Anybody who's looking for good restoration work should stop by the Wigwam Resort in Litchfield west of Phoenix and take a look at Forrest Richardson's work there on the Gold course. I played Saturday and it is really good. The course has been stretched a bit to over 7,200 yards. We played at 6,800 and it's wasn't bad length at all. The par 5's are all over 570 except for #14, the shortest at 522. #10 stretches out to 660 from the tips!
Forrest restored bunker size, depth and lips, returned greens and surrounds to original dimensions, took out as many trees as allowed, and generally has the place looking very good. There was some nice new stone work as retaining walls keeping greensites from falling into ponds.
The new 18th hole has been moved to the left, right on a canal, with nothing to stop the overcooked draw or pulled (or in my case, heeled
) approach from finding the water. Forrest is disappointed he wasn't allowed to take the poorly placed and quite artificial mounds out of the center of the fairway. (I blame those mounds on my mishit). A very solid finisher. My son David says don't even think about trying to cut the corner left of the big tree by the canal.
The course features a lot of quirky pins, well-contoured greens, and didn't remind me of any Robert Trent Jones Sr course I've ever seen. Of course Forrest did cut many of the aircraft carrier tees into pods which looked more pleasing to the eye and made the course look much more classical. Now if he'd made those pods square..........
The Wigwam Gold -- parkland setting, very little desert look except some gravely waste areas that work -- quirky but a ballbuster. Fun to play and challenging, not to be missed in Phoenix.
Forrest has complete restoration of half of the adjacent and intertwined Blue course, hopefully more to come later this year.
Oh, and 1:30 p.m. tee time was $75, 50% off, and we finished comfortably before dark. Forrest came out to see us finish and stayed for a drink. He said he figured it was us because the two old guys were walking and packing and the two young guys were in a cart! (It was the annual McBride Invitational -- my brother, nephew and son, three days of round robin fourballs for yearly bragging rights!).
