I decided to bump this thread for the benefit of the guys travelling to British Columbia in less than two weeks for Bob Jenkins' GCA outing at Sagebrush, figuring a number of guys will likely make the hour long drive north to Kamloops to play Tobiano at some point during their stay.
I just returned from five days of golf in the Okanagan, including three full days at Sagebrush, one round at the new Ridge Course at Predator Ridge and one full day and 36 holes at Tobiano.
I travelled with three friends who were anxious to see Tobiano and to be honest, my first impression made last year that the course was just too tough and not a lot of fun held true for our second round. We're all decent sticks but holes like #7 and #8 are almost too much from the back tees, with huge forced carries, blind shots into 20 yard landing areas that slope toward a cliff and many other extreme challenges.
Our second round that day was played from the 'Spur' tees, essentially the middle tees measuring about 6700 yards or so - the course was much more playable and fun from those tees and I'd strongly recommend that all players, regardless of handicap, start from tees no longer than those ones for their first round to maintain your sanity.
I'm at least happy to report that pace of play was much better this year than last, although most of that is due to a slow day at the course - we started our first round under dark, ominous skies which opened up by the time we reached the par five 10th. We tried to wait it out on the fairway for 20 minutes but the rain kept coming down so we took a lunch break and returned to a pretty empty course an hour later. The sun would come out late in our first round and provided some stunning photos, some of which I've included below.
No photoshopping done to these at all - what you see is what you get when you're out there. It's visually stunning but a course you'll likely be satisfied to play one time and never return due to the difficulty.
1st Tee
Landing Area on 1st Hole
Uphill Third Shot on 1st Hole
View from Right of 1st Green, with Lake Kamloops and mountains in Background
2nd Tee, a driveable par four
Approach shot on 2nd
5th Tee, a glorious hole
Approach Shot on the 5th
6th Tee
Uphill Approach on 6th to plateau green
View of the 7th Green in Foreground and 8th Fairway in Background
7th Tee, a 193 yard par 3, with a full carry over a 100+ foot cliff to a green only 29 yards deep
14th Tee, a fun hole and maybe the best photo in my collection now!
Approach to the great 14th Hole
15th Tee, a great postcard par 3
16th Tee looking toward Lake Kamloops
18th Tee, with 16th Fairway in Background