Kennedy Golf Course
Lucky to Have the Creek Nine
by Lynn Zmistowski, Handicap 4, from Denver
Reader Review
June 1, 1999
I have played golf for 40 years and I think the Kennedy Golf facility in south Denver is the worse one I have ever played at. You get to the golf course from Hampton. There are two buildings, one is the Kennedy clubhouse, the other used to be the Kennedy clubhouse but apparently is now a beer joint type restaurant. The new clubhouse facility is the worse thing imaginable. The rest rooms are located inconveniently, the eating area is located inconveniently and decorated worse than the Elks Lodge. A lot of the square footage of the clubhouse is golf stuff for sale but it is so poorly displayed and so poorly lighted I wouldn't even bother to try to find anything. The service at Kennedy is nil, but that is actually exactly like all the other Denver city courses. The condition of the golf course was terrible, but this is May so I didn't really expect it to be much better yet. The greens are slow (stimp about 7'), the rough is long and out of control (needs mowing), and the fairways are full of divots. I guess it has never occurred to a city employee that they too could send the greens crew out with sand and seed and fill in some of the divots left by a mild winter and a lot of winter play. Kennedy Golf Course has to be the worse and most boring design possible on the land it is on. The person who is responsible for this design will not be inducted into any Hall of Fames. Thank goodness for Hall of Famer, Dick Phelps, for designing the "new nine" at Kennedy GC called The Creek Nine. This nine opened a few years ago and at least has some character and interesting shots. The original 18, now called the East and West nines have absolutely no character and/or interesting shots. The original 18 is 6456 yards for women. This translates to woods, woods, woods, and chips. The Creek 9 has many interesting shots and is short enough that even women can use some of those clubs between her woods and her wedge (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 irons). For the scratch men, the original course is 7035 yards but you can blast it just about anywhere so the long hitters basically would not be challenged much. But on the Creek 9, the men from the back tees would have to at least be able to hit an occasion straight shot. But in spite of my opinion about Kennedy GC, it is a busy place. To get a starting time you have to fight 10,000 people on 40 lines 5 days in advance at 7:00 pm. But the golfers are hearty souls, and they apparently do it because if you don't have a starting time at Kennedy, your chances of getting on are slim. You can come to the course with the "as you are" look. Like if you were weeding your yard in cut-off sweats and a t-shirt, you would be appropriately attired for Kennedy. If you have read this review, I don't think you need to guess how many points this place gets on my scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being best).
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