July 2016 Colorado AvidGolfer

W YOM I NG’S WON DROUS POW DE R HOR N • J I M E NGH’S M I NOT M AGIC

Elevating the Game.

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THE NATURAL A star on the gridiron, golf course and television, what drives Fox Sports’ JOEL KLATT to excel in everything?

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CONTENTS | July 2016

19

FEATURES

76 The Natural 82

DEPARTMENTS

Former CU quarterback and self-professed golf freak Joel Klatt’s rapid rise to the national broadcasting stage has not been as effortless as it appears.

By Sam Adams

10 Forethoughts

SIDE BETS

82

By Jon Rizzi

35 Fareways

Wyoming Wow

Summer Called, Some Aren't

12 ’net Score

Our new Website and your bucket lists.

14 Golf 101

The Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy turns five.

By Ed Mate

19 The Gallery

Frisco's Lost Cajun Restaurant.

By Gary James

37 Tapping In

What's brewing in Fort Collins.

By Cody Gabbard

39 Nice Drives

The 2016 Lincoln Black Label MKX and Volkswagen Golf GTI Autobahn.

By Isaac Bouchard

Will Nicholson passes; TPC Colorado to open; Tom Doak's reversible course; Wellshire turns 90, more. 41 The CoBank

96 The

Games of Golf

Can you lick the "Postage Stamp"?

PLAYER’S CORNER 27 Saving Nakoma

How a clubhouse spared a golf course.

By Ted Johnson

30 Lesson

Put your chipping on sure footing.

By Larry Rinker

32 Lesson

Are you tournament ready?

By Jason Witczak

Colorado Open

Previewing the richest state open in the country. By Jon Rizzi

47

Crouching at the base of the Big Horn Mountains, The Powder Horn exudes the tranquility, hospitality and spirit of the American West.

By Jon Rizzi

90 A Flood of Opportunity Five years after the dikes breached, North Dakota’s Minot Country Club moved to higher ground. Then Colorado architect Jim Engh put it on the map.

By Jon Rizzi

COLORADO GETAWAYS

The best in golf, food, hotels and more from Vail, Beaver Creek, Aspen and the towns of Summit County.

ON THE COVER Joel Klatt

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

Photographed by Tanja Melone at The Ridge at Castle Pines North.

6

47 coloradoavidgolfer.com

OUR WOODS GAME IS SMOOTH.

Enjoy Mist Responsibly. canadianmist.com | responsibility.org

Blended Canadian Whisky, 40% Alc. by Vol., Imported and bottled by Brown-Forman Beverages, Louisville, KY CANADIAN MIST is a registered trademark.

Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc. Twitter is a registered trademark of Twitter, Inc. Š2016 Brown-Forman. All rights reserved.

“I AM VERY ACTIVE. I LIKE TO PLAY GOLF AND RIDE MY BIKE; I COULDN’T DO A LOT OF THOSE THINGS BEFORE I DID THIS PROCEDURE. NOW I CAN, AND I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER!” — ­ BILLY THOMPSON FORMER NFL PLAYER, DENVER BRONCOS RING OF FAME

July 2016 | Volume 15, Number 4 publisher

A llen J. Walters editor

Jon Rizzi SALES, MARKETING & ADVERTISING associate publisher

Chris Phillips account manager

Vivian Keesling digital and social media manager

Michael Petrelli

office and operations manager

Cindy Palmer

projects and special events manager

Ryan McLean

ART & EDITORIAL art director

Jani Duncan Smith editor - at- large

Tom Ferrell

JOIN US!

automotive editor

Use your own stem cells to possibly relieve pain

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Isaac Bouchard contributors

Sam Adams, E.J. Carr, Tony Dear, Denny Dressman, Sue Drinker, Dick Durrance II, Chris Duthie, Gar y James, Ted Johnson, Kaye W. Kessler, Todd Langley, Kim D. McHugh, Jerr y Walters

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Ray L . Baker, C. Don Baker, Dick B. Baker advertising inquiries : cindy@coloradoavidgolfer.com editorial inquiries and letters : jon@coloradoavidgolfer.com customer service and subscriptions :

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Colorado AvidGolfer (ISSN 1548-4335) is published eight times a year by Baker-Colorado Publishing, LLC, and printed by American Web, Inc. Volume 15, Number four. 7200 S. Alton Way #A-180, Centennial, CO 80112. Colorado AvidGolfer is available at more than 250 locations, or you can order your personal subscription by calling 720-493-1729. Subscriptions are available at the rate of $17.95 per year. Copyright © 2016 by Baker-Colorado Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Colorado AvidGolfer, 7200 S. Alton Way #A-180 Centennial, CO 80112.The magazine welcomes editorial submissions but assumes no responsibility for the safekeeping or return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, artwork or other material.

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Forethoughts

PHOTOGRAPH BY TED MCINTYRE

Summer Called, Some Aren’t

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

I USED TO LOVE SUMMER. Then I got this job.

The season to which I once looked most forward— bountiful daylight to play golf, run, work the garden, sit by the pool—has, for the past 15 years brought long days in the office writing and editing stories about one of those pursuits.

I turn down far more golf invitations than I accept. This results in getting to play around three times per month—and those rounds usually amount to a busman’s holiday because I’m usually taking notes or interviewing someone.

But you have to make hay while the sun shines. Starting in March, the deadlines for this publication telescope into each other like a six-car pileup on the interstate. By August, when the last of our monthly editions heads to the printer, our entire staff feels as if we’ve survived another wreck. We always immediately head to the golf course to celebrate.

Before you tell me to get some cheese for my whine, understand that I’m not trolling for pity. To paraphrase Hyman Roth in The Godfather, Part II, this is the business I’ve chosen.

Sometimes it feels as though it’s chosen me, a calling to the clergy. My parents have a photo of a four-year-old me “reading” the Sunday New York Times Magazine. By high school, I was covering sports for my hometown newspaper and actually getting paid to do it.

Those clips sit amid thousands of others in my files, evidence of destiny’s preordination.

I was reminded of this when Joel Klatt’s parents, Gary and Rita, stopped by our offices to drop off some photos for this issue’s cover story. Among the albums were an “autobiography” written by Joel at age 10 and numerous other self-reflections.

I’d never embarrass him by quoting them here. Suffice to say, they reveal someone predestined to be an athlete who followed that calling with ferocity, first in professional baseball and then college football.

As we saw during his years at the University of Colorado—where as a walk-on he set numerous records as starting quarterback over three seasons—Klatt never shrank from big situations, not even when they involved grillings by reporters during the program’s embattled 2005 season.

Klatt has since become part of the media, channeling his calling as a competitive athlete into broadcasting. His skills as an analyst and play-by-play man have led to his new position as FOX Sports’ lead game broadcaster alongside Gus Johnson.

Golf is T-1 with college football on Klatt’s leaderboard. A self-taught, self-professed “golf freak” who has played to a 1, Klatt also provided digital play-by-play with Steve Flesch during last month’s U.S. Open at Oakmont. Only a matter of time, it seems, stands in the way of his ascension to Fox’s television broadcast team.

But as contributor Sam Adams learns in his profile (page 76), Klatt takes nothing for granted. He’s battled the demons of depression and alcoholism, and an almost compulsive fear of failure informs his approach to his job and his life.

And to his golf game. He says the demands of the job and his young family don’t leave much time to play.

I can empathize. I mean, the poor guy’s currently playing to a six. Like that’s something to whine about. — ­ JON RIZZI

10

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Facebook Bucket List Contest

INFO | BLOGS | DIALOG

LAST ISSUE WE gave you 18 items for the Colorado golfer’s bucket list. We then asked you on Facebook to tell us what’s on your list. Answers included the common wish list items of playing Pebble Beach and St. Andrews, attending the Masters, and breaking par—and many of you are still searching for that elusive hole in one. Among our other favorites: “To get my four boys in a fivesome someday as they get older!” - Dan Graney “I want to play golf in all 50 states. I have 41 done and plan on finishing in the next two years.” - Vincent Recine “To share the game with my girls (9 months old currently).” - Daniel P. Sullivan “Start playing once a week” - Nate Hall “The big one remaining, 1,000 different golf courses before I die.” - Charles Simpson “To pursue a career in golf. Got a long way to go.” - Dustin Busby “Play every course in Colorado!” - Jesse Beers, Troy Alsobrook “A drone that shows me where by damn ball went.” - Bill Weiss

Relaunched.

Upgraded.

WHILE YOU’VE BEEN BUSY getting your game ready for another spectacular Colorado summer of golf, we’ve been hard at work to deliver Colorado golfers the best resource for courses, news, travel, deals, reviews, tips and much more. We bring you the region’s leading golf magazine. Now, we’ve launched a brand new website, making it easier than ever for you to access all the information you need to drive your game to new heights.

Why? Because you love the game. So do we. That’s why we’re committed to bringing you the most complete resource for everything surrounding the golf lifestyle in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region.

“Love to see my dad make a hole in one. He just turned 82 and played his whole life without making one.” - Eric Hoos EDITOR’S NOTE: The above photograph of the Hoos family—Jon, Kristine, Eric and their father, George—ran in our June 2003 issue. George Hoos coached Fairview High School’s boys golf team for 30 years. Eric led the University of Denver men’s team from 1999 to 2014.

HERE’S A PEEK AT WHAT’S NEW: Multiplatform access allows you to seamlessly enjoy access to Colorado AvidGolfer on any device.

With our new and improved course finder, it is easier than ever to browse the 250+ Colorado courses by region, price, membership, Golf Passport access and more.

Our new events calendar gives you a quick look at Colorado golf events—from our own Tournament Series and Private Club Days to charity tournaments throughout the state submitted by golfers like you.

Enjoy your new, upgraded experience at ColoradoAvidGolfer.com!

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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You Have Earned Your Wings. So Has Every Certified Pre-Owned Bentley.

Peace of Mind. A 79 Checkpoint Inspection Performed by a Factory Trained Technician.

To learn more about the Bentley Certified Pre-Owned Program go to: http://bentleyofdenver.com/showroom/bentley-certified-pre-owned or contact us at: 1-303-730-7340, sales@bentleyofdenver.com, or visit the showroom at 1480 E County Line Road, Highlands Ranch, CO, 80126.

Bentley of Denver has an exclusive selection of Certified Pre-Owned vehicles in stock. *The name ‘Bentley’ and the ‘B’ in wings device are registered trademarks. ©2015 Bentley Motors Limited. Model shown: Continental GT V8S

BENTLEY DENVER

Golf 101

UNFORCED CARRIES: Caddies (left and below) in the Solich Academy at CommonGround learn leadership, teamwork and character. Golfers can request one at no charge.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF COLORADO GOLF ASSOCIATION

THE CGA’S SECOND CENTURY

Getting in the Loop

At the tender age of five, The Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy already enjoys success beyond its years. By Ed Mate

WHAT DID YOU DO on your summer vacation?

Schoolchildren have had to answer this question since the gutta-percha replaced the feathery. I’ll bet even Old Tom Morris had to write an essay on this subject when he returned from summer holiday as a lad in St. Andrews.

Here in Colorado a group of 8th and 9th graders will have a lot to say (and even more to show) after their 10-week summer break. They are the lucky, hardworking participants in the Colorado Golf Association’s Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy.

Founded in 2012 at the CGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course, The Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy began with a vision to create opportunities for young people to develop leadership skills and enhance character through a foundation built around caddying. The program took shape under the guidance of the CGA with early investment from brothers Duffy and George Solich—two Evans Scholar alumni who wanted to give back.

Fast forward five years, the program has doubled in participants at CommonGround, with a second chapter added in 2015 at Meridian Golf Club. Boys and girls (target ages of 14-15) are identified based on their financial need, strong academics, work ethic and character.

Once selected, caddies are put through an orientation process followed by basic caddie training. Academy caddies are required to caddie a minimum of six to eight rounds every two weeks, attend weekly leadership training, volunteer for CGA community outreach programs and complete a weekly work log.

If caddies meet these requirements, they receive an educational grant of $200 ($400 per COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

month, total of $1,200 over the course of the summer). CommonGround makes available (at no cost to the golfer) six days a week from late May through mid-August. Golfers may request one in advance but caddies are available on a stand-by basis. Following the completion of this two-year program, the Academy places caddies into an existing and successful caddie program at Denver Metro Area course.

Two current Solich caddies who have felt the deep impact of this program are siblings, Rico and Eliannah, a freshman and sophomore respectively, at Regis Jesuit High School. Both learned about the program while attending Aurora Academy—an Aurora Public School located across the street from CommonGround.

They both shared how the program has helped them on the course and in the classroom.

