Monday, February 12, 2007
To help you discover what you're really made of, Golf Digest Magazine has identified
50 of the toughest courses in the country in it's March 2007 issue. These are courses that grab you by the collar on the first tee, slap you around for five hours, then reluctantly agree to let you limp your sorry carcass back into the clubhouse for resuscitation.
Our own
La Purisima Golf Course in Lompoc, CA was rated number 33! La Purisima, locally known as "La Piranha", was described by Golf Digest as "The Bethpage Black of the West Coast". They shared that there are plenty of terrific Santa Ynez Valley wineries nearby to soothe the pain.
Tags:
San Luis Obispo Central Coast GolfLabels: Course Reviews, Golf Digest, La Purisima
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
For the second time in two years, Golf Digest has given
Cypress Ridge Golf Course a rating of 4.5 stars. That's the opinion the magazine received when it asked 20,000 golfers to rate 4,000 golf courses in North America and the Carribean based on its condition, pace of play, service, value and overall experience.
Cypress Ridge is a Peter Jacobsen signature course and was designed by the former PGA tour winner along with Jim Hardy. It also is an Audobon Signature Sanctuary.
The only course to get a higher rating in California was Pebble Beach, which could cost golfers upwards of $350 per round. The green fee for Cypress Ridge is $55 per round for a weekday game.
"We're making top caliber golf accessible for fans who love the game but don't want to pay exorbinant rates - to me that is an accomplishment," said head pro Rick Ventura.
Cypress Ridge has played host to mini tour stops, USGA qualifiers and Cal Poly intercollegeiate tournamenets.
An on-site hotel and new clubhouse slated to be built in the future will bring even more professional interest to the course.
The 2006-07 edition of Golf Digest's 'Best Places to Play' is available in bookstores or at
www.golfdigest.com.
Tags:
San Luis Obispo Central Coast GolfLabels: Course Reviews, Cypress Ridge, Golf Digest
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Bob Fagan at Golf Today Magazine selected Monarch Dunes among Southern California's Twenty Best Public Courses. The Central Coast's Sandpiper and La Purisima Golf Courses received an Honorable Mention. Monarch Dunes finds itself listed in pretty good company below.
Trying to list the best of many wonderful public offerings is a difficult task, enough so Bob Fagan didn't even dare attempt to list them in any order. If your favorite course is not listed, perhaps it is because Fagan hasn't played it. The interesting thing to note is that with the exception of the Ojai Valley Resort and Spa, all the courses listed are of modern vintage. What you can count on is that each is a very special golf course!
Aviara Golf Club (Four Seasons Resort) - One of the Arnold Palmer Group's most attractive designs: fun, scenic, and tough with perhaps golf's best waterscaping and a very demanding finishing hole.
Barona Creek Golf Club - inland from San Diego, this is one fun, playable, and interesting golf course, a personal favorite and ranked among the best modern courses in America.
Desert Willow Firecliff Course - Lots of big white bunkers punctuate this challenging municipally owned Hurdzan-Fry-design in the Coachella Valley.
Grand Del Mar (The) - This Tom Fazio-design resort course winds between canyon valleys and hilltops to afford some spectacular views and golf. The par-three 17th has to be one of the most difficult and dangerous holes anywhere!
La Costa Resort & Spa - Individually the two courses here don't quite make the list, but the composite or original course still is one beautiful classic Dick Wilson - Joe Lee design. The bonus is that there are now an additional 18 holes to play.
Lost Canyons Shadow Course - This Pete Dye/Fred Couples design is one of two spectacular 18's here that features wildly hilly terrain which translates into tough and scenic.
Maderas Golf Club - The product of the late Robert Graves, Maderas scores high on all factors, definitely an excellent test. It may be the Southern California region's most under-rated layout.
Monarch Dunes Golf Club - A really attractive new course in Nipoma with firm, fast, undulating greens, beautiful trees, wispy rough, and friendly folks. Design credit to Damian Pascuzzo.
