I played River Ridge - Victoria Lakes in Oxnard, CA for the first time today.
It's nominally a Sandy Lyle design, but it's a somewhat odd landfill course by a designer I've never heard of before, John Millhouse of "Strategic Golf Design".
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-aug-18-sp-6450-story.htmlDoes anyone know of any other course that John Millhouse may be associated to? The internets aren't telling me.
While most of the course is fairly typical, there are a couple of somewhat interesting holes on the course.
The 12th and especially the 13th.
Overhead view:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.2284224,-119.218198,522m/data=!3m1!1e3And a photo taken from another website of the view from the 13th tee.
I don't recall ever seeing another one quite like the 13th, with water on both sides where from the back tee the opening shot visually seems especially squeezed given a typical cross wind off the ocean a couple miles away
For the 240/250 driver hitter (ie: me), it's actually a deceptive but fairly generous landing width of about 50 yards, but for the 280+ sorts, it narrows considerably to about 30 yards.
The drive felt relatively intimidating and really tempts a drive to the right side of the fairway.
That's probably a poor decision as going to the left leaves a relatively simple mid-iron over a fronting bunker to the
canted green.
For a design style I'd never seen before, I rather liked it.