“Caddying has taught me how to work in a group by supporting the other caddies in the group,” notes Eliannah, whose exposure to golf inspired her to take it up. She began playing after her first summer as a caddie and made the varsity golf team as a freshman at Regis.

This summer, her brother Rico will become the first Solich Caddie to move from the Academy to Castle Pines Golf Club—a jump that’s akin to shifting from single-A ball to the major leagues. But Rico has received nothing but support from his fellow caddies at Castle Pines. “All of them have gone out of their way to help me learn and see me succeed,” he reports.

The Solich Academy plans to grow and increase the number of caddies moving into other caddie clubs and, as a byproduct, produce more applicants for the coveted Evans

14

DREAM GOLF FOR KIDS’ DREAMS Support the Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy by participating in the Bandon Dunes Dream Golf Vacation Raffle. Thanks to a generous donation from Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, the nation’s premier “walking only” golf destination, golfers purchasing a $20 raffle ticket are eligible to win a trip for two that includes a three-night stay at Bandon’s “Chrome Lofts” as well as six rounds of golf with caddies at any of their six exclusive courses—plus $1,000 toward food and transportation. The timing coincides with the return of United Airlines’ non-stop service between Denver and North Bend, Oregon. What could be better than supporting Colorado caddies by entering to win 108 holes of golf at worldfamous Bandon Dunes? Purchase raffle tickets at CommonGround Golf Course or online at coloradogolf.org. But do it now. The winner will be selected August 2.

Scholarship administered by the Western Golf Association. To date, nine Solich Academy graduates have gone on to receive the Evans Scholarship at the University of Colorado.

Based on current trends, roughly 10 percent of Solich caddies will receive the Evans Scholarship, but 100 percent will benefit from a summer spent on the golf course and the many life lessons that come with it. At the top of that list is the best life-skill in the world, a first job!

Oh, and a pretty good topic for an essay.

Ed Mate is executive director of the Colorado Golf Association. coloradoavidgolfer.com

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$39

$39

$39

M-T after 11, F-S-S after 1

Yes

3

The Greg Mastriona at Hyland Hills Blue Course, Westminster EXCLUSIVE

$20

$22

$20

Any day, anytime

Yes

Unlimited

CommonGround offer: Must be CGA, CWGA or Golf Passport Plus member to get rate Family Sports: 9 Hole Executive Course * Some seasons may vary

M-T = Monday-Thursday; F-S-S = Friday-Sunday; S-T= Sunday-Thursday; S-S= Saturday-Sunday P/S= Per Season; SS= Shoulder Season; PS= Peak Season

18 EXCLUSIVE OFFERS Visit coloradoavidgolfer.com for complete details.

GOLF COURSE

WEEKENDS

ROUNDS

Any day, anytime

Yes

Unlimited

Indian Tree, Arvada EXCLUSIVE $37 $37 $37

Season 1-2 any day after 12, Season 3 any day, anytime

Yes

3

The Inverness, Englewood*

$56

$76

$56

M-T after 11, F-S-S after 12

Yes

3

Keystone Ranch, Keystone*

$69

$90

$69

Any day, anytime

Yes

Unlimited

Kings Deer, Monument EXCLUSIVE & FREE GOLF OFFER

$25

$40

$30

M-T anytime, F-S-S after 11

Yes

2

Legacy Ridge, Westminster

$45

$45

$45

M-T anytime, F-S-S after 1

Yes

Unlimited

The Links, Highlands Ranch

$33/$38

$37/$42

$33/$38

M-T anytime F-S-S after 12

Yes

1 P/S = 3

Littleton Golf and Tennis Club, Littleton EXCLUSIVE

$29/$31

$29/$31

$29/$31

M-T after 11, F-S-S after 12

Yes

3

The Greg Mastriona at Hyland Hills Par 3 Course, Westminster EXCLUSIVE

1/1 - 5/31 6/1 - 8/31 9/1 - 12/31 AVAILABLE TEE TIMES $12

$12

$12

Lone Tree Golf Club, Lone Tree $51 $62 $50 M-T after 11 F-S-S after 1 Yes SS: Unlimited, P: 2 The Meadows, Littleton $40/$54 $40/$54 $40/$54

Murphy Creek, Aurora EXCLUSIVE

$35.50/$43 $35.50/$43 $35.50/$43

Omni Interlocken, Broomfield* $60 $70 $60

M-T before 8; after 1, F-S-S after 1

Yes

4

M-F after 11, S-S after 1

Yes

3

M-T anytime, F before 12 S-S after 12

Yes

3

Pelican Lake Golf Club, Windsor*

$45

$60

$50

M-T anytime, F-S-S after 12

Yes

3

Pine Creek, Colorado Springs

$39

$44

$39

M-T after 12, F-S-S after 2

Yes

2 P/S = 6

Pole Creek, Tabernash

$50

$50

$50

M-T after 11. F-S-S after 12

Yes

Unlimited

Quail Dunes, Fort Morgan

$26

$26

$26

Any day, Anytime

Yes

Unlimited

Raccoon Creek, Littleton

$38/$45

$38/$45

$38/$45

M-T anytime, F-S-S after 12

Yes

4

The Raven at Three Peaks, Silverthorne

$55

$89

$55

Any day after 12

Yes

Unlimited

Redlands Mesa, Grand Junction EXCLUSIVE

$50

$50

$50

Any day, anytime

Yes

3

The Ridge at Castle Pines, Castle Rock* EXCLUSIVE

$50

$60/$75

$50

Sun-T anytime, F- Sat after 1

Yes

1 P/S = 3

The River Course at Keystone, Keystone*

$75

$105

$75

Any day after 11

Yes

Unlimited

M-F after 11, S-S after 1

Yes

1 P/S = 3

Saddle Rock, Aurora EXCLUSIVE

$37.50/$45 $37.50/$45 $37.50/$45

South Suburban Par 3, Centennial

$9

$9

$9

M-T anytime, F-S-S after 12

Yes

Unlimited

Sumo Golf Village, Florence

$25

$30

$25

Any day after 12

Yes

2

Thorncreek, Thornton

$40

$40

$40

M-Tanytime, F-S-S after 3

Yes

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Tiara Rado, Grand Junction

$35

$35

$35

M-T anytime, F-S-S after 12

Yes

3

Todd Creek, Thornton

$40

$45

$40

M-F after 10, S-S after 1

Yes

Unlimited

Vail Golf Club, Vail

$50

$89

$50

Sun-T after 1

Yes

1 P/S = 3

Walking Stick, Pueblo*

$32

$32

$32

M-T anytime, F-S-S after 12

Yes

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Yampa Valley Golf Course, Craig*

$30

$30

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M-T anytime, F-S-S after 12

Yes

1

South Suburban:Par 3- Cart not included * Some seasons may vary

M-T = Monday-Thursday; F-S-S = Friday-Sunday; S-T= Sunday-Thursday; S-S= Saturday-Sunday P/S= Per Season; SS= Shoulder Season; PS= Peak Season SS= Shoulder Season; PS= Peak Season

The Gallery NEWS | NOTES | NAMES

PHOTOGRAPHS BY (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): TODD LANGLEY, DAVID THIEMANN, E.J. CARR

Will’s Lasting Testament TITANS FROM THE GOLF and business worlds packed the pews at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Denver June 8 in tribute to Will F. Nicholson, Jr. The former USGA president, chairman of the Masters’ competition committee and Colorado Golf’s “Man of the Century” passed away May 28 at the age of 87.

Fred Ridley, a fellow former USGA president and Nicholson’s successor at Augusta National, eulogized the man 24 years his senior who became a lifelong friend and mentor immediately after Ridley won the 1975 U.S. Amateur. “Will was a rising star in the USGA and the first person I saw on the 36th hole,” Ridley remembered.

“He smiled and said, ‘Congratulations, Freddie.’ I don’t think anyone else before or since has called me ‘Freddie.’”

The son of one-term Denver mayor Will Nicholson, Sr. served on the Colorado Golf Association’s board of governors for 43 years.

He catalyzed the conversion of Mira Vista Golf Course into the CGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course in 2009, and chaired the Colorado Golf Foundation, which George and Carol Solich started in 2012 with a $2 million lead gift.

MAN OF THE CENTURY: During last November’s gala at The Broadmoor.

coloradoavidgolfer.com

Among his myriad business accomplishments, he led Visa USA for 11 years and served as chairman, CEO and president of Colorado National Bankshares as well as Rocky Mountain Bankcard Systems. In 1999, at age 70, he became the chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which at the time represented three

he expected the same directness from others. “’Don’t give me a fire hose,’ he would say, ‘when all I need is a sip of water.’”

At Augusta, Will’s will was absolute, but not without acceptance of an occasional oversight, whether it was an excessive pin placement or a questionable ruling.

Yes, he said, he erred when Ernie Els requested he make a ruling during the 2004 Masters after an on-course Rules official had said he could not get relief after driving his ball into a pile of loose branches on the 11th hole.

“We’d had a terrible ice and windstorm in late January, lost trees and had branches all over the course,” Nicholson once told this magazine.

“There was a pile of loose branches stacked for removal, a number of which had fresh saw cuts.

We just don’t have loose branches at Augusta, so my ruling was that he would get relief. The ruling wasn’t a mistake; the mistake was not emphasizing to the Rules Committee about the piles of broken branches in the woods.”

He even had the ability to laugh at himself during a post-round media session when an Augusta representative told a reporter that Els was “the recipient of good old-fashioned Southern hospitality.”

“I always remember my dad saying, ‘When you make a mistake, admit it and get on with your business,’” Nicholson said, quoting his politician father.

“When Will spoke,” Fred Ridley said of Nicholson, “everyone listened.” million companies, 3,000 state and local chambers, 775 business associations and 85 American Chambers of Commerce abroad.

A member of both the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame and Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, Nicholson last year was named Colorado golf’s “Man of the Century” during the Century of Golf Gala held at The Broadmoor to celebrate the CGA’s 100th anniversary. He also personally invited the century’s greatest golfer, Jack Nicklaus, to speak at the event.

Nicholson’s golf accomplishments extended way beyond Colorado’s borders. In addition to belonging to Denver Country Club and Castle Pines Golf Club, he enjoyed membership at Augusta National, Muirfield Village, The Royal & Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews and The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers at Muirfield in Scotland.

More influentially, he spent 11 years on the USGA Executive Committee, chairing such committees as the Rules of Golf before becoming the organization’s president in 1980. The following year, Augusta National invited him to become a member and put him in charge of the Masters’ Rules Committee, which he did for 17 years. In 1992, he added “and Competition” to his job description, becoming the de facto master of the Masters—setting up the course, determining the championship’s daily tee and pin placements, pairings and starting times. He retired from that post after the 2006 Masters. Aptly named Will, Nicholson was a force. He had a reputation for bluntness, and, as Ridley remembered,

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TWO MASTERS: Nicholson (right) with Jack Vickers at Augusta.

Nicholson, Jr. answered his call to service by participating on the boards of numerous civic and philanthropic organizations—most prominently the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver, which he helped found in 1961. He also served in the Air Force during the Korean War. But he gave the majority of his free time to golf, chairing the 1982 Curtis Cup Matches at Denver Country Club and captaining the 1984 U.S. World Amateur Golf Team to a second-place finish behind Japan at Royal Hong Kong Golf Club.

He created the Nicholson Award in 2006 to honor those who have demonstrated a lifetime commitment and dedication to the game. Among the recipients: Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Judy Bell, Ben Crenshaw, Hale Irwin and Ernie Els. “I learned early on that if you have something you enjoy and are successful at, one of the obligations is to give back,” Nicholson once said.

And that he did. In spades.

As his close friend and fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Fame member Gary Potter said, “May memories of our dear friend never fade, and may he rest in peace knowing his life’s work has been accomplished.”

July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

The Gallery

Easy as T-P-C

TOUR-WORTHY: The TPC Colorado site in Berthoud.

THE “COURSE WITH NO NAME” described in our May issue is no longer anonymous. On June 5, the PGA Tour, along with owner and developer Heron Lakes Investments, LLC, announced that TPC Colorado will open in the spring of 2018. Designed by Art Schaupeter, the same architect who designed Highland Meadows Golf Club in Windsor, the public course will anchor a master-planned, 830-acre community off U.S. 287 near Berthoud. It represents Colorado’s first ground-up golf course development in nearly a decade, and the first TPC built by the PGA Tour since TPC San Antonio in 2010, according to Chairman of Golf Course Properties Charlie Zink.

It’s also the first TPC to open in Colorado since Plum Creek’s debut in Castle Rock in 1984 (the Tour long ago ended its involvement.) Unlike Plum Creek, TPC Colorado will open as a public course.

