Given it’s appearance on the recent Top 30 Muni’s thread (ranked 15th), I thought I’d post a few pictures from a recent round at Jim Engh’s Fossil Trace in Golden, Colorado. I can’t say I’ve played anything like it, although it has some of JE’s best-known features – his muscle bunkers, the bowl greens. The property has a variety of different characters – part of it is flat, part quite hilly, part with wetlands, and part through a former clay mine, so in this case the style unifies, and helps to keep the place from having too schizophrenic a feel.
The first is a downhill par 5, with both a tee shot and second shot that are partially blind. This is one of those holes that I feel like I’ll figure out some day, given enough plays. The lower fairway has an old smokestack in the middle of it, which really doesn’t do anything for me, per se, but it's one of a number of items leftover from the property's history as a mine. Here’s a shot of it from the 18th tee, the approaches would be coming downhill from the right:
Once you get past that part of the fairway, the hole flattens out. Here’s a shot of the approach:
The second is another sharply downhill hole, and the first of many short par 4’s on the course. In the case of Fossil Trace, a number of the shorter holes on the course seem more a result of the necessities of the property rather than an architectural choice, per se, and this is one of them. You can see this in the proximity of the outside world behind the second green. The green is certainly driveable, but you can’t see the green from the tee, as this is your view of the rumpled fairway below. It’s a lot of fun for someone like me who isn’t going for the green to see your shot land on that ground, disappear and reappear lower down.
And the approach:
The 3rd is an uphill par 3, and is followed by the par 4 fourth, which is a hole that didn’t do much for me at first, as it seemed a bit plain-jane after the first two holes, but I now consider it a favorite. The green shape provides a number of small pinning areas that make the approach interesting.
4th Tee:
4th Green:
The fifth is a VERY short par 3 (that still managed to pin a double on one of my playing partners, much to his chagrin), and the sixth is a straight par 4 with a center-line bunker that I never manage to get anywhere near (and I can’t understand why anyone would ever go left of it, with wetlands and water all down the left side). The 7th is a really funky uphill, short par 4. Your choices are to hit short of the central bunker, leaving an uphill blind shot over said bunker, try to hit in the short grass either side of the bunker, or go for the green (perhaps not do-able from the tips, at least for mere mortals).
From the right, closer to the green:
The 8th is one of my favorites on the front, a twisting par 4 with a nicely rumpled fairway. I don’t have a decent picture off the tee, but here’s one of the approach:
And the green:
I don’t have photos of the ninth or 10th, both are par 4-s, the 10th is another shortie, reachable if you’re willing to contend with water, and I’m lacking a photo of the 11th, a par 3 with a long, narrow green and pot bunkers short right, and left of the green.
The 12th, from the tee – visually a most striking hole.
Second shot (I really like Jim's contouring of these fairways):
The approach:
The 13th is a downhill par 4 really requires you to think if you want to hit off of flat ground on your second. The cut in the rock formation could have been more artfully done...
The 14th is an uphill par three with a crazy two-tiered green. The rise between the lower and upper levels has to be at least eight feet. One player in my group tried three times to putt from the bottom to the top level, and didn’t make it. In this case the bowl area surrounding the back of the green was shaved to fairway length, so if he’d just putted well past the hole, he would have been redirected back to the pin. On most of the other greens on the course that have bowl-like surrounds, the bowl area is actually mowed at rough height, and the balls will stick, leaving dicey downhill chips.
The fifteenth is a fairly narrow par five that dips downhill sharply just before the green, with a rockpile to the right of the fairway just as the downhill slide begins. Even though the green is blind from the fairway, you get a really good view of it from the 12th tee. In the third picture below you can see a fan built in to blow across this green. This green truly is in a low-lying, bowl-shaped area. I can see that this hole wouldn’t be for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. Maybe after I play there a few more times, I might try going for the narrow route down to the green to the right of the rockpile. Contrived? Perhaps. Classic architecture? Perhaps not. I guess I’m just enough of a heathen to enjoy it ! The tee shot:
Here you can just see the top of the pin for the approach:
And a look at the green, the rockpile, and the fan:
The 16th is fairly short par 3 over water and a gnarly bunker to one of my favorite greens on the course. And yes, one of my playing partners was rocking an untucked shirt, white socks, and black shoes. And I enjoyed his company very much!
The 17th and 18th are parallel on opposite sides of a small lake, with the water on the right of each hole. The 17th is the last shortish par 4 with a green framed by a pair of the nastiest bunkers on the course. If I have one complaint regarding these bunkers, it’s that they’re awfully hard to climb in and out of. If the grass had been wet around them, I would have had to settle in for the night, as I’d never have been able to climb out.
The 17th Green:
And the course finishes with a fairly straightforward par 5 curving around water on the right, to a green that is all too happy to redirect your approach into the bunker on the left:
I know that this course may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s thoroughly modern, and there were some compromises made to allow a new course to be built right in the middle of town - but it provides a heck of a fun ride, it’s not overly expensive, it’s hilly, but walkable if you were to so choose, and while it’s not a long course it’s also not easy by any means. The long hitter might not feel like he’s getting enough opportunities to really stretch it out. I’d be interested in hearing some opinions on that front. I really enjoyed playing it.
Jay Flemma has a glowing writeup on the course here:
http://jayflemma.thegolfspace.com/?p=165