Review of H. Chandler Egan's Indian Canyon GC

[Garland Bayley]

The review of H. Chandler Egan's Indian Canyon in Spokane, Washington has been posted to TheWalkingGolfer.com at
http://www.thewalkinggolfer.com/Indian_Canyon.html

Bird

[Craig Van Egmond]

Thanks for the post. Indian Canyon was always one of my favs when I was in the area.

[Kalen Braley]

Garland

Nice write up and review.  A few thoughts & comments from moi.

I noticed you thought #6 and 8 played too similar to each other.  While its true they are both uphill dog leg left par 4s, I felt thier differences in yardages made for more than enough of a difference to be notable.  While the 6th is completley undriveable, the 8th is very much so.  In my 10 or so plays at Indian Canyon with various playing partners I've never seen anyone within 50 yards of the 6th green while I've seen 8 driven several times, including just short of the green by yours truly a few times. The 8th only plays to 255 from the back tees while the 6th is well over 300 yards.  Additionally the green on 8 is way more wicked and wild than the 6th even though they are both two tier greens. Lastly the 8th has no room to miss left while the 6th is very open to the left if deciding to smash a driver up the hill.

#10 is actually a par 5 unless they have changed it recently so I believe that is why they have the rough in front of the green...not that I necessarily agree with that.

Its also a shame to hear that the split fairway on 16 is no more so...I've taken that left route a few times, although not on purpose!!   

BTW, What did you think of the green on #14? its hands down the wildest green on the course.  My buds and I have had some wicked 3-4 putt adventures on that green... 


P.S. Here is a link to the review I did of the course a couple of years ago if anyone is interested in seeing additional pictures and or comments.

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,31538.0/

[Garland Bayley]

Come to think of it #14 had a slopey green. Adds interest to a otherwise pretty nondescript hole. My wedge approach landed well behind the hole and yanked back to just above the hole. So I didn't experience a lot of the green w.r.t putting. I do remember wondering how much pinnable area could be on the green.

10 is marked a par 5 for the ladies tees. I can't imagine it ever being a par 5 as I hit driver, 8 iron. That's after losing 50 yards in driving distance to old age. On that steep down hill I probably lost 70 yards in driving distance.

[Kalen Braley]

Garland,

True its a short par 5, but it is/was indeed a par 5.  I've had a few eagles putts on that green myself but never converted one!!     I think the fact that it:

1)  Used to be the 1st hole before they switched the 9s
2)  Is a narrow hole

...made it work as a gentle opener..but no doubt its a par 4.5 at worst and any score worse than 5 usually felt sucky!! 

As for hole 14, I've only seen it used with 3 basic pin positions.
Short left
Middle left
Upper right

At least half of that green is definitly unpinnable and if you hit your approach to that upper tier when the pin wasn't there then may god have mercy on your next putt!!   

[Garland Bayley]

BTW, the card says 8 is 267 from the back.
I don't know why Rob deleted the yardages when he put up the review.

[Kalen Braley]

BTW, the card says 8 is 267 from the back.
I don't know why Rob deleted the yardages when he put up the review.

267...I wasn't too far off I guess!!   

For me the real genius to IC is its greens first and foremost.  To this day I still have yet to play a course with a more interesting set of 18 greens than Indian Canyon.  Pasatiempo is probably #2 on my list followed closely by Ballyneal.

Then throw in all the interesting sidehill lies, dogleg holes, well placed green side bunkers, and the elevation changes and its just a fun, neato course that I never tire of playing.  About the only "un-conventional" thing it lacks is fairway bunkers...not even 1 on the entire course and its still a wicked cool course and defends itself very well.

[Rob Rigg]

Garland,

Curses - I will update the yardages tonight! I accidentally deleted while putting the words and pics together on the webpage.

I really like the challenging approach to the 15th from the right side of the fairway. Not something that you want to face on every hole, but kind of cool to see once a round. Very retro!

[Rob Rigg]

Updated with yardage - the info on the Indian Canyon website is apparently wrong as the "routing" is out of date

[Garland Bayley]

I am curious as to whether members of this site would rather have the review also posted locally instead of having to link to it on TheWalkingGolfer.com.

[BCrosby]

Sticking with the GCA script, IC would do well to drop a couple thousand trees.