TPC Colorado overlooks the Lonetree, McNeil and Welch reservoirs—homes to one of the state’s largest heron rookeries—and the majesty of Longs Peak. Designed to host a potential tour event, the course can stretch to 7,900 yards, but golfers can play it anywhere from 4,000 to 7,600 yards. Broad, treeless fairways bring water into play on numerous holes, while stacked-sod pot bunkers and fescuelined fairways suggest the linkslike heritage of the game.

In addition to the course, plans call for a clubhouse, community center, pool, fitness facility, 1,200 homes and condos, marina, restaurant and eight miles of walking trails. TPC Colorado intends to join the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program. The developer has donated more than 90 acres of land to the town of Berthoud for permanent open space and recreation, and another 40 to a partnership between Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), the Town of Berthoud, City of Loveland, Larimer County, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife. tpc.com/colorado

Mulligan WE ERRONEOUSLY OMITTED photo credits for two stories in the June issue. “Nobody Beats the Wizz” (above) and “Driving School” (below) were photographed by E.J. Carr—the former at Raccoon Creek Golf Course in Littleton; the latter at Trent Wearner Golf Academy at Meridian Golf Club in Englewood. We regret the oversight.

experienceThe Ridge

Enjoy The Ridge’s Newest Dining Experience

The Ridge, located in Castle Pines, Colorado is excited to announce the re-launch

of The Ridge restaurant. Named after Grace Park, a 12-year LPGA Tour Player, Park Place will offer a fresh, new ambiance, unparalleled food choices & upscale service.

In addition, Park Place has recently hired a BRAND NEW Executive Chef & Sous Chef! Visit www.PlayTheRidge.com or call 303.688.4575 for reservations today.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

14 14 C A S T L E P I N E S P A R K W AY, C A S T L E P I N E S , C O 8 0 1 0 8 | 3 0 3 . 6 8 8 . 0 1 0 0 | P L AY T H E R I D G E . C O M

T H E R I D G E I S M A N A G E D B Y T R O O N G O L F, ® T H E L E A D E R I N U P S C A L E G O L F C O U R S E M A N A G E M E N T

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016 Ridge_COAG_7x5.indd 1

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coloradoavidgolfer.com 3/1/16 12:08 PM

The Gallery

OUT AND BACK: Doak (left) created two courses on the same piece of ground at Forest Dunes.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRIAN WALTERS

Doak Reverses Course ANYONE WHO’S PLAYED Ballyneal or CommonGround knows Tom Doak’s wizardry as an architect.

But did you know he could build two completely different courses on the same piece of ground? The Loop, an 18-hole reversible design—the first of its kind in the United States—will open June 27 at Forest Dunes Golf Club in Roscommon, Michigan.

“It’s sure got a lot of people talking about Forest Dunes,” Doak says. “I get asked about the reversible course everywhere I go, and probably half the people just think I’m crazy and are hoping for proof!” Doak says he’s batted around the concept for about 30 years, and finally saw the right piece of sandy land—and the right owner, Lew Thompson—to pull it off. Thompson, who also owns

coloradoavidgolfer.com

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

The Gallery ALTERNATE SHOTS: Guests can play the Black course one day and its flipside, the Red, the next.

the Black and Red routings—alternate daily.

Combined with the Weiskopf layout, The Loop essentially creates a 54-hole experience worthy of at least a two-night stay at the property’s 14room AuSable Lodge, golf villas or six cottages.

“One of our goals was to make Forest Dunes a golf destination where golfers from around the country would want to come and stay for multiple nights and have a unique golf experience versus just passing through,” says general manager Chad Maveus. During this year’s preview period, only Forest Dunes overnight guests will have the opportunity to play on

the Loop’s fescue fairways. The Loop is walkingonly with an optional caddie and limited number of tee times.

“We want them to be curious,” Doak says.

“We want them to wonder how could it be just as good playing it backwards. Then if they play it the next day, I’m not sure they will be able to remember exactly which hole was which the other way round. We hope people are fascinated to play it some more so they can understand how it fits together.” forestdunesgolf.com

6th Annual MS Golf Tournament

Benefitting the National MS Society Colorado-Wyoming Chapter and the Rocky Mountain MS Center

Monday, August 15th, 2016 Glenmoor Country Club

110 Glenmoor Dr, Cherry hills Village, CO Registration 9:30-10:45 a.m.

Shotgun Start 11:00 a.m Scramble Format • Gifts and Prizes Banquet at Award Ceremony

For More Information and to Register: Jeff Higgins | 303.916.1006 | jhigginsmrh@gmail.com Mark Kreger | 303.619.7935 | bigk138@gmail.com

msgolf.co

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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coloradoavidgolfer.com

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRIAN WALTERS

the Bridges Golf & Country Club in Montrose, Colo., says he knew he “didn’t want something exactly like what I had. I took a big risk but I’m not afraid of risks because I did my background research on Tom Doak. He’s not going to build something that’s not great.”

What Thompson had—and still has— is a Tom Weiskopf-designed course that has remained a “must-play” since Golf Digest ranked it Best New Course in the Country in 2002. Adding The Loop makes Forest Dunes a “must-stay” as well. The Loop’s clockwise and counterclockwise routings—respectively called

The Gallery

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER

For the Love of Munis

ROARING DEAL: Wellshire Golf Course’s 8th, designed by Donald Ross (above) for $1.50 in 1926.

NEXT MONTH MARKS the 90th anniversary of Wellshire Golf Course, which opened as a private club on August 29, 1926. In the wake of the Great Depression, the City of Denver purchased it in 1936 for $60,000—one-sixth of what the members paid just to build the magnificent Tudorstyle clubhouse. Today Wellshire remains the only Donald Ross-designed municipal course west of the Mississippi River and one of the most popular of Denver’s seven golf facilities. Ben Hogan won the 1948 Denver Open at Wellshire, and Arnold Palmer called the 412-yard seventh hole the toughest in the state. Three USGA Public Links championships took place here—the final one in 1959, when Bill Wright became the first African American to win a USGA Championship.

Golf with a purpose

A place for all and all the game teaches.

www.commongroundgc.com | 303-340-1520 coloradoavidgolfer.com

© 2016

CommonGround features a Tom Doak-designed18-hole championship course, a short course devoted to junior golf and community programs and the CGA’s promise of affordable and inclusive golf.

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

The Gallery

TURNING 120: The second green at Overland, former club of golf pioneer Walter Fairbanks.

Kambeitz Chiropractic Health & Wellness Center, P.C. has a variety of services to help you achieve your best golf game.

Corrective Exercises Active Isolated Stretching Massage Therapy Chiropractic Care Computerized Nerve/ Muscle Scans Digital X-Rays

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER

Personal Training

Located at Colorado and Hampden, Wellshire isn’t the oldest course in the Denver system. That distinction belongs to Overland Golf Course, the original site of Denver Country Club, which opened in 1896 (making it 120 years old this year) and hosted an exhibition by the great Harry Vardon in 1900. Bordered by the South Platte River and Santa Fe Drive, Overland predates by 16 years City Park Golf Course, current headquarters of The First Tee of Denver, the nation’s second largest First Tee chapter.

The First Tee has junior courses at City Park (Chubb’s Course), Wellshire (Hogan’s Alley) and Willis Case Golf Course (Katie’s Course). Perched near Inspiration Point with panoramic views of the mountains, Willis Case opened in 1936. So as it turns 80 this year, see if you can shoot its age—or Wellshire’s or at least Overland’s.

The best parts? All courses are walkable and the most expensive 18-hole round runs $39. cityofdenvergolf.com FIRST AND FIRST: Willis Case’s original clubhouse and current opening hole.

Laser Therapy 8 weeks to Wellness Program

7100 S Clinton St, Suite 110 Centennial, CO 80112 (303) 790-6000 kambeitzchiropractic.com COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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coloradoavidgolfer.com

The Gallery

Golf By Numbers

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GolfTEC Learning Centers now dot the globe. On May 21, the 21-year-old Denver-headquartered company, which has centers in the U.S., Canada, Korea and Japan, opened its milestone facility on East Shea Blvd. in Scottsdale, Ariz. The company has now given more than 6 million lessons. It is also the largest provider of golf lessons and largest employer of PGA of America Professionals in the United States. golftec.com

Is it hard to swing the club the way you want to with your knee and foot pain? Is your pain limiting your ability to play multiple rounds? How can you eliminate your knee and foot pain forever and avoid the common treatments that don’t work for the long term?

Dr. Jim Kambeitz

We have found that the problem either

stays the same or, more likely, progressively gets worse. With state of the art technology and noninvasive treatments our doctors and therapist have a proven track record of finding the root cause of your knee and foot pain to get you back on the

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years of playing golf and 61-year-old Erik Patterson (above), a 3-handicap, had never had a hole in one. Sure, he’d accomplished a 6-million-to-one doubleeagle in 2005 on the 533-yard par-5 first hole at his home course, The Club at Pradera in Parker.

But he never had recorded an ace (13,000-toone). That changed in a hurry this year. In April, on the North Course at The Golf Club at Terra Lago in Palm Desert, Patterson finally sank one on the 17th hole. “It’s about time,” he deadpanned to his wife Kathy. Then, during a four-ball match play at Pradera on May 31, Erik aced the 145-yard 8th hole (9 iron) and the 187-yard 17th (PW).

His partner, Jason Dunkle and their opponents Jeff Burney and Mike Trede, bore witness to the 67-million-to-1 feat. That Patterson’s team lost its match was inconsequential—as, surprisingly, was the bar tab in the clubhouse, according to PGA Head Golf Professional Seth Jamison, “since it had rained on and off most of that afternoon and they played through it to finish their match.” theclubatpradera.com

coloradoavidgolfer.com

golf course pain free. Over the past 18 years we have helped thousands of people overcome knee, foot and plantar fasciitis pain and get back to enjoying the sport they love. Now is the time to take back control of your game! Call our clinic today!

7100 S Clinton St, Suite 110, Centennial, CO 80112 (303) 790-6000 | kambeitzchiropractic.com

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

deep roots are the

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With more than a century of history in our family tree, you’ll have what it takes to reach new heights.

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Player’s Corner PLAY AWAY

The Clubhouse that Saved a Golf Course High in the Sierra Nevadas, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Nakoma breathes new life into The Dragon.

THE WRIGHT WAY: Nakoma's teepee roofline and longhouse interior pay homage to Native American culture.

By Ted Johnson BY 2010, THE CLUBHOUSE at the golf facility then known as The Dragon at Gold Mountain looked as if a beast had actually attacked it. Fallen ceiling tiles littered the floor. Leaky pipes left streaked and cracked walls. Stacks of chairs and tables climbed the corners. Outside, the course once touted as a “must-play” when it opened in 2000 had been rendered inoperable by a 2006 bankruptcy. Only the graciousness of local homeowners prevented the course from going fallow.

While the Dragon represents an early casualty in a decade (2005-2014) during which 570 courses closed, its failure owed not to a sudden downturn in the economy but to two factors.

The first was its location in the golf-rich Graeagle area of the northern Sierra Nevada, about 70 miles northwest of Reno and about an hour north of Truckee, California, where four other top-notch destination courses reside.

The second, more damaging factor was the course’s difficulty. Under orders from then-owners Dariel and Peggy Garner, course designer Robin Nelson laid out a demanding test that twisted through towering pines, rising and falling above a gorge carved by the Feather River. coloradoavidgolfer.com

The Dragon featured raised and wickedly sloped greens, exasperating approach shots and narrow fairways. The original marketing campaign was “Send Me Your Heroes,” and come they did when the course opened. But they never returned. The Dragon was a “one-and-done” experience.

However, the Garners deserve credit for recognizing the uniqueness of a clubhouse the architect Frank Lloyd Wright originally designed in the 1923 for Nakoma Golf Club in Madison, Wisconsin. That club rejected the design, and for more than 75 years the Nakoma blueprints sat in a file kept by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation at Taliesin West in Arizona. The Garners obtained the rights and, after a couple years’ worth of construction, Wright’s vision of Nakoma finally came to fruition in 2001.

Paying homage to Native American culture, Nakoma’s cedar and copper roofline evokes a collection of wigwams, with the largest teepee coming to a chimneyed peak in the center. Sharp spires doubling as lightning rods stab the sky.

Low-ceilinged entrances open into vast gathering spaces, reflecting the group-togetherness of the

27

Native American cultures.

In 2010, Michael Schoff, the CEO of the Tucson-based Schomac Group, bought the property. He recognized that the architectural gem—which also boasts an expansive outdoor patio that overlooks the Sierra, the forest and river—was a good place to start rejuvenating the facility. His group renamed the club Nakoma Golf Resort.