Mountain Course at La Quinta - One of Pete Dye's early desert courses and still one of his best, it is set adjacent to the Santa Rosa Mountains. Recent renovations/improvements and gorgeous views keep the layout's position secure as one of the region's best courses, public or private.
Oak Quarry Golf Club - This old Riverside quarry was transformed into a spectacular golf creation by the team of Schmidt and Curley. The Quarry Hole is only one of many visually spectacular holes.
Oak Valley Golf Club - A beautiful, challenging, and engaging Beaumont property designed by the prolific duo of Brian Curley and Lee Schmidt.
Ojai Valley Inn & Spa - This is truly one of the best vintage golf experiences in the region, easily on a par with the best private club courses. You won't tire of playing this fun, beautiful layout that appear to be a Shangri La.
Pelican Hill Ocean South Course - The South Course is the top of the food chain in Orange County golf and edges out its neighbor North Course being slightly more scenic and interesting, though perhaps a bit easier.
PGA West Stadium Course - This La Quinta layout seemed to make Pete Dye famous or perhaps it may be the other way around because it can be so difficult. Either way, the layout has matured into a great course and an enjoyable experience provided, you check your ego at the first tee and play percentage golf.
Rancho San Marcos Golf Course - A good outgoing nine followed by a great incoming nine highlights this attractive rural Santa Barbara area course design by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. After playing it, it is hard to understand why it often goes unnoticed.
Rustic Canyon Golf Club - Lots of interesting golf course architecture awaits here with complex greensites requiring well-placed tee shots for good access. Situated in a valley setting, the course plays best when firm and fast, and is a good value to boot!
SCPGA Champions Course - Brian Curley and Lee Schmidt have designed many superb area layouts and this is definitely one of them. In fact, it's a toss-up whether the Champions or Legends Course here is the better. Both courses at this facility enjoy interesting topography.
Strawberry Farms Golf Club - The views and the challenges of the site dominated by environmentally sensitive areas in a valley setting are something to behold. This upscale course is a “hooker's nightmare” with many hazards to the left of play.
Torrey Pines South Course - What used to be an average course on a great site is now a good course on a great site. Besides, who would not want to play a US Open course?
Trump National Golf Club of Los Angeles - Once known as Ocean Trails lacking 18 holes, this very demanding course with terrific ocean views never really got its just due. Now renamed with Donald Trump's ownership and all 18 holes intact, publicity will scarcely ever be an issue again. This can be one tough track!
Honorable Mention: La Purisima, Lost Canyons Sky Course, Pelican Hill North, Redhawk, Sandpiper, SCPGA Legends, and Terra Lago North & South. I am also looking forward to soon playing Angeles National.
Source:
Golf Today MagazineTags:
San Luis Obispo Central Coast GolfLabels: Course Reviews, Monarch Dunes
Friday, January 05, 2007
With the opening of Monarch Dunes early this year, Sacramento-based architect Damian Pascuzzo gave the Central Coast his inspired treatment and instantly turned an oft-overlooked swatch of Golden State into a golf destination. Together with nearby Cypress Ridge - a Peter Jacobsen-Jim Hardy product that opened nearly five years ago - it cements this region between Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo as a worthy option to Monterey.
Monarch Dunes' look and feel is something completely new for the Central Coast, though somehow ancient. Pascuzzo's cagey, curvaceous lass works amazingly well in the modern housing project mold. He keeps homesites well away from or above playing areas, and the few completed houses never impinge on the course's ability to rouse sharp emotions with every teebox or greenside view. Still, Monarch Dunes' soul is rooted in the links and heathland courses of Scotland and Ireland.
"The site itself really dictated that it had to be links style," Pascuzzo says. "The soil is pure sand. If you look across Highway 1, you see all the dunes, then the ocean. We had to do that style of golf course; it would be a shame to do anything else."
