunyan country in the Iron Range of Minnesota, and this companion to the Legend course at the Giants Ridge Golf and Ski Resort thinks big all the way. That’s why they had Texan Jeffrey Brauer design this strapping 7,201-yard monster, built in and around the abandoned Embarrass mine pit. A wild and rugged course with its own spare beauty, but with a 146 slope rating from the tips, it’s meant for the giant-hearted. The Quarry at Giants Ridge, Biwabik, Minnesota, (800) 688-7669; www.giantsridge.com
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