It soon glowed as Wright had intended.

Nakoma’s spectacular octagonal Wigwam Room functions as the main dining area. Exposed beams in geometric patterns soar 60 feet above July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

Player’s Corner PLAY AWAY

SIERRA BLISSED: New ownership revived Wright's dramatic Wigwam Room dining area (above) tempered the Dragon (right) and recently added a 42-room lodge (left).

the tables surrounding an enormous fireplace that opens from all four sides and rises into the enormous stacked-stone chimney thrusting through the ceiling. Stained-glass windows inspired by Native American forms refract colorfully on the interior stonework, while a warm, earthy palette predominated by umbers, ochre and dark green limns the outsized Native American shapes on the walls.

Serving “ingredient-driven, seasonally-inspired” food amid this spendor, the Wigwam Room ranks as one of the finest restaurants in northern California. Also housed in the clubhouse, Nakoma’s spa enjoys the reputation as the best in the region.

Dan Gallagher, now the general manager, says the clubhouse “saved” the course. The course, however, needed some saving, too.

“The first impression among us was that it had fantastic bones, but it was going to take some elbow grease to get it back to where it should be,” Gallagher says. “But ultimately no one was daunted by hearing how hard it was.”

Schomac widened fairways, added five new tee boxes, reshaped greens and removed myriad trees and no fewer than two-dozen bunkers.

“Players say, ‘Yes, you have softened it. Yes, it’s more reasonable’,” Gallagher admits. But he won’t go too far. “It’s the Dragon. It’s notorious, it’s a place where a lot of people feel they have to come and play.”

They also come to mountain bike in the nearby Lost Sierra and Quincy regions, hike to the Plumas National Forest and fish the Feather River and its ample watershed. Winter brings COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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snowshoers and cross-country skiers. The resort runs weekend shuttles to Northstar Ski Resort in Truckee.

To accommodate them, the twelve luxury Villas at Nakoma villas along the course’s 10th fairway come in studio, one- and two-bedroom units. Designed by Taliesin-trained architects Martin Newland and Elisabeth Winnen, they echo the structural elements of the clubhouse without mimicking them.

In addition, Schomac last year debuted a new 42-room lodge adjacent to the eighth green.

The architectural firm, Reno-based Cathexes, emulated Wright’s principles by combining raw and natural materials such as tumbled travertine, antique woods, and stone with exposed concrete floors, hot molded steel and floorto-ceiling windows.

According to principal Don Clark, “We wanted to answer the question, ‘What would Frank Lloyd Wright do today?’”

Ted Johnson is a California-based contributor.

For more information: nakomaresort.com; 877-462-5662. coloradoavidgolfer.com

Player’s Corner LESSON

Watching Your Weight Staying on the balls of your feet leads to better pitches and chips. By Larry Rinker MANY PEOPLE STRUGGLE with being too shallow when hitting pitch or higher lofted shots around the green. This tendency results in bladed, thin, dropkicked, or fat shots. It’s important to understand what your arms, hands, and wrists are doing, but I’ve found two of the keys to improved pitching and chipping are your left and right foot—specifically, how they distribute your weight and help keep it forward.

Using a Boditrak pressure mat can accurately measure how you distribute weight between your feet and what percentage of that weight concentrates in each foot’s heel or toe.

1. ON THE BALLS: At address, I have 70 percent of my weight in my front foot with 94 percent of that weight on the ball. My back foot bears 89 percent of the weight in the ball.

1. ON THE BALLS.

3. STAYING DOWN.

3. STAYING DOWN: At impact, I have 74 percent of my weight in my front foot and 26 percent in the back foot with 96 and 98 percent of the weight in the balls of my feet.

The Boditrak has helped me to see and understand that although my weight shifts between feet during the swing, I consistently keep my weight forward throughout, with over 90 percent of my weight staying in the balls of my feet.

When my students keep their weight in the balls of their feet on a pitch shot, I’ve seen immediate, positive results, and the bottom of their arc is no longer too shallow or behind the ball.

2. SWING SHIFT.

2. SWING SHIFT: As I swing the club back, my weight shifts to 55 percent in the front foot and 45 percent in the back foot, with 99 percent and 95 percent still concentrated in the balls of each foot.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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A short-game master who made 283 cuts in 525 starts on the PGA Tour, Larry Rinker is PGA Director of Instruction at both Red Sky Golf Academy in Wolcott (June-September) and The Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando (OctoberMay). Contact him at larryrinkergolf@gmail.com; 407-810-7489. coloradoavidgolfer.com

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Player’s Corner LESSON

Are You Tournament Ready?

PHOTOGRAPHS BY EJ CARR, GREEN VALLEY RANCH GOLF CLUB

2. FEEL IT.

How not to feel the pressure and enjoy competing.

By Jason Witczak TOURNAMENT GOLF IS THE BEST WAY to evaluate your level of skill and how you handle your emotions. I highly recommend even recreational golfers to enter tournaments, as most amateur events have different flights or levels to ensure players with very similar capabilities are on an equal playing field.

A lot of golfers, however, say they don’t want to compete in tournaments because of the “pressure.” I firmly believe that you only feel pressure when you do not know what you are doing. In golf, this often leads to failure because you lack the preparation for the uncomfortable or unfamiliar situations that arise during a round.

Preparation means practice, and practice means training your body and mind to be comfortable with being uncomfortable—by putting yourself in the unfamiliar territory of tournament golf.

Preparing for a tournament is fun if you know how to do it. Commit to these pointers and the so-called pressure will evaporate.

1. SEE IT.

3. DO IT. Allow your shot to unfold and happen. Be disciplined. If you are not 100 percent committed—if you start thinking of other outcomes or fear failure—you must back off your shot and restart your routine from the beginning.

This discipline of commitment and confidence only comes with results. Your subconscious mind controls the image you have of yourself, and image only changes with good or bad results. Your image of yourself as a golfer is up to you based on how much time you put in.

Remember every shot is equal. Handling so-called pressure starts with training your mind that every shot holds the same value, whether

PRACTICE PUTTING.

3. DO IT.

Develop a consistent pre-shot routine. As someone who has competed professionally as a football placekicker and as a touring golfer, I go through the same three-step process before every shot.

1. SEE IT. Picture the task at hand of the ball flying perfectly to your desired target, almost as you are watching yourself on TV to reinforce it.

Never aim outside of your target. Because your eyes are so powerful, aim “small and straight,” with tunnel vision.

2. FEEL IT. Take constructive rehearsal swings of what your trying to reproduce kinesthetically that matches what you visually see. You own this routine; when it starts it’s like you are in a bubble and no one can get to you because your body knows it’s “go time.” The task at hand is a response to the training for the moment.

So trust it.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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coloradoavidgolfer.com

2016

Three Events.

Three Unique Colorado Experiences.

EVERY SHOT COUNTS.

it is a one-foot putt, a delicate pitch shot over a bunker or a 300-yard drive to carry a hazard.

Always focus on putting. Take pride in being a good putter. Being a good putter or a bad putter is a choice. It starts with attitude. You are the only one that has to believe you are going to make that putt.

Practice your weaknesses. Don’t be in robot mode, hitting driver after driver or iron after iron, and focusing on hitting perfect shot after perfect shot. Instead, learn to play games with yourself and hit to various targets with the same club.

Simulate. Practice holes similar to those on the course hosting the tournament. Better still, play a practice round or two on the course.

Be ready to scramble. Golf is full of bad bounces and bad shots. Accept that sometimes you just have to save par the hard way. Visualization is a great way to change your subconscious and believe in yourself.

If you put the time in to do the routine and keep your mind in the moment good things will eventually happen. Sometimes we get discouraged as golfers at all levels because we feel that we are not improving fast enough or scoring as well as we should be. All of those factors go into the decisions we make—from how we practice, to what clubs we select on the course and targets that we commit to. I never can tell when one of my tour players or beginners is going to play the best golf of their lives. What I do tell them is that they better be ready for when it happens.

JULY 25, 10am BLACKSTONE COUNTRY CLUB

2-person BEST BALL— $125 per player

SEPTEMBER 7, 1:30pm THE RIDGE AT CASTLE PINES NORTH SCRAMBLE—$110 per player

REGISTER TODAY! coloradoavidgolfer.com/events For more information and to register contact Ryan McLean at 720-493-1729 ext. 15 or ryan@coloradoavidgolfer.com

Jason Witczak is the PGA director of instruction at Green Valley Ranch Golf Academy in Denver.

Specializing in kinesiology and proper setup, he teaches players of all skill levels. Reach him at 303-371-8700; jwitczak@gvrgolfacademy.com.

coloradoavidgolfer.com

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

ADAPTS TO ANY ENVIRONMENT BUT PREFERS ONE WITH A VIEW

Visit your local Colorado Retailer today. ©2016 Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC

Side Bets | FAREWAYS FOOD | BEER | CARS

LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULER: Left to right, Seafood Gumbo, Large Beignets, Chicory Coffee and owner “Griff” Griffin.

Mountain Gumbo FOOD PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE LOST CAJUN; PORTRAIT COURTESY OF THE SUMMIT DAILY.

Son of a gun, The Lost Cajun is having big fun far from the bayou. By Gary James REAL AND HONORARY “lost Cajuns” populate the West. They crave authentic Louisiana food— simple fare, slow-cooked and brimming with flavor—and have a hard time finding it.

Raymond “Griff” Griffin, from Barataria, 25 miles south of New Orleans, didn’t initially count himself among them. He’d worked as a cook in a fishing lodge for fifteen years. But then came Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Gustav, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

After that last disaster, he and his wife Belinda—a ten-year cancer survivor who has since passed—took an RV vacation to Durango. “On our way, her back went out,” the loquacious Griffin remembers. “We were told the best surgeons were in Summit County, for all the skiers. We met the doctors on Wednesday. They performed surgery on Friday and released her on Sunday. So we spent the rest of our vacation walking Main Street in Frisco rehabbing her. We were so impressed—it was Mayberry in the mountains. We thought it was time to leave Louisiana for good.

“We had always talked about opening a little gumbo shop, but I didn’t have any idea of how to operate a restaurant. I knew how to cook, and I knew how to give good service. Let’s keep it simple—cook some gumbo and fry some fish.” coloradoavidgolfer.com

The Lost Cajun opened in Frisco six years ago. Cajun culture embodies love for family as well as food, and Griffin’s venture distinguishes itself with a fantastic down-home atmosphere—a true hole-in-the-wall with wooden tables, gaudy decorations and an expertly crafted playlist of Zydeco music. It feels like you’re having dinner with your next-door neighbors. The open kitchen concept harks back to the wooden counters in Louisiana’s gumbo houses; patrons can watch their food being cooked and hear the courtesy and respect: “Order in, Chef.” “Thank you, Chef.” Mardi Gras beads and coloring pages entertain the kids.

Griffin started out with four items on the menu—Seafood Gumbo, Chicken & Sausage Gumbo, Fried Catfish and Beignets. “I’d run out of gumbo at two in the afternoon and would close the door. People said, ‘You’re a restaurant, you need to be open.’”

The Lost Cajun has expanded its menu to include such Louisiana favorites as Voodoo Pasta (Andouille sausage, shrimp and bell peppers in a tomato, white wine and cream sauce over fettuccine) and Cat-touffée (strips of fried catfish glazed with crawfish étouffée, served with rice).

But the gumbo is where it’s at. There are many recipes for the traditional Cajun dish, from

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a rich dark brown roux base to a red gravy (based off tomato sauce). Griffin’s greets customers with free sampler of four tasty gumbos—Seafood, Chicken & Sausage (which has a kick to it), Chicken and Vegetarian—as well as Red Beans and Rice and a creamy Lobster Bisque. If it’s intended to help people know what to order, it’s not working—they’re all impressive.

“I learned to cook from Creole ladies, and there’s a difference between Cajun and Creole— Creole is a mixture of French, Native American and African-American,” Griffin explains. “It takes six hours to cook a good gumbo. There are no shortcuts. Most people don’t have the patience for it.”

The old way is called a “sweat.” In a pot halfway full of water, Griffin slowly cooks down the “trinity” (onions, celery and bell pepper) and garlic, getting the water out of the veggies—“sweating” them—to the step that makes this gumbo different, where the onions caramelize to create the “paste.” “That’s where you can’t be in a rush,” Griffin says. “Reducing it, it turns a golden brown.

Then I add water, my roux and the protein, and simmer for another two-and-a-half hours.”

Lastly, he adds okra. No other vegetable tastes quite like the delectable Southern pods, July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

Side Bets | FAREWAYS

RAGIN’ CAJUN: Griff’s savory Cat-touffée.

result is a gateway to chicory coffee, too!

