Tumble Creek NCAA Regional site?

[Tim Leahy]

Tumble Creek, a TD design is hosting the NCAA regional on May 17-19 and my alma mater Pepperdine is #2 seed so I wondered about the course since I have not seen many posts about it. I did find one from 2012 that included pictures and the course looks very tight. For those that have played it or designed it is it that tough or am I seeing the forest before the fairways. Will the players have to deal with elevation adjustments and is it like Tahoe, about 10%, more or less? Pepperdine just won a tournament at Pasatiempo, any similarity to Tumble Creek?

[Kalen Braley]

Tim,

I've played it and didn't think it was tight at all, which is saying something as a HC who can easily slice it in the next time zone. A few hole corridors did have trees on both sides and hole 9 was certainly an ass-kicker but mostly based on its length.

Biggest thing that got me was a few of the forced carries/decisions on the back 9 with the ponds (15&16), which is a testament to how well they thought out to ask a player with my abilities how I would take them on.  But I suspect D1 college players will have no problems with them.

[Tom_Doak]

The USGA uses Tumble Creek as a qualifying site for the US Open or US Amateur fairly often, and players who can shoot in red numbers usually advance.  I certainly wouldn't describe it as "very tight" -- the fairways are twice as wide as the standard in Portland or Seattle -- but if you hit one 40-50 yards offline you are going to be punching out of trees.


There's a little elevation to deal with, but the thing that makes it tougher is the wind -- it is very exposed to afternoon winds from the west, especially on the back nine.


There is trouble in some of the greens, too, but nothing compared to Pasatiempo.


I think it is one of my more underrated courses:  if I had to live on a course, I think I'd be happy to live there and play it regularly.

[Kalen Braley]

Another look at the scorecard here:  https://tumblecreek.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/tumblecreekscorecard.pdf

Holes 3, 4, 11, and 15 were my favorites.  Will be interesting to see how they tempt them on #6 if they move the tees up for one of the rounds.

Hole 12 was the most roller coaster-ish of the bunch and for a 430-445 yard par 4, IIRC an aggressive line could get them down near the green with a tee ball!

[Peter Ferlicca]

I worked at Tumble Creek back in 2010.  They had the final stage of the womens US open qualifier, top 2 make it into the tournament.  The event started with around 45 ladies.  It was early June, about 50 degrees outside, raining and blowing 20-25 mph.  It was 36 holes.  Half of the field dropped out after the first round, about 10 WDs.  The second round only had around 15 ladies, haha.  Only ten of those finished.  It was truly a survival of the fittest.  It ended up going into a playoff at the very end for the final spot.  I was exhausted just from working the event, I couldn't even imagine how the ladies felt. 


The golf course is amazing, beautiful views, very well strategic golf course that kind of has the looks of a George Thomas, or Tilly in the mountains.  The front nine routing is perfection going along the caynon rim.  If it is calm weather you can shot low 60's for a good college player.  If it is the normal early spring weather that the cle elum/roslyn area is known for it will be a LONG day.