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Top 10 You Can Play
The new beauts and brutes that outclassed all others in 2003 There is a reason so many of America's finest courses are described as heavenly -- only a privileged few ever get past the gates. But not every worthy course has a velvet rope at the bag drop. Last year, 270 new tracks opened nationwide, and the vast majority welcome anyone who can pony up the greens fee.Since 1990, GOLF MAGAZINE has separated the populist contenders from the pretenders. This month we present our latest Top 10 You Can Play. From coast to coast and from tee to shining tee, these are the finest public-access courses that opened their gates in 2003.
RED SKY GOLF CLUB (Norman Course) It's a case of deja vu at red sky golf club, which made last year's Top 10 on the strength of its Tom Fazio Course. Now Greg Norman has built his own terrific challenge here, 25 minutes west of Vail, Colorado.
The Shark has crafted a fair but demanding test for those who choose their tees sensibly. But if you put valor before discretion and play from the tips, you'll face a punishing 7,580 yards. The front nine is bookended by demanding, uphill par 4s. The 452-yard opening hole is dwarfed by the 9th, a predatory par 4 that measures 559 yards. The 565-yard 4th -- at least it's a par 5 -- requires a 260-yard carry off the tee to reach an angled fairway set high above the valley. On the back nine, the 16th hole is a driveable 283 yards. Sound like a breather? Hardly -- it's a par 3. At 6,989 yards, the second set of tees offers plenty of course for most golfers. The Shark's track is open to guests at more than a dozen Vail Resorts properties; resort guests and Red Sky members use the Fazio and Norman Courses on alternate days. 7,580 yards, par 72 • Greens fees $175-$200 • 866-8-RED-SKY or 970-477-8400 • redskygolfclub.com
BLACK MESA GOLF CLUB A sign at black mesa golf club sums up this 7,307-yard course on the Santa Clara Pueblo, 20 miles north of Santa Fe: big course, big medicine -- it will kick your butt.
Completed last April, Baxter Spann's design skirts desert brush and is framed by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the plateau called Black Mesa. Players must shape shots suited to the land's contours. At the 216-yard 15th, a small hill fronting the green kicks clever approaches to front hole locations otherwise impossible to find. The 16th hole, 536 yards uphill, bears the taunting name "Stairway to Seven." But the real struggle here is on the greens. By the time you find an old ranch windmill creaking in the breeze behind the 18th green, you may suspect the course is having a laugh at your expense. Some visitors complain about the blind shots at Black Mesa, but that's part of the experience. Just ask anyone who has played Ireland's Royal County Down. If this track were in Ireland, those same quirks would be considered charms. 7,307 yards, par 72 • Greens fees $37-$50 • 505-747-8946 • blackmesagolf.com
CARTER PLANTATION David Toms, the 2001 PGA Champion, shared design duties with Glenn Hickey at Carter Plantation, a 700-acre development that opened last October along the Blood River.
Toms, a Louisiana native, and Hickey worked without an architect or blueprints, relying on instinct. "We just started routing and clearing corridors," Toms says. They moved more than 600,000 cubic yards of earth to create striking elevation changes rarely seen in these parts. The 15th, a 588-yard par 5 flanked on the left by gaping fairway bunkers, calls for both an aggressive driving line and a demanding carry. Gnarly rough that Toms calls "mustaches" rings all 86 bunkers at Carter Plantation. These furry collars dominate the 13th hole, a ragin' Cajun par 5 of 608 yards. The course snakes through dense stands of pine, live oak, cypress and Tupelo gum trees to create one of the best venues in the state. "When you play here," says Toms, "you won't think, 'I've seen this hole before.' "
7,049 yards, par 72 • Greens fees $75-$85 • 225-294-7555 • carterplantation.com
THE BULL AT PINEHURST FARMS In 1970, Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye built a course at the old Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. More than 30 years later Nicklaus returned to help cement Sheboygan County's rep as the best golf destination you've never heard of.
The Bull at Pinehurst Farms is an hour's drive north of Milwaukee, near the village of Kohler, where the golf world will assemble in August for the PGA Championship at Dye's Whistling Straits. The Bachmann family raised champion Holsteins at Pinehurst Farms until a 1993 barn blaze ended the dairy-farming era, leaving Nicklaus to carve a layout from 418 acres of oaks, maples, meadows, wetlands and ponds. The 432-yard 5th hole is a standout: A claustrophobic drive through a chute of trees leads to a fairway that doglegs left around a deep ravine. The Bear tempts you to be unwisely bullish at the 351-yard 11th, where a pond divides two fairways. Long hitters can have a go at the green, while the less daring can opt for the left fairway and still have a short iron in. While The Bull is no Whistling Straits, it bears comparison with the Blackwolf Run courses at Kohler's American Club. 7,332 yards, par 72 • Greens fee $145 • 800-5-THE-BULL or 920-467-1500 • golfthebull.com
CIRCLING RAVEN GOLF CLUB The first settlers to meet the Schitsu'umsh Indians of northern Idaho were early 19th-century French fur traders who, impressed by the tribe's acumen, dubbed them "Coeur d'Alene," or "heart of the awl." The tribe is still enterprising, having turned a small bingo operation into a resort destination.
Circling Raven Golf Club, a Gene Bates design opened last August, occupies wilderness so grand that one prospective architect thought the land should be a state park. Like Lewis and Clark, who passed 100 miles south of here, golfers have the place to themselves, save for the occasional elk or moose. Circling Raven's par 3s average almost 220 yards. The 13th is 253 yards across a gully, with wetlands right and pines lurking in back. The 386-yard 8th is short but doesn't lack a "wow" factor, playing downhill to a green framed by birches, poplars and pines. The Coeur d'Alene resort and its floating green are a half-hour -- and $100 -- north of Circling Raven. 7,189 yards, par 72 • Greens fees $65-$75 • 800-523-2464 • www.cdacasino.com
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