Long entwined in the cultural imagination of Louisiana, Dixie beer has never aspired to craftbrew status. So the Lost Cajun also features Abita beer, brewed by Cajun guys with water from a deep Artesian well on their property. Abita also makes a hard root beer, Bayou Bootlegger, a grown-up take on “old-time” soda sweetened with pure Louisiana cane sugar and flavored with sassafras and vanilla, and clove and anise…with the added benefit of 5.9 percent alcohol (achieved through a yeast fermentation process, keeping the root beer recipe intact without adding liquor).

Griffin is letting the good times roll. His friend Jon Espey came up from Alabama and convinced him to open another location in Breckenridge, then franchises in Glenwood Springs, Pagosa Springs and Fort Collins, even getting into South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The challenge in building a successful brand is a consistent and reliable product and service, but he’s well-positioned with the help of folks like Hanna Hoffman, the operations manager in Summit County.

“We don’t have a ‘Chef Mike’—a microwave,” Griffin laughs. “No heat lamps or salamanders. We cook it and serve it to you right then and there. It’s not pretty food. It’s not meant to be.

It’s tasty food.”

Raison enough!

204 Main Street, Frisco 970-668-4352; TheLostCajun.com Read more of Contributor Gary James’ Fareways columns on coloradoavidgolfer.com.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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coloradoavidgolfer.com

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE LOST CAJUN

but okra tends to get a bad rap for its slimy texture. In Griffin’s gumbo, the mucilage acts as a natural thickener. Put together, everything makes a classic gumbo. “If you don’t like okra, don’t eat gumbo,” he shrugs.

The Lost Cajun’s other standout is the fried fare—Fried Catfish, Shrimp and Oysters, available as plates, in combination (Seafood Platter) and Po-Boy Sandwiches. Griffin has seen beyond the greasy curtain of badly fried foods that rely on slabs of breading that peel off while you eat. The key? He marinates the seafood for 24 hours in a blend that includes Louisiana hot sauce, yellow mustard and “Swamp Salt” (a mix of herbs and spices) to let it tenderize. When an order comes in, the fish/crustaceans/mollusks go right from the marinade into a light dusting of corn flour (finely ground corn meal)—no beer batter or milk batter, no egg wash, just swoonworthy golden-brown crispy goodness straight from the deep-fryer.

And the beignets… ever tried a package mix to recreate those freshly fried puffy pastry pillows at home, only to wind up with a donut-like interior that no amount of powdered sugar could save?

Griffin had his share of failed experiments, varying the amount of yeast, sugar and flour for altitude, and eventually learned that the secret was “proving” the dough (covering it with a warm damp rag), letting it rise at room temperature, refrigerating it, bringing it out and letting it rise again. The

GEAUX FOR IT: Voodoo Pasta and Shrimp Po-Boy.

Side Bets | TAPPING IN

Colorado’s CraftBeer Capital

BREWS FLASH: Zwei Brewing’s tanks (left) and beers (bottom). Funkwerks’ juicy and quaffable offerings.

Famous for New Belgium and Odell’s, Fort Collins also taps a vibrant niche market. By Cody Gabbard THANKS TO CRAFT-BREWING mainstays New Belgium and Odell’s, nobody seems to remember that Fort Collins stayed dry more than 20 years before Prohibition’s institution and almost 40 years after its repeal. The city has more than compensated. Its twenty-plus breweries now make it eminently worthy of a pub-crawling pilgrimage.

A quick skim of the latest Great American Brew Fest or World Beer Cup winners could help narrow down the list of where to visit. Instead, I sought out breweries that spotlighted particular styles of beer rather than a handful of crowd-pleasers. I discovered a concentration of the best niche market breweries not only in Colorado, but the country.

coloradoavidgolfer.com

ZWEI BREWING Zwei Brewing focuses on crafting beers, most of which were born hundreds of years ago in Munich and influenced by the neighboring Czechs. Rather than brewing a big IPA, stout and other popular American styles, Zwei offers other local taps and collaboration beers, something aspiring breweries should take note of if they truly want to become an expert in brewing to style on the micro-level.

Freshness runs through all their beers. This is not a cliché but a flavor descriptor. One of Zwei’s German staples, Keller Pils (an unfiltered, bigger-bodied version of Pilsner), boasts a lively grain aroma and an invigorating yet full-bodied flavor. Not quite as crisp as a standard pilsner, it finishes with a slight herbal bitterness and medium-dry.

Dunkelweizen, a Bavarian-style wheat beer, exemplifies a malt-forward German ale. Zwei’s version has the characteristic ripe banana and clove flavors from specialized ale yeast. It’s a bit darker than its cousin, Hefeweizen, due to added specialty malts that can impart some caramel and cocoa flavors as well as a fuller body. Wheat malt is dominant, but it balances with the fruit and spice flavors of the style.

The Helles Bock is one of the fresher-flavored beers I’ve had in awhile. Aromas of caramel and sweet grain prevail. The flavor suggests fresh wort (the sugary liquid made from steeping grains prior to being boiled and yeast pitched) and bread crust. This beer is extremely smooth with a full body, yet not filling. With a very clean finish and no astringency or bitterness, this is a malty beer

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drinker’s heaven.

Although most of the American and Belgian taps come from other breweries, Zwei does produce a few one-offs, but with their own take. The Espresso Stout has a cold brew coffee aroma and assertive coffee flavor without the roast or bitterness of most other versions. It’s lighter than many coffee-infused stouts, with a clean, refreshing finish akin to Zwei’s lagers.

Zwei’s bustling beer garden atmosphere— which includes groups of postgame sports clubs, couples, dogs and old men in lederhosen—belies its location on the city’s strip-malled outskirts.

4612 S Mason St #120 970-223-2482; zweibrewing.com FUNKWERKS Funkwerks attained national recognition in 2012 when it won the Great American Beer Fest’s “Small Brewing Company of the Year” award.

It hasn’t slowed down since, as it continues to re-define one of the more ubiquitous, yet misunderstood of styles—the saison.

The small taproom in no way suggests the enormous range of flavors Funkwerks brewers have coaxed from the four components of beer.

Corrugated metal and wood give it a shack-chic appearance and the atmosphere is far tamer than that some of its rowdier downtown neighbors.

July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

Side Bets | TAPPING IN

TOASTY: Funkwerks’ Tap Room (top) and Jessup Farm (bottom).

The flagship beer, simply named Saison, sets the tone. It’s a simple, subtle beer with a host of complexities. Rustic notes of raw ingredients and fruity esters (yeast by-products) evolve with every sip. Crushed grains are upfront, with flavors of banana bread becoming more evident as it warms, finishing with hints of bubble-gum.

It also finishes dry and is super-quaffable. Many breweries will simply rely solely on an expressive yeast strain to bring out big, spicy and sometimes chalky flavors for their saisons, but a true articulation of the style plays down these flavors and melds them seamlessly with the malt and hops.

For the wine drinker of the group who “doesn’t like beer,” Barrel-Aged Deceit is a great crossover brew. The barrel-aging adds flavors of white wine with a noticeable tartness and tropical fruit flavors. There’s also a whiff of green apple in the aroma with some earthy funk. For a beer aged for 18 months to two years, it’s as bright and vibrant as a week-old pale lager.

Raspberry Provincial is not your typical fruit beer. Rather than being aggressively fruity, the beer has a high level of effervescence to balance any residual sweetness or acidity. The raspberry comes through juicy with no tartness and just a hint of sour acidity and flavors of hibiscus. The somewhat full mouthfeel makes this a spritzy yet

very smooth and drinkable beer. With every sip I was waiting for the pop of biting into a fresh berry.

1900 E Lincoln Ave. 970-482-3865; funkwerks.com JESSUP FARM BARREL HOUSE One of the newer arrivals to the vast landscape of breweries, Jessup Farm Barrel House makes exceptionally approachable barrel and mixed-fermentation beers. Located in a restored barn on a former farm, both the interior and exterior are stark changes of their former iterations.

Nestled within the Jessup Farm Artisan Village, the brewery and taproom are among the most beautifully designed in the state. The view however is not likely what the original owners of the farmstead envisioned, with rows of modern townhouses visible from every window.

The beers reflect this atmosphere, being both steeped in tradition and adjusted for modern tastes. Jessup’s offerings undergo a variety of mixed-fermentations in the barrels for the characteristic funk and sourness of wild beers, but are blended to achieve specific flavor profiles.

Fermented with brettanomyces (a wild yeast strain known for imparting flavors ranging from “barnyard” to tropical fruit), Fancy Pants sparkles with flavors of apricot and peach. Fruity, with pith bitterness, this is an eminently balanced, refreshing summer ale.

Jessup also serves darker, full-bodied beers, especially the Nib Knot Nitro, a whiskey-barrelaged black ale. The flavor is reminiscent of coffee and cocoa with a wisp of whiskey. It’s silky smooth with a creamy vanilla aroma for a decadent richness with no acidity.

1921 Jessup Drive 970-568-8345; jessupfarmbarrelhouse.com For all of the well-deserved accolades earned

by Fort Collins’ larger breweries, the city offers a plethora of alternatives. With the standard already being set, the young guns have found a corner of the market to call their own. Let beer geeks and weekend (beer) warriors alike rejoice.

Contributor and homebrewer Cody Gabbard regularly writes CAG’s Tapping In column.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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coloradoavidgolfer.com

Side Bets | NICE DRIVES

CROSSOVER HIT: The 2016 Lincoln Black Label MKX

Surprise, Surprise!

Lincoln’s Black Label MKX is a stunner, while VW’s GTI punches way above its weight. By Isaac Bouchard 2016 LINCOLN BLACK LABEL MKX

EPA ratings: 17/24mpg; 19mpg combined 0-60mph: 6.0sec Price as tested: $65,270 In a subtly ironic twist, Lincoln has been modeling the Japanese success of Lexus—which poached many of the customers who used to buy U.S.-made high-end vehicles—as it reinvents itself as an “American luxury” brand. This strategy seems to be working, with sales up and each succeeding new car or crossover being better than the last. This trend currently expresses itself in the new MKX Black Label, one of the most pleasant surprises of the year. coloradoavidgolfer.com

The Lincoln’s look is quite classy; the split grill treatment (soon to be replaced with the more conventional single-frame design seen on the new Continental) is handled adroitly and the fender flares, lighting and stance are upscale.

The MKX isn’t avant-garde like the latest Lexus RX350, but many will find its conservative look compelling. Inside, it is a stunner, one of the comfiest places to while away rush hour since the Volvo XC90.

The design is easy on the eyes, and the tester’s Modern Heritage trim, comprised of stunning off-white hides with dark red double-row stitching and buttery soft graphite upper door leather (one of four BL palettes), a cut above anything from Asia. The 22-way multicontour seats

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with massage and anti-fatigue “Active Motion” movement rival most anything from Europe too.

It’s obvious Lincoln knows how to do quality; whether MKX models below the Black Label carry over the well finished plastic moldings seen throughout the cockpit is an open question, but here at least, there’s nothing to scoff at. All the “mod cons” for inattentive driving and entertainment are available, and if the much-ballyhooed Revel audio system suffers from a tinge of midrange congestion, it is still a winner.

To its credit, Lincoln isn’t also attempting to outlap the Europeans at the Nurburgring at the expense of real-world ride quality. In either of its drive modes, The MKX is generally very smooth and composed (though it does run out of ideas July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

Side Bets | NICE DRIVES

over the worst pavement), with excellent steering weighting and precision and nicely progressive brakes.

The highlight is the powertrain, where an optional 335hp 2.7-liter twin turbo Ecoboost V6 that’s so powerful that you rarely need all the 380lb-ft available. This helps impart a sense of luxurious over-endowment, especially climbing into the mountains. While real-world fuel economy is a couple MPG down on the most frugal, this is an easy trade-off. Plus, the Lincoln will take regular unleaded, unlike the Lexus.

When my time with the Lincoln was at an end, I was genuinely regretful to see it go, as it suited typical Denver driving so well, imparting a sense of reserved potency overlaid by pampered wellbeing.

2016 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF GTI AUTOBAHN

EPA ratings: 25/34mpg; 28mpg 0-60mph: 6.1sec Price as tested: $30,995

While VW didn’t actually invent the hot hatch, we can credit the company with making it successful and popular. I can vividly remember lusting for one in high school, and the GTI, now in its seventh generation, has reached a level of honed excellence that still engenders respect.

It retains a look of restrained purpose. Red detailing, larger, slashed air intakes and a lowered stance enhance the chamfered Golf shell, and the cockpit is roomy, tightly fastened and full of lovely details like the golf-ball shifter and tactile delight of a flat-bottomed steering wheel. Plastics lower on the doors obviously come from the less expensive end of the automotive spectrum, but most everything at or near eye level is pleasing.

