There’s just something about playing golf in the mountains. If you’re someone who likes to mimic a sure-footed goat and play at the higher elevations, you know what I am talking about.
With that in mind, the Vail Valley of Colorado is on the top of the short list of places in the world where golf can be played in astounding natural beauty on some of the planet’s best courses. Mountain-golf nirvana is just a 100-mile dash west of Denver, an easy two-hour drive through scenic peaks, passes and tunnels.
Golfing at altitude means you’re always one well-struck drive away from the longest drive you’ll ever hit. In the mountains, elevated greens and rolling fairways work to your advantage, although even low handicappers will find themselves clubbing up from hole to hole as the rugged terrain dictates.
There are about 20 golf courses in a 35-mile radius of Vail. During a recent trip to the region when it was a little warmer, we sampled three of the area’s finest semi private tracks: the Fazio and Norman courses at Red Sky Golf Club and the venerable Beaver Creek Golf Club.
Though both of these properties are considered alpine tracks, they have completely different personalities. The two courses at Red Sky are situated among the peaks in the town of Wolcott at an elevation of 7,650 feet. Beaver Creek rests at 8,100 feet of elevation smack dab in the middle of a famous resort town that shares its name with the surrounding mountains looming over and around the course.
At Red Sky, you feel as if you are on top of the world, while at Beaver Creek you get the sense that the mountains form a huge natural amphitheater about the course.
Red Sky Golf Club
A sheep ranch becomes a world-class golf club
Emerging from sage and aspen groves and weaving across 800 acres of historic Colorado ranchlands, Red Sky Golf Club offers golfers majestic panoramas and exceptional golf in one extraordinary alpine playground that boasts two award-winning golf courses and unsurpassed amenities.
A former sheep ranch, Red Sky’s design has been certified as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary program member. The two courses are separated by a massive ridge, which serves as a migration corridor for deer and elk.
Great care has been taken to preserve the landscape, including transplanting or re-vegetation of more than 25,000 native plants during the construction of the Fazio Course alone.
Approximately 80 acres of sod were applied to each course, reducing the amount of fertilizer necessary for seed grow-in while protecting the nearby Eagle River from silt erosion, which is common when hydroseeding.
Red Sky has been winning awards with its two layouts by Fazio (which opened in 2002) and Greg Norman (a year later). The private courses can be challenged by golf tourists staying at Vail Resorts and other select hotels in the region.
The Fazio Course, which is a par-72 and extends 7,113 yards from its back set of five tees, is considered generous from tee box to green, but its massive, undulating greens will test your prowess with the flat stick.
The layout – which literally seems to hover above the landscape below – presents a beautiful panorama of Vail’s back bowls, with scenes of aspens and junipers, twisted mini-groves of scrub oak, uphill and downhill holes, red-rock outcroppings, wildflower meadows, and a highland lake, which enters play.
The Norman Course rolls out at a brawny 7,580 yards from the tips and is a par-72, but its signature characteristic is the tightly mown Bentgrass greens surrounds. These taunting contours can frustrate you, but at least once during a round that you will hit an “awful” shot that will roll up right next to the pin.
Boasting boulder-strewn water features and scrub-oak-filled deep arroyos, the Norman Course takes full advantage of the natural terrain and plays through craggy outcroppings, rugged gulches, and wildflower-festooned meadows.
The Norman Course is everything a mountain course should be, with drop-dead vistas and plenty of elevation changes and strategy. It is also none of the things a mountain course should not be – with no crazy off-kilter fairways that kick good shots into trouble or extreme rises and drops. Fair is the word at the Norman Course but be cognizant of the length from the back tees, which will beat you up even in the thin air.
Overall, the Norman Course presents more of a challenge than the Fazio track from tee to green due to longer length, and it’s more penalizing if you miss the fairway.
The Fazio front-nine has a desert feel, while the back is a true alpine experience with aspen-lined fairways. The Norman 18 has more length than the Fazio, and greens complexes are simpler. Putting is easier since the greens aren’t severely sloped.
Fairways on both courses are lined with more native trees and grasses than luxury homes. The entire 800-acre property has only 87 housing lots, a fact not lost on golfers who relish the feeling of a secluded, mountainside golf experience.
Resort guests also have access to the Red Sky Golf Academy throughout the golf season, from May to September. It’s directed and feature former PGA Tour pro Larry Rinker. Clinics and retreats, as well as individual hour-long sessions, are available. Academy programs feature classroom and practice area instruction, including a 350-yard-deep, double-ended practice facility and a short-game area with three specialized greens.
The only distractions at Red Sky Golf Club are the Vail Valley’s dramatic, panoramic vistas. Each of the courses have been constants on “best of lists” of resort tracks and are a blast to play. If alpine sunshine and green grass make you think of golf, then Red Sky Golf Club is a must on your next trip to this area.
Red Sky
Let’s go bowling at Beaver Creek
Surrounded by the peaks and grassed runs of one of the most famous ski resorts in the world, Beaver Creek Golf Club makes you feel like you are in a bowl and on display as the boundaries of the course and the community rest in the lower spaces.
Beaver Creek Golf Club, nestled against the slopes of Beaver Creek Mountain, is one of the longest established golf courses in the Vail Valley. Opened in 1982, the track was designed by noted course architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr., and is known for its long, narrow, challenging fairways, and stunning scenery.
The 6,642-yard track is a par-70 (its layout is 36-34 with three par-3s and just one par-5 on the back side). It, too, is a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. Beaver Creek has enjoyed notice among Golf Digest‘s “Top 75 Golf Resorts in North America.”
The course was one of former President Gerald Ford’s favorites, and during one of President Ford’s most noteworthy rounds, he played with both President Bill Clinton and all-time World Golf Hall of Famer Jack Nicklaus. It was during this game that Clinton got the reputation for being a bit too lenient with his mulligans.
Beaver Creek is a true links layout as holes eight and nine are at the far end of the course across the street from the other 16. The first four holes of the layout are unreal, all plunging downhill like stair steps and the adjoining ski runs that wiggle just off the No. 1 tee.
Aspen groves and babbling brooks are found in the upper reaches of the property. Holes 5-13 open up some to give you a breather, but the ride home is a rocky one. The finisher is one of the toughest on the course, with your approach on the 457-yard par 4 over a stream to a putting surface with steep edges on the front and back.
The track has 500 feet in elevation change, and Beaver Creek itself flows throughout, affecting shots on several holes. There are great views from every hole.
Beaver Creek Golf Club is open to the public from May 13-June 14 and Sept. 16-Oct. 9. The course is exclusively available to Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch, and Arrowhead Resort lodging guests and Beaver Creek Club members June 15-Sept. 15.
Beaver Creek