Butterfield Trail & Sand Hollow ?

[Matt_Ward]

Has anyone played either of the two courses and if so any generalized impressions?

The El Paso area isn't a recognized golf hot spot -- although I have always liked Painted Dunes Desert Golf Course -- the original 18 by Ken Dye. Although I hear it's not anywhere as good from a conditioning side as it was years ago. A pity.

Digest did highlight the new TF Butterfield Trail and the photos do look good.

In regards to Sand Hollow -- the 27-hole John Fought layout in Hurricane is also attracting some notice. Given the range of courses in the St. George area that says plenty.

[Tom_Doak]

Matt:

I received a load of pictures a year ago of Sand Hollow, from a young design associate who was SURE it would win a Best New award.  I guess it didn't -- though I will console him with the reminder that Ballyneal was #6 on the GOLF DIGEST list when it opened.

Anyway, the pictures he sent were stunning.  If you're asking if you should go out of your way to play it, the answer is yes.  But I haven't been there myself yet.

[Kalen Braley]

Being about 3.5 hrs away, I've been meaning to go take a look at Sand Hollow.  I would agree that the course looks really good from the pictures I've seen as well.

A few photos can be seen here.

http://www.sandhollowresort.com/golf_5.php

[Andy Troeger]

I played Butterfield Trail this past May. Its a nice track by Fazio--did quite a bit given that the original site was flat desert. I would guess its placement by Golf Digest is pretty accurate, good enough to make the top ten new public listing, but toward the bottom of that list. I didn't think it matched up with Four Mile Ranch or Cougar Canyon.

Its worth playing if in the area by all means, but I don't know that I'd make a special trip to El Paso just to see it.

Painted Dunes' conditioning was awful in May, although the greens weren't bad so it was very playable in that sense. Butterfield Trail does have more character than Painted Dunes even if the conditioning of the two were comparable--Painted Dunes is very dependent on the wind. BT is playable in wind but doesn't need it to stay interesting.

[Matt_Ward]

Tom D:

Thanks for the comments / re: Sand Hollow. The terrain in and around the Hurricane, UT area is quite unique. Keith Foster did well there previosly with his work at Coral Canyon.

The St. George area is exciting because it offers a nice array of different golf options without holding prices too high.

Andy:

Thanks for the update -- I enjoyed past rounds at Painted when the turf quality was much better. You are right -- the wind can be a major factor when playing there -- the playing corridors are quite narrow in plenty of areas and the course has done well in the past when it hosted PGA Tour qualifiers. Given the poor shape as you mentioned -- I would likely take a pass on a return engagement.

If you had 20 rounds to play how would you divide them up between Cougar Canyon, Four Mile Ranch and Butterfield Trial ? If BT can't get more than a five than that tells me something about where it stands.

Thanks ...

[Andy Troeger]

Matt,
Keep in mind that I like Cougar Canyon more than you do so I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. Given that...

Cougar Canyon 9
Four Mile Ranch 7
Butterfield Trail 4


I have Butterfield as being a comparable course in quality to SunRidge Canyon and UNM South. It would make my top ten in New Mexico if it were a little further north, but near the bottom of the list.

[Matt_Ward]

Andy:

To rate Butterfield in comparable terms with SunRidge Canyon and UNM / South is quite a compliment. I see both of the other courses you mentioned as clear top ten public courses in their respective states. Given your feelings on Butterfield I dare say you are elevating it to a high level because SunRidge Canyon is well done by Keith Fister and ditto the work Red Lawrence did with the Championship layout at UNM.

In short -- is a side visit to Butterfield worth the time ?

[Andy Troeger]

Matt,
Given your willingness to travel I would say yes, especially if you intend to get out this way to see the new ones in Ruidoso, NM--Rainmakers and Outlaw. I haven't played either one of those but will do so next year barring something odd. I felt it was worth driving down from Albuquerque to see--a friend in Las Cruces agreed that it was likely the best course in that area.

I have SunRidge as the 5th best public I've seen in Arizona, but I'm missing quite a few of the candidates. I think I have UNM as my 5th favorite public in New Mexico--so I do think Butterfield is pretty strong.

Golf Magazine rated Butterfield as the 10th best public course in Texas, so somebody there gives it some credit as well. I've only played the two courses in the state so no clue whether that's an accurate rating.