On a less cliched note, what strikes you about IC (and many other older courses for that matter) is how much masking cart paths has become an important part of modern gofl architecture. With these older courses the paths are simply laid on the course with no apparent attempt to hide them. Some seem to be actually in play for good shots. The paths are very much in your field of vision, something that doesn't happen much on courses built after 1980 or so.

I don't mean this as a criticism of IC. Rather the course is representative of a design issue common to hundreds of courses built pre-1960 but on which cart paths were added post 1960.

Was IC a WPA project in the 1930's?

Bob

[Kalen Braley]

Bob,

That sounds about right.  In the clubhouse they have a bunch of old pictures and the trees don't impede nearly as much due to thier smaller size.  But now that they have grown, its made for a much tighter course.  That being said, given its short length it seems to work well and be a natural way to defend the course as the course is routed thru an existing forest.

I'm not sure if it was a GD project, but according to the site work began in 1930 and opened in 1935.

[Garland Bayley]

Bob,

The WPA started in 1935. Therefore, Indian Canyon was not a WPA project.

[David Stamm]

Garland, how much would the course benefit, in your opinion, from a vigorous tree removal program?

[Kalen Braley]

Garland, how much would the course benefit, in your opinion, from a vigorous tree removal program?

David,

As one whose played it several times...I think it would benefit greatly from a tree "reducing/thinning" program.  It would open up a few of the driving lanes and be more forgiving to the high capper especially with recovery and rescue.

But as a short course with many doglegs, a tree "removal" effort would be a mistake IMO.  It would turn the place into a driver/wedge fest and make avoiding many of the most countoured parts of the fairways too easy...which would be a bad thing.

[Garland Bayley]

From the time I have spent in the area, I believe the typical tree population is a lot of pine with fairly clear ground underneath. In the pictures, I see lots of other types of trees that I believe must have been planted in open areas or were able to establish themselves because the golf course created open ares where they would thrive. I think the golf course could benefit greatly by removing a lot of these non native trees. That would probably begin to take the course back to what Chan (I read that's what his friends called him) had created. Clearly many of the pines have matured significantly since the course was created. Therefore, I think judicious removal of some of them would help. Clearly holes like 16 need their pines for the strategic interest Chan intended.

[Garland Bayley]

Kalen,

You need to spend some serious time in the gym if you think you will every play driver/wedge golf at IC.

B Bird

[Lynn_Shackelford]

A very good review.  I am saddened about the 16th.  Widening out the left (I too have gone there unintentionally) would make for a great option.  Someone up there needs some golf architectural instruction.  I last played there about 4 years ago, the 1st and 10th must be a recent change.
Bob Crosby, I assume you haven't played there, but the Egan greens are something to be studied.  If he did anything like that at Chastain Park, it demonstrates how hard, without Egan present, it would be to restore those greens.  The tree stituation is a problem, someone needs to send the City of Spokane Dunlop's essay.  And yes the cart path situation is awkward looking.  With tree removal and routing some carts paths into those areas would be a vast improvement.
This is because of the slope of the course, on a side of a mountain, today golfers are going to ride.  To think everyone walked it for 25 years makes me wonder about today's typical golfer.
Joshua Crane would like or not like carts?  It provides a more equal experience doesn't it?

[Kalen Braley]

Kalen,

You need to spend some serious time in the gym if you think you will every play driver/wedge golf at IC.

B Bird

Wow,

Give the guy a narrow 1 up win and he thinks he's Tiger Woods.  As for my game I haven't been a high capper like I am now forever.  Believe it or not just a couple of years ago I was a 12 and used to be alot better with my driver...needless to say you would have been stomped in our match last month.

Nevertheless I have no intentions of remaining a high capper forever.  You on the other hand have all your best days behind you and the slide from here only continues downward.   

[Garland Bayley]

Kalen,

You got away with only a 1 down loss, because of that ranting "rules official" that distracted me at the end.
You best make him one of your best buddies, because without him you would have been in deep doo doo.

 

And the trash talking continues. Oh my, what will Bogey and Adam think?
 

[Matt_Ward]

My first time at Indian Canyon came as a contestant in the '84 USGA Public Links played there.

Indian Canyon is a fine old style muni but the original 1st and 18th holes were both changed to par-4's for the event.

