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The Raven at Three
Peaks |
New Golf Course
Construction in Colorado
By David R. Holland,
Senior Staff Writer
Silverthorne’s The Raven at Three Peaks, Grand Junction’s
Redlands Mesa Golf Club, South Fork’s Rio Grande Golf Club,
Dotsero’s Cordillera Colorado River Ranch, Cordillera’s
Summit Course, Walcott’s Red Sky Ranch and Eagle’s Eagle
Ranch -- just a list of new courses you can play in Colorado in
the future.
The golf course boom is thriving. Here’s a capsule look at some of Colorado’s new courses. The Raven at Three Peaks Colorado’s Dick Phelps designed Silverthorne’s Eagles Nest Golf Club in 1985, but two years ago Intrawest, Copper Mountain’s parent company, purchased the property and hired PGA Tour player Tom Lehman as a consultant, and the design team of Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry to redesign the layout, the same duo hired for the recently-opened Keystone River Course. Intrawest hoped to open this August, but the sod was still being rolled in July, and a new opening date of September has tentatively been set. Grand Opening will be scheduled in June 2001. “It’s a very traditional layout,” said Randy Kish, Director of Golf Sales and Marketing. “I think golfers will really like the Alister MacKenzie-styled bunkering, with his traditional fingering and grass flowing into the lobs of the bunkers. The greens are going to be very fast and we will be dedicated to having this course tournament-ready every day.”
The Raven at Three Peaks, playing at an elevation of 8,500 to 9,000
feet, will have four to five sets of tees and will play 7,414 from
the rear tees at par 72. Green fees will start in the $140 range.
“We are going to work very hard to get this course nationally-ranked and recognized as one of the best,” Kish said. The views will be spectacular including The Three Peaks, Buffalo Mountain, William’s Fork Range and Ptarmigan Wilderness, Highline Creek, Blue River and the Gore Range. The Raven at Three Peaks is located at 26475 Highway 9, just north of Silverthorne’s Factory Outlet stores. It’s a golf community offering a limited number of golf memberships to Three Peaks homeowners. Sports memberships, which will include swimming, hot tubs, sauna, patio-picnic area and children’s play area, are also available. Folks living here will have unparalleled summer outdoor possibilities and will be minutes from Summit County’s world-class skiing in the winter. It will also include use of the Three Peaks Club at Copper Mountain, steps away from the ski lifts, with use of a private club, ski lockers, boot storage area and après ski lounge. Telephone 800-267-1650. Internet address: www.3pks.com. Redlands Mesa Golf Club Castle Rock’s award-winning designer Jim Engh has high hopes for Redlands Mesa Golf Club, located near Grand Junction, close to the Colorado National Monument. The course is scheduled to open in summer 2001. “When I first viewed this location I had that same excitement that I did at Sanctuary,” said Engh, listed as one of “The 25 Hottest Architects of the Year” in the October 15, 1999 issue of Golf World Magazine. His Sanctuary design in Sedalia was honored by Golf Digest in 1997 as The Best New Private Golf Course in the nation. “I considered Sanctuary a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but Redlands Mesa is my second chance at the same kind of opportunity,” said Engh. ‘It’s a great site with boulders the size of houses.”  The Colorado National Monument includes semi-arid terrain with piñon pines and Utah junipers, ravens and jays, desert bighorns and coyotes. Not far from the Redlands Mesa Golf Club site you can find spectacular views from highland trails and Rim Rock Drive. Here you will see sheer-walled canyons and interesting rock sculptures in the Monument down to the Colorado River valley, and then north to the gray-purple Bookcliffs and east to a huge flat-topped mountain called the Grand Mesa.
Engh, the Dickinson, North Dakota native, recently opened Hawktree Golf Club in Bismarck, N.D. and escorted members of the Colorado news media there in June. His dream is that Hawktree will be recognized as one of the best golf courses in the upper midwest. “I’m very proud of the way Hawktree plays,” said Engh. “It’s an exciting layout that will make you think. Every time I play it I have to fight being brain tired after 13 holes and I have to focus and get myself started again to finish the final holes playing well.” North Dakota golf? Most folks are going to think it is flat and uninteresting, but it is located on rolling plains with lots of elevation changes and Burnt Creek flowing throughout. The defining characteristic of the course is the black coal slag in the bunkers. This recycled ingredient is fine-grained and plays much like regular sand, although good players will be challenged at getting a lot of spin from the bunkers. Check it out at http://www.hawktree.com and http://www.enghgolf.com. Copper Creek Golf Club at Copper Mountain recently re-opened its full 18 holes after Engh redesigned the first tee box and the ninth hole. Copper Mountain installed a new Super Bee lift, making the redesign necessary. Engh is also involved in projects at The Club at Black Rock in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho -- another spectacular location with a huge Black Rock sheer cliff overlooking the site. He’s also working on projects in Michigan, Northern California and Nebraska. His Red Hawk Ridge layout in Castle Rock was also honored by Golf Digest as One of The 10 Best New Affordable Golf Courses in America for 1999. It is also listed as No. 27 in a Top 40 list of public courses as rated by the Golfweek Magazine. Rio Grande Golf Club Redstone Golf of Denver was hired for the Rio Grande Golf Club of South Fork, a beautiful spot in southwestern Colorado, just down U.S. Highway 160 west of Alamosa, Monte Vista and Del Norte. Scheduled opening is July 2001. “Folks around South Fork call this God’s Country,” said Al Cunningham of Redstone. “It’s a neat site with three distinct splits -- six holes are played down in the Rio Grande River floodplain among cottonwood trees, six are in the uplands in rocky country with beautiful vistas and downhill tee shots, and six are played around Alder Creek, a tributary of the Rio Grande.”
