I've just returned from a cold, rainy tour of the staked-out routing of Coore and Crenshaw's newest work, Colorado Golf Club outside of Denver. It appears to be a sublime masterpiece in the making. No 200-foot dunes or other spectacular physical features, just good, solid rolling terrain cut by washes and arroyos. They've just begun moving dirt - working from the greensites backwards. Lots of semi-blind tee shots, natural fall-away countours and split fairways/lines of play. They plan to move 75,000 cubic feet of dirt, mainly just to soften some slopes.
The routing is intimate, though the property is vast. It will be a walking course. Par-threes, in particluar, are awesome, especially the uphill second and the short-iron seventeenth, where the green is situation on a peninsula jutting into the confluence of two washes.
I really dig the way the holes are just there - three white stakes, and you can see them perfectly. A couple of great short 4s and a couple of brutal long ones. Par 5s have lots of character. Three of the four should be reachable, although at considerable risk. A couple of cool ideas with bunkering to separate levels of fairway as well.
Keep an eye on this one. At last, C&C in Colorado!
TOM