[Matt_Ward]

Andy:

If Butterfield were not designed by TF -- do you think it would still generate any real fanfare ?

I agree w you on the position of SunRidge Canyon as one of the best public courses you can play in AZ. UNM / Championship would easily make my personal top five public in the Land of Enchantment. A few years back I would not be convinved because the day-to-day grooming was usually filled with an overdose of H20 -- that's not the case now.

Given your low number of total plays when held against CC and FMR it's doubtful I would take the time to travel and play the course unless I happened to be in the I-10 vicinity.

Maybe some of the guys from the Lone Star State can comment on Butterfield. I'd have to say this -- it would need to be at or close to the level of The Rawls Course to excite me as being unique.

In regards to Rainmakers and Outlaw do you see them as being in the same sentence with such public courses as Twin Warriors, Sandia, and Santa Ana?

[Andy Troeger]

Having not seen either one of them its hard to comment much. I'm expecting Rainmakers to be better than the courses you mentioned. Outlaw is a harder one because I've never played anything by John Lafoy previously.

I'm sure the Fazio name helps Butterfield Trail, but I think the course stands on its own merit. If El Paso had anything else worth playing I'd recommend the visit more, but it suffers from being the only decent size fish in the pond. It would be better served if it had some local competition to bring in the tourists.

[Trey Kemp]

I have not played either yet, but a good friend of mine played Butterfield Trail and sent me a few pictures.  Here they are:

[Andy Troeger]

The photos are of the 16th, 4th, 1st, and 14th holes.

16 is a long par four
4 is a medium par three
1 is a medium par four
14 is a reachable par five.

Other than the 1st, the others are some of the better holes on the course. I didn't care for the par five 18th with a peninsula green into a pond--it tries a bit too hard.

[Matt_Ward]

Andy:

One of the usual laments about TF courses -- one that I personally believe is true for a good number of his courses -- is that the strategic component takes a back seat to his desire to always present a very striking portrait for the golfer's eye. Sometimes the fascination for the "eye" of the golfer is really in wooing the above average handicap type because plenty of times the low handicap types will eschew much of TF's work as skin deep beauty and lacking in the substance arena.

No doubt that's a massive simplification because TF has done courses that are much more than proverbial eye-candy types.

Is Butterfield loaded with strategic implications or is it more attuned to what I said at the outset which is about "how it looks" rather than how it plays?

Many thanks ...

[Andy Troeger]

Matt,
There's strategy on some holes, such as the last photo where you can see the centerline bunker and further down there's that centerline mound-thingy. Other holes, like the par three photo, are pretty straight forward. I don't recall any holes other than the one shown where the center is not going to be the place to be. The 13th is fun because you can shorten it by going over the desert on the right, there are a few other holes where hitting driver can be risky due to hitting into a narrower area, but overall the course is pretty out in front of you.

[Neal_Meagher]

I had the great privilege of working with a talented Wisconsin native, Andy Staples, for several years in the late 90's while still with Graves & Pascuzzo.  Andy subsequently moved to the Phoenix area to begin his own design firm with the Sand Hollow project being among his initial projects. He spent a couple of years in the initial stages routing what is now a 27-hole facility, the 18-hole Championship course and 9-hole Links style course at Sand Hollow.

In order to maximize their exposure in the marketplace, the owners eventually brought John Fought in to work with Andy on the courses with the now-completed complex being the result of that partnership.  I've been following this project for several years so when I saw this thread earlier today I asked Andy to send me some photos of the completed course, so here they are:

Championship Course Hole No. 5, 343 yd par 4


Championship Course Hole No. 15, 178 yd par 3


Championship Course Hole No. 17, 523 yd par 5


Championship Course Hole No. 18, 450 yd par 4


Links Course Hole No. 2, 418 yd par 4


Links Course Hole No. 3, 572 yd par 5


Links Course Hole No. 4


Links Course Hole No. 6

[Neal_Meagher]

,

[Neal_Meagher]

Thanks to everybody who gave me the proper instructions on posting pics.  So, as Matt Ward originally asked, here are some images of Sand Hollow.

[Tom_Doak]

Kudos to Andy Staples.

No kudos to whomever placed those buildings in relation to the 18th hole, though!