The newest touchscreen infotainment system is fast and intuitive, albeit phased by large music collections and slightly low-rent graphics. Especially in five-door form, the GTI is one of the most practical of performance icons, with an easy-entry, generous back seat COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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FAST AND FRUGAL: 2016 Volkswagen Golf GTI Autobahn.

that fashions huge cargo hauling capability with the seats folded.

This Mark VII generation is based on the latest MQB VW-group hardware, meaning it is stiff and light, bolstering both refinement and dynamics. The GTI rides very well, even on non-adjustable dampers and low profile rubber, and filters out wind and road noise well.

The new generation two-liter, four-cylinder turbo has more torque and revs faster than its predecessor. It also boasts a pleasing acoustic signature (which can be amplified or turned down by in-car sound enhancement in the driving mode menu) and comes in two tunes. The test car’s 210hp variant is more than adequate, and it shares a torque rating of 258lb-ft with models equipped with the Performance Package.

That model’s extra 10 ponies may be hard to feel, but its limited slip diff makes a noticeable improvement in hard cornering, keeping the nose from running wide under power, and its beefier brakes easily make this a worthwhile $1,495 option.

Even without, brake feel and modulation are excellent, and the standard brake-activated “virtual” diff does a decent job of keeping the GTI on the driver’s chosen line. Body control is well resolved and it does a great job of resisting high-speed understeer while remaining playful at lower velocities.

The tester also had the available 6-speed manual transmission, whose throws were light and accurate, helped by a clutch that had good progression and a well-delineated bite-point.

Pedal placement could be improved, and in congested traffic—the new norm it seems—the twin clutch DSG may be the way to go. Either way the GTI is commendably frugal and fast, and it is wonderful to see it still fitting in well into so many enthusiasts’ desires and lives.

Automotive Editor Isaac Bouchard is the owner of Englewood-based Bespoke Autos (303-475-1462). Read more of his writing on coloradoavidgolfer.com and bespokeautos.com. coloradoavidgolfer.com

JULY 21-24 Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, Denver

52 The

nd

JIMMY GUNN, DO OPEN 2015 COBANK COLORA CHAMPION

ALLISON EMREY, 2015 COBANK COLORADO WOMEN’S OPEN CHAMPION

JOHN ROSS, EN 2016 COBANK SENIOR OP N CHAMPIO coloradoavidgolfer.com

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

JULY 21-24 Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, Denver

RAISING THE STAKES Unprecedented support from sponsors and players has turned the CoBank Colorado Open into the country’s richest state championship.

Every player

in this year’s CoBank Colorado Open field should thank four-time PGA Tour winner and NBC golf analyst Notah Begay for playing in last year’s championship. Although Begay and former Ryder Cup team member Chris Riley each missed the cut by a stroke, Begay raved about the course to Green Valley Ranch Golf Club Owner and Colorado Open Foundation Founder Pat Hamill, remarking that a bigger purse would bring in players like him and Riley and elevate the event’s profile.

“Now look where we are,” said Kevin Laura—the CEO of the CoBank Colorado Opens and The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch—during a March press event to announce the Open would double its purse to $250,000, making it the largest prize of any state open in the country.

Moreover, the winner would pocket $100,000, more than quadruple the $23,000 payday of 2015 champion Jimmy Gunn, who plans to take off from the Web. com Tour to defend his title.

Other registered former champions include Zakhai Brown (2013), Wil Collins (2005), Ian Davis (2014), Jonathan Kaye (1996), Nathan Lashley (2010), Scott Petersen (2000), Ben Portie (2011), Derek Tolan (2009, 2012), Dustin White (2006) and Mike Zaremba (1995).

The field won’t include Begay and Riley, but it will feature Tour winners Keith Clearwater, DJ Brigman, Parker McLachlin and two professionals who competed in this year’s U.S. Open—Andy Pope and Australian Aron Price. And let’s not forget 2016 CoBank Colorado Senior Tour winner John Ross, who has played on both the PGA and Champions tours.

The purse increase will propel one of the premier state opens in the nation “to a whole new level,” Laura says. “We look forward to putting on the best open in our tournament’s history.”

The doubling of the Colorado Open purse for 2016 coincides with the first year of CoBank’s five-year title sponsorship of the men’s, women’s and senior’s championships. In addition to the obvious COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

brand exposure, the state’s largest Colorado-headquartered financial institution chose to align itself with the state’s most prestigious golf championship because of the Colorado Open Golf Foundation’s strong support of The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch program, which uses golf to promote integrity, respect and perseverance among youth.

“We’re committed to giving back to the community here in Denver,” CoBank CEO Bob Engel said, “and this sponsorship offers us another powerful way to do that.”

CoBank, however, did not provide the entire $125,000 purse

JIMMY GUNN

ZAKHAI BROWN

SCOTT PETERSEN

BEN PORTIE

MIKE ZAREMBA

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coloradoavidgolfer.com

A G r e At S tAt e D e S e r v e S A G r e At O p e n

CoBank is proud to be the title sponsor for the Colorado Open Championships.

As the state’s largest financial services institution, we look forward to continuing a great Colorado tradition – where legends begin.

CoBank Colorado Senior open: June 1-3, 2016

800-542-8072 www.cobank.com

CoBank Colorado open: July 21-24, 2016

CoBank Colorado Women’S open: August 31-September 2, 2016

JULY 21-24 Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, Denver increase. Nor did the money come solely from increased entry fees.

It came from individual and corporate donors. Eight sponsors in particular stepped up and contributed $10,000 apiece: Duffy Companies, the Eberl Family Foundation, First Western Trust, GolfTEC, Highstreet IT Solutions, Hill Petroleum, Oakwood Homes and Precision Building Solutions.

The Colorado Open Golf Foundation’s connection to The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch made the decision to donate easy for Kirk Eberl, head of the Eberl Family Foundation, which he and his wife Grace set up after he sold his successful independent adjustor firm.

“I liked what we saw when we visited The First Tee,” Eberl said. “To see what they do with their program, how they expose kids to golf and all the values it teaches— especially underprivileged kids who would otherwise never have been exposed—was inspiring. They learn respect for themselves and the people and places around them.”

Jay Small, the president of Precision Building Systems, seconds that emotion.

Small has sat on the Colorado Open

Foundation Board for seven years and his company has framed the homes surrounding Green Valley Ranch.

“We are committed to the community,” he said. “We are as invested in it as (the developer) Oakwood Homes is. Pat Hamill deserves all the credit. A bigger purse means we can attract better players, who will draw more spectators and expose them to what The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch is doing.”

“We could not be more pleased to see such strong support for the open from other sponsors in the community,” CoBank’s Engel said. “The open is an important institution with a proud history in the state of Colorado, and it is very gratifying to see it achieve such positive momentum.”

For information and updates about the CoBank Colorado Opens, Colorado Open Foundation and The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch, visit coloradoopen.com

SHERRY ANDONIAN

SHERRY’S SHOT The purse increase isn’t the only groundbreaking occasion at this year’s CoBank Colorado Open. Colorado PGA professional Sherry Andonian will become the first woman to compete in the event in its 53-year history. Andonian, an instructor who has competed on the LPGA Tour, finished seventh on the Section’s points list in 2015, earning her an exemption into this year’s event. She missed the cut in June’s CoBank Colorado Senior Open and also plans to play in August’s CoBank Colorado Women’s Open. If all goes according to plan, she’ll be the first to accomplish that trifecta.

HALE IRWIN JOHN ROSS

ROSS, LIKE A BOSS John Ross, the former PGA Tour player currently on the Champions Tour, won the first Colorado Open of any kind sponsored

by CoBank—the 2016 CoBank Colorado Senior Open. After finishing second to Arizona’s Greg Bruckner last year, Ross fired a 10-under 206 to take the three-day event, held June 1-3 at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club. He finished two shots clear of Loveland native Chris Starkjohann and three ahead of two-time PGA Tour winner Keith Clearwater. Ross took home the $8,500 first place prize against the strongest field in the history of the championship. He also earned an extra $1,000 for being top super-senior player (60 and older). Moreover, his victory exempted the 64-year-old West Virginian into this month’s CoBank Colordo Open.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

VISITS FROM THE PROS On May 29, about 150 people—many of them kids from various Colorado First Tee chapters—showed up at Green Valley Ranch for a CoBank-sponsored kids clinic with World Golf Hall of Famer Hale Irwin.

The inspiring event, in which the Boulder native provided avuncular wisdom on golf and life, was the first of three such appearances by TFT ambassadors this summer.

Three-time PGA Tour winner Ryan Palmer will appear on July 8, while popular 2010 U.S. Women’s Open champion Paula Creamer will do a girls-only clinic August 29.

“Just as a tee supports the ball so you can lift it and fly it a little farther down the fairway, The First Tee works the same way,” Creamer says in a commercial. “Instead of lifting golf balls it lifts young people. It teaches them values like perseverance, confidence and judgment—values that will help them fly and go a little further in life.”

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PAIGE SPIRANAC

WOMEN’S DAYS Although the entry deadline isn’t until August 3, the field looks promising for the CoBank Colorado Women’s Open at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club August 31-September 2. Among the early registrants are current Colorado Junior Amateur champion Mary Weinstein and 2012 5A High School champion Mackenzie Cohen. Two-time reigning CWGA Player of the Year Jennifer Kupcho expects to get a release to play before her sophomore year starts at Wake Forest, while Paige Spiranac, winner of the 100th CWGA Match Play and cover subject of Golf Digest’s May issue, anticpates playing as well. coloradoavidgolfer.com

R

U O Y K N THA THANK YOU

MEDNAX Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Otten Johnson Robinson Neff & Ragonetti, P.C. Presenting Sponsor PGA TOUR Superstore / Oakwood Homes Blank Family Foundation Friends of The First Tee Mary Reisher & Barry Berlin Academy Bank Supporting Sponsors Ringsby Realty & S.I.O.R. Alpine Bank AIMCO Cares Bank of America/Brenda Berger Roy A. Hunt Foundation CBS4/KCNC-TV Denver SRS Capital Advisors McKay Belk Colorado AvidGolfer BKD CPAs & Advisors Colorado Golf Association Special Thanks Colorado Section PGA Colorado Alex Buecking Adidas Golf Clean Energy Collective: Women's Golf Canon de Colorado Community-Owned Solar Association Charles L. Young Sr. Colorado Center for Duffy Companies/Hill Petroleum Foundation Reproductive Medicine Eberl Family Foundation Citywide Banks Country Inn & Suites - DIA First Western Trust Elevation Development Group Colorado PGA REACH GolfTEC Esperance Family Foundation Coors Light Green Valley Ranch Golf Club Dale DeLeo FirstBank Highstreet IT Solutions Eagle Ranch Golf Course Forest City Stapleton Infiniti of Denver Expanding Horizons Molly Greenblatt JLL/Barry Dorfman Foundation for Educational Melissa & Mark Hubbard Lockton Companies Excellence Humana Massage Envy Spa Dave Franzmann Kris Family Charitable Fund Nationwide/Parker-Douglas Edward Hunt L&L Hawaiian Barbecue Insurance Hoffenberg Family Steve Lockton Pepsi Beverages Company Title Sponsor CoBank

Precision Building Solutions/ Jay Small Rocky Mtn. Golf Course Superintendents Assoc.

IMA Foundation Inverness Hotel & Golf Club Keltner Family Foundation Margie Kerr/Colorado National GC Legacy Ridge Golf Course LPGA*USGA Girls Golf Ludlow-Griffith Foundation Russell Ortiz Danielle Proctor Powers Products Proprietary Capital/Craig Cohen Pukka Headwear R. Stanton Dodge Family Foundation Walmart Wells Fargo Foundation MaryPat Woodard

Colorado Open Golf Foundation: 20309 E. 48th Place, Denver, CO 80249 | P: 303.486.8800 | E: Info@coloradoopen.com | www.ColoradoOpen.com

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Colorado

GETAWAYS TEEING YOU UP! Mountains of MOUNTAIN activities make

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SUMMIT COUNTY

FROST CREEK CLUB a portal to

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the Colorado lifestyle

& BEAVER CREEK Getting on in ASPEN

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

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No Frost Delay

Mountains of mountain activities have made FROST CREEK Colorado’s fastest-growing club.

MORNING HAS BROKEN over the Brush Creek Valley. The sun, inching higher, has begun its daily ablution of the surrounding alpine terrain, bathing in pinks and purples the pine-lined granite ski slopes to the east.

It peeks from behind New York Mountain to butter the Tom Weiskopf-designed fairways moist with morning dew. Deer play through.