Ric Buckton is lead designer on the project originally named Wolf Creek Golf Club. It's a par-72, 7,150-yard 18-hole private golf course, and is part of a golf community called South Fork Ranches. Golf here will be played at an elevation of 8,000-plus feet and opens with an elevated tee with a drop of 70 feet to a wide fairway that is flanked long the entire length of the hole by a red-rock cliff. Redstone calls No. 18 an exclamation mark to a scenic round, with the tee hovering 120 feet above its landing area and photo op views of the surrounding mountains. “We think the golf course is forgiving for the average player while presenting a series of challenges designed to test the skills of the low-handicap player,” Cunningham said. “There will be some forced carries, but alternate options for the more cautious players.” Redstone Golf designed The Divide at King’s Deer, which opened last summer in Monument. On the schedule for this fall is the start of construction on another golf course in Erie, CO. The Vail Valley Golfers making the drive along the I-70 corridor in the Vail Valley today might need a chiropractor -- golf courses are dotted left and right of the freeway. You can get a sore neck just looking at them all. The new construction includes Cordillera’s Summit Course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, with opening scheduled for next summer. Cordillera’s Colorado River Ranch, 12 miles north of Dotsero, near the Flat Top Wilderness, is also on the drawing board with opening possible for 2002. Nicklaus will also put his signature on Colorado River Ranch, which will incorporate the Colorado River and a fishing club, too. The Vail Resorts, Inc., are planning a real estate development named Red Sky Ranch just 25 miles south of Vail in Walcott. This will include an 18-hole, par-72 layout designed by Tom Fazio exclusively for Vail Resorts guests. A spring 2002 opening is possible and the future includes a Greg Norman-designed course adjacent to Fazio’s layout. In Eagle, the Eagle Ranch has commissioned Arnold Palmer to design an 18-hole course as part of a real estate development. The front nine will play through meadows along Brush Creek and the back nine is located in uplands. Summer 2001 is the tentative opening date. On another note, golfers in Trinidad have been playing the best nine-hole golf course in the state since 1915. They have tried and tried to get the city to add another nine with no luck so far.
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The Raven at Three Peaks |
In June, Pete Schrepfer went before the Trinidad City Council to present his plan for a master-planned community southeast of town near Highway 160, which will include an 18-hole golf course with a gray-water irrigation system. Stay tuned. Golf is getting better and better in Colorado. National Golf Foundation’s List of Colorado Courses Planned or Under Construction: County, Facility, Name, Type, Category, Class, Holes Arapahoe: Homestead At Murphy Creek GC, Daily Fee, Just Golf, New Facility, 18. Opens this summer. Boulder: Red Ridge, Daily Fee, Just Golf, New Facility, 27. Delta: Delta Municipal Golf Course, Municipal, Just Golf, New Facility, 18. Denver: Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, Municipal, Real Estate Development, New Facility, 18. Eagle: Eagle Ranch, Daily Fee, Just Golf, New Facility, 18. Fremont: Bear Paw Golf Course, Daily Fee, Just Golf, Additional 9. Grand: Silver Creek Golf Course, Daily Fee, Resort & Real Estate Development, New Facility, 18. Jefferson: Heritage Hunt, Private, Real Estate Development, New Facility, 18. Mesa: Redlands Mesa Golf Club, Daily Fee, Real Estate Development, New Facility, 18. Montrose: Links at Cobble Creek, Daily Fee, Real Estate Development, Additional 9. Rio Grande: Rio Grande Golf Course, Private, Real Estate Development, New Facility, 18. Routt: Catamount Ranch & Golf Club, Private, Real Estate Development, New Facility, 18. Opens this summer. Weld: Coral Ridge Golf Club, Daily Fee, Real Estate Development, New Facility, 18.
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