Spring Valley Golf Course Worth the Drive

By Lynn Zmistowski
Rockiesgolf.com Course Reviewer

July 12, 1999

ELIZABETH, Colo. - Spring Valley Golf Course is located about 45 minutes south of 225 and Parker Road. Drive south on Parker through Parker to Hilltop Road and turn left. Drive for 5 miles then turn left at Singing Hills. Drive 4 miles to a four-way stop.

Continue for 1 more mile, turn left and drive for about 2 miles down an unpaved gravel road. The cost for non-resident is $25 on the weekends (cart not-included or required).

Spring Valley GC is out in the country - still no houses built along the fairways (but I am sure there will be). For now, the country feeling of the golf course is relaxing and invigorating. The clubhouse experience is not very good, the landscaping around the clubhouse is nil, the service is negligible. But the golf course isn’t too bad.

The front nine at Spring Valley is the weaker of the two nines. The entire course is near a creek bed with cottonwood trees and the course architect worked in the wetland-like area into as many holes as possible. The first couple holes don’t have anything special, but then the 4th hole has a pretty good carry and borders this wetland area. The back nine is kind of a gem because the holes have the creek bed and cottonwood trees on both sides of the holes, and is definitely challenging and fun to play.

I like to walk and play golf and the course is relatively flat so one would think this would be a good walker’s course. But on the back nine the course architect sort of went over the limit as far as the distance between greens and next tee on a couple of the holes.

The course architect didn’t provide the best yardage selections. They are 5156, 6191, 6459, and 6910. The men should have no problem finding a suitable course, but the 5156 is too short for the better women’s club player (under 25 handicap) and 6191 is too long.

Of course the women can create their own yardage by playing some of the forward tees and some of the white tees (and then figure the course rating and slope for the unrated tees by referring to pages 50 through 53 in your CWGA Directory).

The greens at Spring Valley are pretty good. The course has only been open for a couple years, but the greens are excellent. They keep them stimped at about 8 feet (so they are considered slow). but they have nice contours and are interesting to putt.

A lot of corners were cut, bunker drainage isn’t there (and they have not spent anytime maintaining the bunkers that are sort of out of play). But the bunkers that are in play have nice sand. The bridges will do...in other words, you can get from one side of the creek to the other, but nothing fancy or aesthetic.

I think that starting times are pretty easy to get (call 303/646-4240) so when you find that all the courses in the Denver area are booked solid, call Spring Valley and you can probably get on the course for a fun round of golf. Scale of 1 to 10 (10 is best), I would give Spring Valley experience a 4.5. Have fun, we did!!