Herons nest on an adjacent pond. Joggers run past families of mountain bikes resting outside five outsized guest cabins. A solitary angler casts into the nearby creek.

This idyll plays out daily at Frost Creek, the 1,100-acre property nestled in the lush wilderness bordering the White River Frost Creek’s Weiskopf design rates as one of his classics.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

National Forest some 10 miles south of I-70 and Eagle County Airport. Formerly known as Adams Rib Ranch and Adams Mountain Country Club, the development last year was purchased by an investment group led by 38-year-old Chad Brue. He not only rebranded it; he overhauled its entire concept, transforming it from an exclusive high-priced club with only 32 members into an accessible, four-season portal to the Colorado mountain lifestyle.

That means two miles of single-track trail leading to some of the best mountain biking this side of Fruita. It means 2.5 miles of private fishing along Brush Creek, six stocked fishing ponds for kids and a seventh for swimming and stand-up paddle boarding— along with a beach featuring a shaded deck.

It means complimentary access to a Jeep so members can 4-wheel to myriad trails, Coffin Mountain, Sylvan Lake Park and beyond.

In winter it also means awesome sledding on the driving range, cross-country and skate-skiing trails, snowshoeing and iceskating on a lighted rink built on the tennis court with a killer sound system. A daily shuttle whisks members to the downhill runs at nearby Beaver Creek.

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Members can sign out the club Jeep to explore, SUP, fly-fish and pursue myriad other on-site adventures.

Like many clubs, Frost Creek has a spectacular clubhouse and restaurant, onsite golf, tennis, sport court, pool, gym and spa— but how many clubs also feature Frisbee golf, bocce, croquet, cornhole and a slack line right next to pool? Forget the X-Box in the pool house. It’s been replaced with ping-pong, shuffleboard and less sedentary forms of entertainment. There’s yoga on the 10th tee at 9 a.m. An archery course will open soon, as will two yurts for glamping.

“Think of whatever you can, and the answer is going to be yes,” says President/ General Manager Mike Gibbs. coloradoavidgolfer.com

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hits that awesome sweet spot between a lot of adventure—a lot of challenge, a lot of freedom—and being safe. As a mom, I don’t want them to be overly safe, but I want to know there are guardrails around. The last words on the notice requiring members to sign a waiver prior to sledding on the driving range encapsulates it: ‘Thank you and have a blast.’”

The activities span the ages of her children. “There’s something for everybody.

The 40,000-square-foot clubhouse provides an impressive yet casual spot to meet, eat and entertain.

The new model is clearly working.

Frost Creek signed up 135 members last year, more than quintupling its membership.

A low barrier to entry helped that number as well, attracting many 35- to 45-yearold couples with children. Eagle County property owners could join for a $20,000 initiation and $7,500 in annual dues, while anyone outside the county paid $15,000 and $5,000. Although both initiations have respectively inched up to $25,000 and $20,000, they’re still less than half of those of their closest Vail Valley competitor.

When guests come to play the Weiskopf course and hear the cost of membership, “they pick their jaws up off the greens and can’t sign up fast enough,” laughs Gibbs, recognizing his good fortune.

He adds that Frost Creek also sold 20 of its existing 68 lots last year. These start at $150,000 and range from four to ten acres on a variety of spectacular settings: from elevated sites with expansive views to secluded along the banks of Brush Creek and more.

A homesite purchase comes with a $7,500 Sport Membership, which purchasers can upgrade to full golf. Many of the members—including many people from the Front Range—stay in the five luxuriously coloradoavidgolfer.com

The setting allows kids, adults and families to connect with what makes the mountains special.

appointed cabins on property that sleep eight and rent for $300 to $400 per night.

One of them, Ann Ayers of Denver, recently joined with her husband, Mark Ritacco, and their four sons, ages 5-10. “We just signed right up,” she says. “It was the right fit immediately. The only thing we had to think about was the extra 30 minutes from Vail, but the view and the fun and the peacefulness are worth the time. It’s a little off the beaten path but it’s so worth the investment of time and money.”

Ayers, who grew up in Colorado and Wyoming, loves the wilderness, while her husband, an East Coaster, also found the club’s dazzling 40,000-square-foot clubhouse appealing. They enjoy the mix of ages among the members—“some our age, some our parents’ age”—all of whom they’ve found “extremely friendly.”

What ultimately sold them was the experience their kids could have. “The club

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They make it challenging at every age level; it’s not like they have to ‘grow into’ something.”

This winter, she plans to use the Frost Creek shuttle to have the kids participate in Beaver Creek’s BEAVO development program.

“The club really means it when they say they want to create a special place for members and their families,” she says.

With membership increasing so rapidly, has the club experienced growing pains?

“It’s no longer my own private Idaho,” jokes Eagle’s Jeff Brausch, an Adams Mountain member for four years before the sale. “That’s a good thing. We had all these facilities and nobody to use them. Additional people bring additional energy.”

Brausch and his wife, Kelli, love to entertain in the clubhouse, and play golf often. “You can put a golf club anywhere but you can’t put it with all those amenities,” he points out. “Most of the original members were there for the golf. But when you have a lot of families, not everyone’s going to be a golfer. There’s just an unlimited amount of activities.”

He applauds Gibbs and Activities Director Carrie Geddes for the expanding menu of activities that keep him, his wife, Kelli, and their three teenagers more than occupied. “Some might wonder if they’re trying to do too much,” he says. “Too much?

It’s Colorado, man. Too much is what we do!”

Frost Creek Club 1094 Frost Creek Drive, Eagle 970-328-2326; frostcreek.com July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

“It’s Nothing Short Of Spectacular” -Colorado Avid Golfer

Colorado’s Mountain Club

1,100 Acres Of Endless Adventure

5 Miles Of Private Fishing Waters

E A G L E, C O L O R A D O FOR MEMBERSHIP, REAL ESTATE AND GENERAL INQUIRIES VISIT: WWW.FROSTCREEK.COM

•

CALL: 970.328.2326

Luxury Member Cabins

Year-Round Activities For All Ages

Surrounded by thousands of acres of ranch land and protected mountain wilderness, Frost Creek is the perfect haven to get active, or get away from it all. Fly fish in pristine rivers, hike and bike scenic trails, tee off for a round on our award-winning golf course, and enjoy easy access to everything you have come to expect from the Rocky Mountains. Spacious overnight cabins make membership an affordable alternative to mountain home ownership.

Are you ready to explore?

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vail valley, beaver creek

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Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch

Red Sky Golf Club

IN WOLCOTT, WEST of Vail, the private Red Sky Ranch & Golf Club offers alternate-day resort access to its premier Tom Fazio- and Greg Norman-designed courses. The Norman is the more challenging of the two layouts, but both will test your green-reading ability. To get help, visit Red Sky Golf Academy, directed by former PGA Tour golfer Larry Rinker. It features an extensive putting and short-game area as well as full-swing analysis using state-of-the-art video analysis. Red Sky offers stay-and-play packages at more than 30 Vail-area lodging partners. redskygolfclub.com

Rock Your Room Stay and Eat ELIGIBLE BACHELOR: Tucked between Beaver Creek and Arrowhead, The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch cossets guests with 180 spacious rooms and suites, indulgent bedding and glorious views. Its 21,000-square-foot spa boasts 19 treatment rooms, a luxurious manicure/pedicure salon and a customcurated spa menu. Tee times at Red Sky Golf Club, personalized naturalist programs, fly-fishing and river rafting are all right outside.ritzcarlton.com GET BUFFALOED: “Refined but relaxed” describes the Ritz-Carlton’s dining options: Buffalos dishes Colorado specialties; Daniel’s serves barbecue-smoked meats; and everyone seems to love the mix of foods at The Grill. ritzcarlton.com DINE HAUTE: Located in Red Sky Golf Club’s Member Clubhouse, Silver Sage Restaurant opens to nonmembers daily after 5 pm. redskygolfclub.com coloradoavidgolfer.com

OLD-WORLD CHARM endures at The Arrabelle at Vail Square, where timeless European elegance meets all the conveniences of modern life, including a spa and rooftop pool, in the heart of Vail. Lodging options range from 81 plush rooms and suites with fireplaces and bespoke appointments to 22 luxury residences with jet tubs and upto five bedrooms. Want more rooms or privacy?

The Arrabelle also features premier chalets and private homes for those desiring one-of-a-kind accommodations and seclusion. arrabelle.rockresorts.com

The Arrabelle at Vail Square

SIXTY COZY GUEST ROOMS with rich pine touches, oversized beds and luxurious linens await at The Pines Lodge at Beaver Creek. In-room botanical spa massages add to the experience, as does dinner at The Pines’ celebrated Grouse Mountain Grill, where superb cuisine and an extensive wine list come with equally sublime views. pineslodge.rockresorts.com A CHIC OPTION is The Osprey at Beaver Creek, an intimate 45-room boutique hotel mixng clean, modern designs and sophisticated alpine décor. Its Osprey Lounge serves tapas and cocktails, while the Grill spans the gastronomic gamut—from truffle fries to elk tenderloin. A steam room, hot tub and pool complete the package. ospreyatbeavercreek.rockresorts.com

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

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vail valley, beaver creek

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Lodge and Spa at Cordillera

Stay and Play LUXE LODGING: Inspired by a Belgian chateau, the 56-room Lodge and Spa at Cordillera perches on a mountaintop above the magnificent Vail Valley and Sawatch Range. Amenities include an awardwinning spa, indoor/outdoor pool and hot tubs, private Orvis-guided fly-fishing on the Eagle River and exclusive access to all four Cordillera courses. cordilleralodge.com

The Club at Cordillera

MANAGED BY TROON as part of its Troon Privé network, The Club at Cordillera ranks as Colorado’s most extensive golf property. Its 7,000 acres feature a trio of championship 18-hole courses—Valley (designed by Tom Fazio), Mountain (Hale Irwin) and Summit (Jack Nicklaus)—that traverse three distinct microclimates, climbing from 7,100 to 9,200 feet above sea level. Each course has its own clubhouse and restaurant. Troon now also manages the nine-hole Dave Pelz Short Course, a perky par-27 unlike any executive course you’ve played. cordillera-vail.com

Eat and Learn AFTER A ROUND at any of Cordillera’s three courses, you don’t have to go far for a scrumptious meal. The Valley, Mountain and Summit courses each has its own fine-dining experience: The Chaparral (Valley) TimberHearth (Mountain) and Summit (Summit). cordillera-vail.com SPANISH FOR “VIEWPOINT,” Mirador overlooks the Sawatch range from the lobby of the Lodge and Spa at Cordillera. The AAA four-diamond restaurant sources produce and meat from local farms and ranches to deliver haute farm-to-fork experiences along with great wine selections. cordilleralodge.com

Mirador

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

SCORE BETTER by attending short game guru Dave Pelz’s Scoring School, which will return to Cordillera this August with one-, two- and three-day clinics, each focusing on different aspects of the scoring aspects of the game: putting, chipping, pitching, wedge and sand play. Students can arrange stays at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera. pelzgolf.com

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Betty Ford Alpine Gardens

STOP AND SEE THE FLOWERS: Covering five acres with nearly 3,000 alpine species, the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens aims to be “the premier alpine botanical garden in the world” by presenting and preserving species of trees, plants and flowers indigenous to alpine, high-alpine and other fragile mountain environments around the world, including the Himalayas. Located in Ford Park on the South Frontage Road. bettyfordalpinegardens.org coloradoavidgolfer.com

GREG NORMAN COURSE – HOLE #4 – PAR 5 – 517 YARDS

ISN’T IT AMAZING HOW

7,770 FEET CAN TAKE YOU A WORLD AWAY

STAY & PLAY AMERICA’S #1 RATED MOUNTAIN GOLF CLUB BOOK NOW AT 800-587-4691 OR VISIT REDSKYGOLFCLUB.COM In the heart of the Colorado Rockies, both the Tom Fazio and Greg Norman designed courses are consistently ranked in Golfweek and Golf Digest’s top courses you can play. Enjoy a round at this coveted club, coupled with lodging at Beaver Creek and Vail. Stay & Play from $238*.

*Stay & Play rates include lodging and greens fees. Minimum length of stay and blackout dates may apply. Starting at rates are based on double occupancy at The Pines Lodge; lodging rates may vary per property.

