Why aren't there more highly rated courses in the Rocky Mountains?

[HarryBrinkerhoffDoyleIV_aka_Barry]

Removing Denver from the equation, why aren't there more highly rated courses in the Rocky Mountain region?  Is it because they aren't sand based, and to create a great course would literally require moving a mountain?  Is it because they generally are all the same?  Something else?

When looking at the 3 major US Top 100 lists (GD, GM, GW), there isn't one Rocky Mountain course that resides on all 3 lists, and only a few that grace 2 of those lists (Rock Creek, Gozzer, Huntsman).

With how much money flows through some of these Rock Mountain towns, you would think there would have been more courses that were built that were destined to be highly thought of in this region.  Conversely, when looking at courses in the Appalachians, there are quite a few more there that are highly thought of, and the footprint for the Appalachians is much smaller.

Just wondering why this might be........

[Gary Slatter]

Banff and Jasper are always in the top 1-5 Canada list, deep into the Rockies and great course.  Banff is built upon a Donal Ross course, one of his earliest rebuilds possibly.

[Tom_Doak]

Barry:

Here are some possible reasons:

1.  They are exorbitantly expensive to build, so there aren't too many of them.
2.  They all play very short, due to the altitude.
3.  The areas off the fairways limit recovery play, which some panelists think is not pure golf.


I don't know what courses you are thinking of in the Appalachains that are so highly thought of.  There are several in the west that are better (in my view) than The Homestead or The Greenbrier, but they don't have 80-90 years of ad dollars on their side.

[Andy Troeger]

Barry,
I would agree with Tom's three reasons and add that much of the land out here is too severe for really good walkable golf. It looks great in photos, but finding a good routing seems difficult. I've played a lot in the southern Rockies and there are a lot of good courses, but very few that rise to "great" status.

Tom,
Pete Dye GC and Pikewood National are the first two I would think of in the Appalachians. But I think Rock Creek and Gozzer are just as good. And I like all four of those courses more than their average ranking.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Barry,

I suspect that the reason is associated with the population centers at the turn of the 20th Century and transportation.

If you look at a profile of the ODG's work, it tended to be centered in the population centers and where the railroad tracks went.

Everything seemed to flow up an down the East Coast, then inland and then the jump to the west coast (population centers)

Traveling West of the Mississippi was time consuming, compared to traveling from NY to Philly or Boston.

From NYC to Chicago or St Louis, and then to the Mountain states was a journey.

Denver, Dallas, Tulsa and other significant population centers produced good courses, but, they were accessible by railroad.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

A famous thread from the past:


http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,18744.0.html

[Brett Wiesley]

I agree, seems odd, but I always wonder if my bias is due to living out West. Part of it likely has to do to less raters visiting those out West courses than those in other more populous areas.   I also think mountain courses are fun, but do lack the classic feel of a great traditional course.  It can be done though...  Idaho: Gozzer.   Utah: Glenwild.  Wyoming: shooting Star.  Funny, all of those are Fazio.  Likely a function of all of them being high priced development types, which is his niche.

[HarryBrinkerhoffDoyleIV_aka_Barry]

Brett - that is exactly what I found interesting as well.  Clearly, Fazio has had his hand in creating courses out here in the Rocky's.  The ones you have mentioned, as well as Red Sky Ranch in the Vail area and Maroon Bells in Aspen.  I would imagine all of these were big ticket courses, with large budgets to create something fabulous, and were built with the goal of being highly thought of.  Yet, none of them, with the exception of Gozzer has ended up highly rated.

Conversely, when you look at the Appalachians, Fazio has a number of newly created courses in that mountain region that have garnished accolades.  Wade Hampton, Mountain Top and Diamond Creek come to mind.  And there are a number of highly rated courses in the region in general (Pete Dye, Pikewood, Grandfather, and the 3 Fazio designs that I mentioned).

Just strikes me as odd that none of the Rocky Mountain courses ended up with high accolades, yet a number of them in the Appalachians did, and was wondering if there was a reason behind this.  Can a great course be created in the Rocky Mountains?

[BCowan]

Joe want's to know why as well?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcveyL_7xn8

[Garland Bayley]

I guess I don't understand Tom's answer.

Since many podunk little towns in the Rocky Mountain region have golf courses, they must not be that expensive to build.
Since the Rocky Mountain region is quite arid, unirrigated rough offers very reasonable recovery options.

The reason there are few highly rated golf courses in the Rocky Mountain region simply seems to be to be a factor of population density.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

I guess I don't understand Tom's answer.

Since many podunk little towns in the Rocky Mountain region have golf courses, they must not be that expensive to build.
Since the Rocky Mountain region is quite arid, unirrigated rough offers very reasonable recovery options.