Bob C is correct -- a buzzsaw would help for a number of holes there. The issue of angles is defeated when you need to play centerpoint only on a number of holes.

The greensites are unique and a complete return to them in all their past glories would be something to behold.

The 18th (as it once was) is a gem of hole -- especially when played as a par-4. Be curious to play it again given the advances in ball and club technology since my last visit there 25 years ago.

Lynn's comment is spot on -- makes one wonder how people walked such a property before the x-plosions with golf carts and the likes.

[Rob Rigg]

This is because of the slope of the course, on a side of a mountain, today golfers are going to ride.  To think everyone walked it for 25 years makes me wonder about today's typical golfer.
Joshua Crane would like or not like carts?  It provides a more equal experience doesn't it?

Lynn's comment is spot on -- makes one wonder how people walked such a property before the x-plosions with golf carts and the likes.

This is interesting - for Garland, who prefers to walk whenever possible, the course was certainly "walkable" despite some elevation changes and two uphill green to tee walks on 17 and 18, but for others the course is a certain cart or would lead them to believe most golfers would take carts there.

Just goes to show that when golf in America was played like it still is (at least for now, thankfully) in GBI, it was a walking game and that was that. Now, even a pan flat 6k yard was will lead most people to drive around.

I don't wonder about today's typical golfer - I know that he is lazy and likely overweight based on statistics.
And I don't wonder how people used to walk - because that is the way the game is supposed to play . . . unless you allow them to be lazy and jump in carts of course because apparently that is in our nature.

And so these old classics are scarred with cart paths that come into play when they shouldn't and the aesthetics of a lovely setting are compromised.

[Garland Bayley]

I have recently hooked up with a 19 year old, two handicapper, new member of my club to play. One of the first things we discussed is how with the economy as it is, we have had quite a turn over in membership with a lot of the new members walking. At which point he questioned, "I wonder why so many people ride carts?" Then he quickly answered himself with, "Just lazy I guess."

It amazes me that people will escape the artificial environment of an office or home to get out to a natural area such as a golf course, and then plop themselves down in an unnatural device to carry them around the natural environment and deprive them of the joy of walking on the grass, exercising stress away, and filling their lungs with fresh air.

[Kalen Braley]

I thought I would add a few more comments about walkability and so forth on Indian Canyon.

1)  Its important to note this course is indeed walkable..I've done so at least 4-5 times and I'm a big guy.  But that being said, its by no means an easy walk and everytime I've done it I've staggered into the finish walking up the old 17 and 18th (current 8 and 9).  So in total I've riden/walked about 50/50 in my 10 or so playings.

2)  The green to tee transistions are fantastic and most are less than 40 yards.  Only the new 9 to 10 transition is of any length as its the old 18th and 1st holes.

3)  The cart paths really stick out due to the simple fact of having no place to put them as its already a narrow course.  I'm really not sure what they could have done differently in this regard.

4)  You walk up and down the canyon for the most part instead of side to side which makes walking more difficult.  Its essentially 4 small loops or 4 times you walk to the bottom and back up again. 

   1st loop:
   1 thru 4 take you down to the bottom.
   5 thru 6 most of the way back up.
   
   2nd loop:
   7 takes you down again
   8 and 9 back to the very top by the clubhouse.

   3rd loop:
   10-11 back to the bottom
   12-15 tee back most of the way back out.

   4th loop:
   15th hole back down again.
   16-18 back to the top near 10 tee.
   

[Peter_Herreid]

I play quite often at West Seattle GC, another Egan designed municipal course from the same era as Indian Canyon.  Easily the most noticeable features of that layout are the use of a prevailing dominant slope on the back 9, and the incredible and often visually contradictory green contours, without distinct "tiers" on the greens...

I have wondered whether the green contours and prevailing slopes were totally Egan's doing, or a happy circumstance of design and maintenance practice over 70+ years...

Premier GC, which manages the Seattle munis, has been attempting to reclaim lost green sq footage around the perimeters of many of the greens, with only partial success.  While plenty of challenge at 72/6700 given our air and mushy ground so much of the year, I have long thought that a skillfully restored West Seattle could be no less than Harding Park in quality...

It is a ridiculously good value for early birds at $23 wkday and $35 wkend, and even less than that for frequent golfers..