Red Sky Ranch - Fazio Course - Wolcott, CO
The lovely par-4 1st at the Fazio Course at Red Sky Ranch
Design: 4 stars
Difficulty: 4.5 stars
Maintenance: 4.5 stars
Value: N/A
“Any time you design a course, you want to frame the hole. If you have a picture, and the frame doesn’t work, then you get a new frame.” -Tom Fazio
If this can be considered Tom Fazio’s mission statement, then his work at Red Sky Ranch can be considered “Mission Accomplished.” With a sagebrushed hillside that gives way to high-mountain aspen groves as his canvas, Fazio has painted 18 exquisite golf portraits. I’ve rarely played a course that is so satisfying to look at.
However, golf courses are made to played, not just admired aesthetically, and the course plays pretty well, too. The most demanding shots are from the tee, where the ability to work the ball really comes in handy. Fazio also employs a good bit of visual obfuscation, which, when combined with the altitude and the up-and-down nature of the course’s setting on the side of a mountain, adds up to a lot of uncertainty off the tee. Beyond that, though, Fazio doesn’t provide a whole lot of choices. Risk/reward propositions are generally absent from the design.
#3 at Red Sky
As a counterpoint to the difficult tee shots, most approach shots are straight forward. That is not to say that they are easy, but most of the drama on the course is front loaded, and players will experience fewer sweaty-palm moments while standing in the fairway.
The par-4 1st is a flat out beauty. It’s all downhill, but the fairway slopes left to right, pulling tee shots toward a row of fairway bunkers along the right side. The green seems to hang on the edge of the world, perched high above the Vail Valley.
#3 is a short par-4 that plays over a little lake with clusters of bunkers left, right and everywhere. Next time I will leave the driver in the bag and hit a little 5-iron/9-iron combination, removing the beach and the soup from the equation.
A perfect par-3
The back nine climbs into the aspens, then falls dramatically back to the clubhouse over the course of the 17th and 18th holes. #17 is a welcome sight, as it’s the first of the par-3s on the course that isn’t in the 200+ yard range (#9 is only 196, but it plays uphill and demands a long iron or hybrid). The 17th, on the other hand, is a picture-perfect, plunging one-shotter with a water on the left and a kidney-shaped green sandwiched between bunkers front and back. The fun 18th is 571-yard par-5 that plays much shorter than that, as you tee off toward the clubhouse far below.
The question of value here is a little difficult to parse, as any time greens fees reach into the $200+ range it can be dicey to justify the expense (which is why I left the value at N/A). However, the experience at Red Sky Ranch is truly exceptional. From the fantastic service, to the well-appointed guest clubhouse, to the cart paths, bridges, and landscaping, the details at Red Sky are in the highest echelon. As one of my playing partners quipped as we made our way from the practice area to the first tee, “If the cart girl is anywhere near the caliber of the rest of this place, she’ll be a super model.”
-Bryan Fryklund
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June 3rd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
[...] to its neighbor, the Fazio Course at Red Sky Ranch, this Fazio layout has a more varied mix of holes, some higher shot values, and more risk/reward [...]