The reason there are few highly rated golf courses in the Rocky Mountain region simply seems to be to be a factor of population density.

No and no.  Podunk little towns in the Rocky Mountain region with golf courses tend to be ski towns, and the land cost within 45 minutes of a ski resort is MASSIVE.  I've played many courses here in the CO Rockies, and in general, when your ball departs the irrigated/maintained areas your ball is gone/unplayable.   Sure it's arid, but that just means the ball runs through the sparse parts into sagebrush, various bushes, pines and the the like.  

The problem with golf in the mountains in my opinion is:

1)  Cartball only is the rule, not the exception
2)  Forced carries and hugely elevated tees/greens are the norm
3)  Native areas are death, worse than desert golf
4)  Prevailing slopes make creativity difficult.  You either have to have a hole benched into the overall slope, or a hole that plays up or down the slope.  A few of these holes in a round are fun.  18 of them is annoying.  
5)  Altitude makes them play short, so designers tend to make them play narrow too.  Narrow=not fun.
6)  Even among the good ones, there are always a few terrible holes crammed into the property somewhere due to severity.  Even Eagle Ranch in Eagle, CO, one of the flattest mountain courses you'll find, has a couple holes shoehorned into the property.  

[mike_beene]

The Rockies are much higher in base elevation than the eastern mountains. Short seasons, afternoon lightning. I think Breckinridge Municipal is several thousand feet higher than the highest peak in the east.The Broadmoor and perhaps the club at Vail with the multiple courses and the club on the river outside of Aspen pretty much covers the mountain club market in Colorado it would seem. It has been a while but the Breckinridge municipal is a nice Nicklaus course I always enjoyed.

[Garland Bayley]

I guess I don't understand Tom's answer.

Since many podunk little towns in the Rocky Mountain region have golf courses, they must not be that expensive to build.
Since the Rocky Mountain region is quite arid, unirrigated rough offers very reasonable recovery options.

The reason there are few highly rated golf courses in the Rocky Mountain region simply seems to be to be a factor of population density.

No and no.  Podunk little towns in the Rocky Mountain region with golf courses tend to be ski towns, and the land cost within 45 minutes of a ski resort is MASSIVE.  I've played many courses here in the CO Rockies, and in general, when your ball departs the irrigated/maintained areas your ball is gone/unplayable.   Sure it's arid, but that just means the ball runs through the sparse parts into sagebrush, various bushes, pines and the the like.  

The problem with golf in the mountains in my opinion is:

1)  Cartball only is the rule, not the exception
2)  Forced carries and hugely elevated tees/greens are the norm
3)  Native areas are death, worse than desert golf
4)  Prevailing slopes make creativity difficult.  You either have to have a hole benched into the overall slope, or a hole that plays up or down the slope.  A few of these holes in a round are fun.  18 of them is annoying.  
5)  Altitude makes them play short, so designers tend to make them play narrow too.  Narrow=not fun.
6)  Even among the good ones, there are always a few terrible holes crammed into the property somewhere due to severity.  Even Eagle Ranch in Eagle, CO, one of the flattest mountain courses you'll find, has a couple holes shoehorned into the property.  

Tom,

The topic specifically says Rocky Mountain region in the first post. It considers Denver to be in this region, but excludes it from consideration, presumably because it is better off golf wise.

The biggest cities in the Rocky Mountain region would seem to be Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. Unless you want to include Phoenix which seems more just desert to me. Other than that, what are you looking at? Billings? Population density seems to be the reason there are few great courses. Even Black Mesa cannot attract enough players from nearby Sante Fe to allow it to go ahead with building its Doak course.

You don't have to be a ski town to have a golf course in the Rocky Mountain region. Even if you are a ski town, you don't have to have your course on a mountain. Therefore, I have played many native areas in this arid region, and they are not death, but usually highly recoverable from. I would suggest your impressions of golf in the region is too narrowly focused.

[Andy Troeger]

Garland,

Population density certainly plays a role too. Santa Fe's population is something like 70,000 and I would argue most of them don't play golf. The private club there, Las Campanas, almost went under a few years ago.  The whole region lacks people--and lacks towns that are close enough to population centers to build great "vacation/2nd club" destinations. The ones that do exist like Park City and Vail tend to have land that is too severe for great golf. The great courses mentioned in the Appalachians are usually rolling, but not particularly mountainous. Mountaintop is the exception, but I'm not convinced it qualifies as great.  

