Beaver Creek Golf Club
Avon, CO
970-754-5775
http://beavercreek.snow.com
Design: 4.5 stars
Difficulty: 4 stars
Maintenance: 4 stars
Value: 1 star
On the trail of another Robert Trent Jones, Jr. design, the day before attending his event at Brightwater, I headed to the upper-crusty resort digs of Beaver Creek. My father, with enviable foresight, bought a four-bedroom condo up in those hills back in the mid-80s when the future of Beaver Creek Resort was still uncertain. Suffice to say, it is now a low-key Aspen, a place that possesses all of the money and snob-appeal of the latter place but is smaller and more family-friendly. Still, it’s the kind of place that you can be thrown in jail for approaching other visitors and offering your opinion on their, uh, decision-making abilities.
Anyway, the condo bears no relevance to the story beyond the fact that, during high season, one cannot simply show up at the course and get a tee time. An occupancy at the resort is required, though I have to say they didn’t seem particularly hung up on it when I made my tee time, so maybe it’s possible to b.s. your way through that. Requirements aside, with green fees close to the $200 mark, the Beaver Creek Golf Club is still pretty prohibitive.
However, emptying your pockets does buy some amenity, and the practice facilities at the course are top notch. So is the clubhouse, and the zippy electric carts. The club guys were friendly, and didn’t give me that icky impressions that you sometimes get at pricey clubs, that they’re judging your wealth, or ability, or whatever. But, I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s Colorado. Folks are chiiiilllllll.
I was able to get off as a single, though I was technically grouped with a twosome, who conveniently never showed. I made my way to the back tees, since the course sits at nearly 8500′ and the yardage from the tips is only 6784 yards. The starter looked skeptical.
“What?” I wanted to know. “The course isn’t that long.”
“No,” he conceded. “It’s just that, on some of the holes, the tees, well…you’ll see.”
I wasn’t going to let some vague suggestion of difficulty sway me now. So I teed it up and pulled a 3 wood.
The first hole is probably the best hole on the course, and just an awesome starting hole. It’s a mid-length par-5 that plays downhill, but the fairway is split with upper and lower terraces. A modest drive can bring you to the edge of the upper fairway leaving you a shot through a space in the trees to the lower fairway a few stories below. A precisely placed drive could leave a reachable shot at the green, but if you’re off a bit you’ll either have to plop a mid-iron down to the fairway or be able to work the ball on a PGA Tour level. The green is large for those who give it a go.
The first five holes are a beautiful sequence, playing downhill, along Beaver Creek, and away from the road. It’s just you and a handfull of multi-million dollar mega-homes. To play 8 and 9 you cross under the road for a pair of back-and-forth par 4s. The entire front nine plays downhill, falling about 400′, which I didn’t really consider until I was facing the long par-3 10th and it did suddenly seem like it was going to be a long trudge back up to the clubhouse.
I had gotten an impression of what the starter was referring to with the back tees on #7, where the tips were a 65 yard hike behind the white tees, where the cartpath ends. However, it wasn’t until the closing holes that the back tee syndrome set in. From #13 through #18, a long walk is required to find the back tees, and then the drive is down a treed hallway just to reach the mid and forward tees. It’s a strange feeling, and one not often encountered. However, it was fun, another wrinkle, and it definitely made me feel like BMF.
The eighteenth is the other real stunner here. It’s a lengthy par-4 (especially from the lonely back tees) and it plays uphill. A single fairway bunker on the right squeezes your drive, and finding the sand here destroys your approach. Your second shot, if it’s sitting pretty in the fairway, is a lovely proposition. The kidney shaped green sits below the wood and river rock clubhouse, on the other side of the creek with tall pines lending a pinched feeling to the shot even if they’re not really in play.
The course is splendidly maintained and serviced, with a great mountain design that does indeed play longer on the back nine than you could ever have expected. It just may be worth the price of admission. Look for the short shoulder season rates at about half price.
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