PLEASE FORWARD TO GLENN REEVES IN SAN MATEO COUNTY TIMES SPORTS. THIS IS A GOLF COLUMN FOR TUESDAY.
By Gib Papazian
Napa, famous for its wineries and pastoral vineyards, has slowly also been redefining itself as a golfing destination.
The newest addition is Eagle Vines Golf Club, the subject of this week’’s installment of our series ““Road Trips for County Golfers.””
Located adjacent to Highway 12, Eagle Vines is actually a ““new-old”” layout. Those who remember the Chardonnay Club may recall the public course - which carried the name ““Vineyards,”” and the private layout formerly known as ““Shakespeare.””
Chardonnay Club, an Algie Pulley creation, has had a checkered history with financial struggles, rumors of accounting irregularities and some contentious membership disagreements regarding the private course and access to the public.
The Shineola hit the fan two years ago when the Japanese owners sold off ten holes of the Shakespeare (#6-15) to a planned development next door and turned the facility into a 27 hole public course.
Eagle Vines, an upscale public layout, uses nine of the original holes, blending in another new nine designed by their General Manager Jack Barry, with help from Johnny Miller.
Barry and Miller get design credit, but Eagle Vines is as much Algie Pulley as anything else. If nothing else, Pulley’’s work is long on entertainment value, with wild putting surfaces and kooky routings.
The current #2-12 are from the old course. In truth, those are the most interesting holes.
What did we think? Like most layouts with Johnny Miller’’s fingerprints, Eagle Vines has a mean streak and frankly asks far too much of the average player given the prevailing breeze on the corridor between Napa and Highway 80.
However, for a good player (i.e. 12 handicap or less), this is a terrific test of golf. Eagle Vines will test your nerve with water and barranca all the way around the golf course. At times, it can be relentless in its demands for crisp iron play to multi-tiered putting surfaces. The blue markers are 6854 yards, but the course rating of 72.9 is ridiculously low.
The white tees are manageable at 6367 yards, but the average golfer had better lace up those Foot-Joys good and tight and bring an extra sleeve of pellets.
Whoever decided the rating from the white tees ought to be 70.5 is crazy. Maybe NCGA rating and handicap chairman Jim Cowan needs to start drug-testing his crew.
Average golfers, or players who get a little twitchy with long carries over water, or hitting to greens at the edge of doom, ought to think twice about this course. I know a couple of skilled players who had to go back to the pro shop for some extra ammo, but I don’t want to talk about it.
That stated, the course is brutally objective. If you hit the shot, you will be rewarded. Creative approach play with irons is encouraged on every hole. The problem is if you skank it a bit, the penalty is not commiserate with the gravity of the miss.
The penalty is a sharp stick in the posterior and a reload as your Titleist gurgles its way to the bottom of the lake.
Unfortunately, we all think we are better than we are - including me - and it is difficult to resist the temptation to climb into the ring and give it another try.
Part of the allure is not just its difficulty, but that Eagle Vines is an extremely appealing golf course visually. I’m not sure how they managed it, but the best holes on the old Shakespeare course all became part of Eagle Vines - including the picturesque island green par-3.
Our favorite holes on the course included the 7th, a par-4 banking left with a rock walled sand pit of perdition to the left and a sprawling bunker on the right corner of the dogleg waiting to catch chickens who bail out.
I don’t feel like talking about that either.
Number eleven is a meandering par-5 that makes an ““S-turn,”” crossing the water twice. The further you lay back off the tee, the narrower the fairway looks on the second shot. The green has at least five sections, so every move of the pin changes the strategy of the hole.
If you happen to finish number-11 intact, the par-3 12th is 184 yards, to a wild, 130 foot-long green, dangling precariously at the edge of another lake. Nope, don’t want to discuss that one, so don’’t bring it up. Splash. Gurgle gurgle.
The last hole is a perfect summation of the rest of the golf course. You stand on the tee of a 436-yard par-4, tumbling gently down the fairway with rolling hills in the distance and the breeze at your back.
There is water to the right, but with nothing to lose but another ball, and no score to protect, an aggressive swing bounds far down the fairway.
The ball is sitting up and though the green is guarded on both sides by hazards, a tensionless crack with a mid-iron likely finds the green.
It is at this moment that we realized the golf course is not that hard. If you simply play your normal game and forget about the monster hiding under the bed, you can do this.
The trick is to swing away and quit steering the ball. In the end, Eagle Vines is really not so much a golf course as a psychology test.
We flunked our first try and the golf gods laughed, but we’’ll be back. . . . . . with a few extra pellets.
EAGLE VINES GC (2004/2004)
580 South Kelly Road, Napa, 94558. Golf Shop 707/257-4470. Internet:
www.eaglevinesgolfclub.com. Public, 18 holes. Jack Barry, Mgr.; Jim Wagner, Director of Golf; Andy Tittle, Supt. North Bay Zone. Club 63-681. Course Designers: Johnny Miller and Jack Barry.
Men
Black 71 74.8 134 7184
Blue 71 72.9 130 6748
White 71 70.5 122 6281
Women
White 71 76.8 135 6281
Red 71 73.2 128 5636