To build a great course in most cases requires good land and in most cases someone with a lot of money. The Rockies arguably have both, but not usually in the same place. The ski towns in Colorado have money but not suitable land, and anyplace you're describing as Podunk probably has better golfing land but less money to make it great. Tom B.'s comments apply pretty accurately to Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah in terms of the things that hold courses back, but I think you both make fair points over the larger region.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

What about Wyoming?  Shooting Star (Fazio) , 3Creek Ranch( Rees Jones) and even Snake River (Weiskopf) all in Jackson are out there but may not be top drawer. Is Snake River open for play?

[Andy Troeger]

Shooting Star is one of the best in the Rockies. I found it to be one of Fazio's best. 3 Creek Ranch is nothing special, however, and Snake River has been closed for about five years I think. Not sure if it has been maintained at all or if it has gone back to nature. Huntsman Springs has gotten some good reviews too--one of these days I'm going to manage to play it.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

I guess I interpreted the question as courses that were physically in the Rocky Mountains.  My observations reflect this.  

Anyway, anyone played Haymaker in Steamboat?  I was up there this past season playing Catamount (talk about severe!) and saw Haymaker from the road.  Looks like fun.

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,

Population density certainly plays a role too. Santa Fe's population is something like 70,000 and I would argue most of them don't play golf. ...

My thought was that if Black Mesa was south of Santa Fe instead of north, it perhaps would have a much better chance of drawing people from Albuquerque and being able to have an income large enough that they could have gone ahead with the Doak course. The Albuquerquians that I played with decided "we don't have to come all this way for good golf, we have Pa Koa ..." or whatever it's called.

[Garland Bayley]

I guess another answer might be that no one has been able to do a Mullen, NE in the Rocky region. If someone had found a great piece of land at Thermopolis, WY, or south of Green River, WY near Flaming Gorge, or Estes Park, CO, or Durango, CO, or Moab, UT, or even Sante Fe, NM and decided to get Coore and Crenshaw to build a private club there, before Sand Hills happened, maybe we would be asking why aren't there more highly ranked courses in NE if only the Prairie Club were there.

Everything I've read indicated Tom did a great job at Rock Creek Cattle Company. Maybe the problem is that it just happened after Mullen. The other unfortunate thing there was the site had a boulder problem.

[Kevin_D]

Shooting Star is one of the best in the Rockies. I found it to be one of Fazio's best. 3 Creek Ranch is nothing special, however, and Snake River has been closed for about five years I think. Not sure if it has been maintained at all or if it has gone back to nature. Huntsman Springs has gotten some good reviews too--one of these days I'm going to manage to play it.

I second this - Shooting Star is terrific. It's the only Fazio I have played so far, and I came away wondering why he gets so much criticism on here. Perhaps he is just really good at creating courses out of previously dead flat sites?

Anyone have any favorites around Aspen or Vail?  I played Eagle Vail a few years back but was unimpressed.

[Adam Lawrence]

Snake River has been bought out and will be reopening in the spring. See http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/Article/Weiskopf-course-in-Jackson-Hole-to-reopen-under-new-ownership/2932/Default.aspx#.UsA1z38gGSM

[Garland Bayley]

The right 3/4 of the picture shows part of Bruneau Dunes State Park in ID. Are those ancient dunes in the left 1/4 of the picture? Could that be the prime candidate for the top rated golf course in the Rocky Mountain region?

[David Davis]

Barry,

You are just getting a bit greedy aren't you? You have a couple great clubs in Denver (including your own), some of the best skiing in the world at your doorstep, a short drive to the likes of Ballyneal, Sand Hills and Dismal River, fresh air and clean water, what more could you ask for?

My answer is that the Rocky Mountains are for skiing, not golfing. The same reason there aren't more top ski resorts in the UK and Ireland.

 

[Andy Troeger]

Adam,
Thanks for posting the article about Snake River. The photos I've seen look very good and I hope the second time around goes well for them!

[Tom Bacsanyi]

Shooting Star is one of the best in the Rockies. I found it to be one of Fazio's best. 3 Creek Ranch is nothing special, however, and Snake River has been closed for about five years I think. Not sure if it has been maintained at all or if it has gone back to nature. Huntsman Springs has gotten some good reviews too--one of these days I'm going to manage to play it.

I second this - Shooting Star is terrific. It's the only Fazio I have played so far, and I came away wondering why he gets so much criticism on here. Perhaps he is just really good at creating courses out of previously dead flat sites?

Anyone have any favorites around Aspen or Vail?  I played Eagle Vail a few years back but was unimpressed.

Eagle Vail is a fate worse than death.  Vail Golf Club is a bit better.  My favorites in the Vail area are Sonnenalp (Morrish) and Cordillera Valley (Fazio).  If you are a conditioning slut, Red Sky.