PGA Tour player Steve Pate came on board with some further design ideas that, Pascuzzo says, added "a very welcome dimension. Steve's perspectives were very interesting; it was fun to talk about strategy. I could say, ‘Here's how I'm defending this hole, how would you attack it?' It turns out I wasn't defending some of them enough for the better player. To Steve's credit, being an elite player, he's pretty tuned in to the average guy, and being a 12-handicapper, I'm really tuned in to the average guy. I think we did a pretty good job keeping it interesting for good players but not overwhelming for mid- to high-handicappers."
They also excelled at nailing Alister MacKenzie's No. 1 criterion for great golf design: Variety. When standing on the No. 1 tee, you think it's going to be all water and modern-feeling vibe, but by No. 5 - a little "postage stamp" par 3 surrounded by fescue-bearded dunes that creates visions of No. 12 at Royal Liverpool - you find this ain't no basic residential track.
In fact, holes 6 through 8 comprise the finest three-hole stretch on the Central Coast. No. 6 is the best of those, 560 yards from the tips. The drive must clear tufts of devil's grass, then a big ridge that bisects several holes, then barrel to the bottom of a hill, just short of a lake, if there's any chance of getting back up to the severely elevated, mega-deep, double-tiered green in two. It's not just a good hole, it's a great one; draped in tall eucalyptus with comely curves, it harkens to Bandon Trails and elicits a giddy feeling when you first see it.
"The one thing golfers have to realize is that there's a little bit of mystery in Monarch Dunes," Pascuzzo says. "You play it a second time and you'll be a lot more comfortable; a third time, you'll feel like you've known it a long time."
As for Cypress Ridge, it's no pushover. At 6,803 near-sea-level yards from the tips, it's a stout test. Elevation changes make club selection difficult for first-timers, but most folks get the hang of it by the turn. Jacobsen and Hardy are also careful to reward accurate tee shots (the former has long been one of the PGA Tour's best drivers), and while the aforementioned recovery is possible from the grass or trees, there's seldom a clear entry to the green.
While many of Cypress Ridge's 4-pars - such as the uphill, dogleg-right No. 8 - have sharp teeth and challenging length, the design allows ample opportunity to take advantage of shorter holes. Nos. 5 and 7 - at 330 and 300 yards, both drivable for big bombers - can yield early birdies, if not eagles, for the aggressive player.
While Monarch Dunes and Cypress Ridge would be great golf courses anywhere in the United States, playing them in the year-round pleasant Central Coast weather only sweetens the experience.
Article:
The West's Best: "Z" is for PascuzzoTags:
San Luis Obispo Central Coast GolfLabels: Course Reviews, Cypress Ridge, Monarch Dunes
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Three national golf publications have named Nipomo's new Monarch Dunes as one of the best golf courses in the western United States.
Golf Magazine has named the 18-hole course one of the 10 '
Best New Golf Courses in the Country.'
Fairways & Greens Magazine named it the 'Best New Course in California' along with listing it among the '
Top 36 Non-Resort Courses' in the West.
And Golf Inc. magazine called it the 'Best Development of the Year of a Public Golf Course.'
The year-old course - the first 18-hole course at The Woodlands development - was the only one in the state to make Golf Magazine's list, which covers all new public courses in the United States.
'This really reaffirms what our players have been telling us all year - that this is the best course they've ever played,' said Krystal Bough, sales and marketing director of Monarch Dunes. 'We are thrilled about these endorsements.'
The 6,817-yard championship course was designed by Cal Poly graduate Damian Pascuzzo.
Future golf plans include an executive course and another 18-hole championship course that will run near a bluff overlooking the Nipomo Mesa. Both will be open to the public. Monarch Dunes is operated by KemperSports Management, which also operates Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes in Oregon, and Desert Willow Golf Resort and Black Gold Golf Course in Orange County.
Tags:
San Luis Obispo Central Coast GolfLabels: Course Reviews, Monarch Dunes