Most of you folks live in a higher realm than I. I play and enjoy courses on a regular basis that would likely make many of you suffer palpitations of shame. You should all likely go wash your hands after reading this post. Ashamed to play or enjoy Twisted Dunes or Shadow Creek? My my.........
I will take it upon myself to speak for the architecturally bereft.
Evergreen Golf Course - a Denver municipal course, even though it is not in Denver, proper. It is a mountain course. Short holes (a downhill 275 yard par 4 anyone?), tiny greens, blind shots, very few bunkers, some holes so indifferent that you can feel them shrugging as you play them. And I love it. I so fully enjoy playing there that just typing this is making me wish that it was warm enough to drive up there for a round. Two holes of note, to cause spasms of architectural shame/delight (not sure of hole numbers, as I think they've switched them around a bit):
There is a par three where you have to blindly hit directly over a rock outcropping, with a white arrow helpfully painted on it to give you a notion of where to go. The group ahead will ring a huge metal triangle when they're done. Every time I ring it, I expect a bunch of cowboys to suddenly show up wanting dinner. The green is flat, circular...not much to it, but it feels good to walk around the rocks and see your ball on it.
My favorite hole used to be the 18th, may be the 9th now - it's perched on a mountainside rolling down from left to right. The left side of the fairway buts up against a ponderosa pine forest, while the right side had to be built up to create some flat ground. The bit of created hillside where the fairway was built up goes almost straight down and is covered in thick, impenetrable grass. Total death to be in it. Difficult, if not impossible, to find or hit a ball that ends up there. If you go further right than that you get the joy of watching your ball just roll down that mountainside across the fairway of a hole below, leaving you with a recovery shot of Herculean proportions. The tee shot is angled such that you have to hit your drive directly at the trees and hope that you didn't aim too far left (and are thus in the forest) or too far right and are thus in the long grass or down at the bottom of the hill. And did I mention that the fairway is narrow? Any long hitter would go right for the green, in fact you might not have to be THAT long, but if you do go for it you must be prepared for what a miss will bring. Any time I get a drive on that fairway I really feel like I've accomplished something.
Damn you, wintertime, for making it impossible for me to head up there right now..........The photo below is actually of what is now the first hole, but the old 18th is barely visible up at the top of the hill, the tee is just behind that copse of trees.........