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vail valley, beaver creek

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Park Hyatt Beaver Creek

Stay and Play HIGH LIFE: Mountain adventures await at the 190-room Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort and Spa. The perfect base for days of golf, hikes, rafting, fly-fishing, bike riding or just chilling, the hotel features dining at 8100 Mountainside Bar & Grill, s’mores from outdoor fire pit, swimming, hot tubs and 30,000-square-foot Allegria Spa. beavercreek.hyatt.com Beaver Creek Golf Club

DESIGNED BY ROBERT Trent Jones Jr., Beaver Creek Golf Club bobs and weaves along tight fairways and across rushing creeks and streams, beginning with a downhill plunge and climbing back at the end.

The course only allows nonmember play before June 15 and after September 16. That is, unless you’re a lodging guest at one of the dozens of Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch or Arrowhead properties. Stay-andplay packages start at $199 and get snapped up fast. beavercreek.com

Eat and Drink YOU DON’T HAVE to be a member to dine at the private Country Club of the Rockies in Edwards, home of the elegant Vista at Arrowhead, where nightly performances by Micky “Piano Man” Poage accompany impeccable Colorado Cuisine. vista-arrowhead.com CRAFT BEER FANS can now down pints and eat grub at Vail Brewing Company (vailbrewingco.com) in Avon as well as Vail. In Edwards, Crazy Mountain Brewing (crazymountainbrewery.com)—which recently took over the Breckenridge Brewing’s Kalamath space in Denver— doubles as a crazy pub, while another Edwards spot, Gore Range Brewing (gorerangebrewery.com) pours only sublime suds.

Vista at Arrowhead

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

CELEBRATE THE OLD West with steaks, wild game, seafood and a custom kid’s menu. More than a restaurant, SaddleRidge is a living museum with frontier artifacts such as Buffalo Bill’s desk and General Custer’s hat and canteen. saddleridgebeavercreek.com

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Frost Creek Club

KICK THE TIRES: Membership sales are going gangbusters at Frost Creek Club, which blows up the conventional club model by offering onproperty access to every imaginable mountain activity—from mountain biking to fly-fishing to archery to glamping—as well as a Jeep to explore the surrounding wilderness. Take a peek during a stay in one of five luxury cabins and a round on the Tom Weiskopf-designed course. frostcreek.com coloradoavidgolfer.com

NATURAL BEAUTY AT PLAY

With a course designed to highlight the spectacular high-alpine surroundings, the Beaver Creek Golf Club offers a mountain golf experience like no other. Known for narrow, challenging fairways and stunning scenery, the course designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., sits high above sea level – for a chance at record-setting drives. And equally thrilling views just beyond the greens.

THE ULTIMATE MOUNTAIN GOLF EXPERIENCE Our Stay & Play packages combine upscale lodging and exclusive golf access.

Starting at $199 per person.*

beav ercr eek.com / staya ndpl ay

*Beaver Creek Stay & Play rates include lodging and greens fees. Minimum length of stay and blackout dates may apply.

Starting at rates are based on double occupancy at The Pines Lodge; lodging rates may vary per property.

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vail valley, beaver creek

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VAIL GOLF CLUB

Fun in the Sonn

Sonnenalp Hotel

THE RENOWNED Sonnenalp Hotel epitomizes the mix of alpine adventure and timeless European elegance that sets Vail apart. Its intimately elegant lobby exudes hospitality, as does its Bully Ranch Restaurant and King’s Club bar. Having recently completed upgrades to its historic spa and guestrooms, the Bavarian-inspired resort has also burnished stay-and-play deals at its semi-private Sonnenalp Club—the 7,074-yard, par-71 layout located 15 minutes west of the hotel that twice hosted the Colorado Open. Starting at $555 for a one-round-per-one-night stay, guests also get 50% off on an additional round the same day and other perks. sonnenalp.com

Walk, bike or drive a 4:07 pace of play Rounds starting at $79 with cart 10 round pass starting at $450

ALL VAIL is buzzing about Sonnenalp Club’s spanking new, 14,000-square-foot Health and Fitness facility with the floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the Bob Cupp-Jay Morrish-designed golf course and what seems like the entire Vail Valley. The center brilliantly complements the club’s new restaurant, Harvest by Kelly Liken.

She is the celebrity chef whose namesake Vail restaurant remains one of the valley’s toughest tables to get. sonnenalpclub.com

Priority Vail FIRST COURSE: Opened 53 years ago on the village’s eastern edge, the municipal Vail Golf Club pioneered the game in the high country. At 6,740 yards, it remains one of the few truly walkable mountain layouts, though carts and golf bikes add speed and fun to any round.

The enforced 4:07 pace of play keeps things moving.

Construction of the new clubhouse is on pace for completion at the end of the golf season. Its $11 million price tag has already exceeded the $4 million budgeted, but in the words of Mayor Dave Chapin, “This is Vail.

We need a world-class facility. It’s what our guests expect.” vailrec.com COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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Sonnenalp Club

GET JAZZED: From now until September 8, the Vail Jazz Festival will provide the soundtrack to the Town of Vail. Five distinctive series will take place at four different venues, each offering unmatched intimacy and the chance to rub shoulders with legends of jazz history. vailjazz.org EN POINTE: From July 30 to August 13, the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater hosts performances of the Vail International Dance Festival and this year’s Artist-in-Residence, Isabella Boylston of the American Ballet Theatre. vvf.org coloradoavidgolfer.com

9 A M TEE TIME C U S TOM CL UB FIT T ING 6 0 -MIN UTE S W EDISH M A SSA GE S U N S ET COCKTA ILS ON T HE BA CK LAW N

HIT THE LINKS IN LUXURY at the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort and Spa Pack your golf clubs and discover the natural beauty and exhilarating design of golf in the Rocky Mountains. If you love the game of golf, Beaver Creek Mountain is a refuge for the soul. Beaver Creek Golf Club and Red Sky Ranch offer breathtaking courses designed by legends of the game. To find out more, visit parkhyattbeavercreek.com

The Park Hyatt® trademark and related marks are trademarks of Hyatt Corporation. © 2016 Hyatt Corporation. All rights reserved.

P R IVATE P R O L E SSON

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Swinging and Savoring 27 HOLES AND A FOOTNOTE: Ten minutes east of Vail, in a mountainside carved by the Eagle River, lies EagleVail Golf Club, a Bruce Devlin / Robert Van Haage design with six along the river holes, six through a neighborhood and six up the mountain—including the 197-yard 10th, which plunges 185 feet from tee to green. For kicks, try FootGolf at EagleVail’s 9-hole par-3 Willow Creek course.

How hard could it be to kick a 8.65-inch soccer ball into a 21-inch diameter cup? The same as hitting a 1.68-inch golf ball into 4.25-inch diameter hole. The ratios are identical. eaglevailgolfclub.com SAVOR VAIL: For those who see the world foodfirst, the three-hour, walking Vail Valley Food Tour combines eating delicious, gourmet cuisine with the fun lunch activity of learning about Vail’s history and people. Tickets are $85 ($115 with alcohol pairings). The company also offers a taxied craft-brewery tour from 3 to 6 Thursdays and Fridays ($65-$95). vailvalleyfoodtours.com NICE OUTFIT: Satisfy your outdoor appetites without lugging the gear. Sage Outdoor Adventures? The Vail outfitter offers whitewater rafting on the Arkansas, Eagle and Colorado rivers; Can-Am ATVing the Castle Peak Wilderness Area; horseback trips into the Vail backcountry; and sporting clays with lessons, gear and 12-station range. sageoutdooradventures.com

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

Mountain Biking

Bicycle Kicks GONDOLA ONE in Vail Village and Eagle Bahn in Lionshead deliver you and your fat-tired friend to a latticework of 10 on-mountain trails ranging in difficulty from green to blue, and seven highly technical, freeride trails that only experienced, properly equipped and padded riders should attempt. Gondolas run daily through Labor Day, then on Fri.-Sun. until October 2. Get rates, trail maps and more at vail.com/summer.

ALMOST 60 MILES of paved recreational bike paths ribbon through Eagle County. For an easy to moderate road ride, the paved Vail Recreation Path runs along the banks of Gore Creek in Vail and stretches through the Vail Valley. Winding down from East Vail, the path crosses through Vail Village and then continues west down the valley through Dowd Junction, then onto Avon and Edwards. For more of a challenge try the Vail Pass path. The trail is 8.7 miles, stretching from East Vail to the top of Vail Pass with the elevation gain of 1,831 feet. More advanced cyclists prefer riding US 24 to Leadville and US 6 near Wolcott, just minutes from Vail. vail.com/summer

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coloradoavidgolfer.com

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On the Move

Epic Discovery

WANT TO KNOW where the fish are biting? For more than 35 years, Gore Creek Fly Fishermen have guided first-timers and seasoned pros to the best spots on Gore Creek and the Eagle and Colorado rivers. From half-day wades on small intimate waters to full-day floats down the mighty Colorado and everything in between, your guide can customize your trip. gorecreekflyfisherman.com ZIP, FLOP FLY. You and your kids can do these and more at Epic Discovery on Vail Mountain.

An Ultimate Adventure Pass ($89) to the ultimate playground includes everything from the Golden Eagle Zipline to the Gore Range Adventure Course to Eagle’s Nest Tubing, the Forest Flyer, Bungee Trampoline and Marmot Mini Tubing. vail.com

Longest Season, BEST VALUE Open March–December GypsumCreekGolf.com

970-524-6200 COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

LIKE TO HIKE? Vail’s well-marked trail network can take you deep into the wilderness, past waterfalls and across streams, often culminating at beautiful lakes. The 10-mile Eagle Valley Regional Trail runs the length of the valley. Download a map at vail.com.

Golf and Go HIGH COTTON: Located 35 miles west of Vail, Gypsum Creek Golf Course may hold the key to growing the game: Fun Free Fridays. From 6 to 8pm, newbies can spend two hours learning the fundamentals in a free-spirited atmosphere. Also fun is the course once known as Cotton Ranch, which has since flipped its original Pete Dye-designed routing, building up to the more dramatic holes (the current island-greened 14th, mesa-topping 611-yard 15th and straight-downhill 164-yard 17th). Gypsum Creek’s southern-style clubhouse features the fare of the Creekside Grill. gypsumcreekgolf.com

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Gypsum Creek Golf Course

IN CONCERT: Beaver Creek’s Vilar Performing Arts Center never fails to bring out the stars. Among this summer’s performers: Neko Case/ k.d.lang / Laura Viers (July9), Robert Cray (July 18), Boz Scaggs (July 20), Mark Cohn (July 24), Chris Isaak (Aug. 7), Keb’ Mo’ (Aug13) and Michael McDonald (Aug. 27). vvf.org.

RIDE ’EM: On Thursday nights through Aug. 11, you can thrill to bronc and bull riding, team roping and barrel racing at the 15th Annual Beaver Creek Rodeo Series. Arrive early so the kids can try mutton bustin’, burro racing and the calf scramble. beavercreek.com coloradoavidgolfer.com

Stay & Play Group Golf Package starting at

$397 per night per person*

ŠEmbrace Life Photography

A C OLORADO ALL SEASO NS MOUNTAI N RESORT ŠEmbrace Life Photography

There is no other golf experience in the world that compares to Cordillera. Four exclusive, world-class courses created by four of the world's greatest golf course designers. Each course is as unique as the character of its architect and landscape. Golf at Cordillera is exclusive to members and Lodge guests only. We invite you to come to Cordillera and challenge golf's finest foursome of designer courses.

The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, inspired by a Belgian chateau, is set high atop a private mountain with magnificent views of the Vail Valley and Sawatch Range. The Lodge offers a truly unmatched resort experience, featuring 56 rooms, three championship golf courses, two restaurants and over 7,000 acres of Rocky Mountain wilderness offering endless activities for enjoyment any time of the year. With over 5,000 square feet of flexible indoor and outdoor meeting space and an award-winning 20,000 square feet spa, the Lodge provides guests with a retreat experience. Embrace the elegance of this intimate lodge and see why The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera continually earns accolades for its exemplary service delivering an authentic Rocky Mountain experience. The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera is located in the town of Edwards, just 2 hours from Denver and conveniently located 15 minutes from Beaver Creek Ski Resort and 25 minutes from Vail Ski Resort. We are approximately 135 miles west of Denver International Airport and approximately 25 miles east of Eagle County Airport.

2205 Cordillera Way | Edwards, Colorado 81632 | 970-926-2200 | cordilleralodge.com

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Aspen Art Museum

Check it Out BASKET CASE: Japanese architect Shigeru Ban based his woven-wood design for the Aspen Art Museum on transparency and open view planes—inviting those outside to engage with the building’s interior, and providing those inside the opportunity to see their exterior surroundings.

The contemporary art inside is as intriguing as the building housing it. aspenartmuseum.org Aspen Golf Club

FEW CITY-OWNED COURSES rival the beauty of Aspen Golf Club, which is why Golfweek has ranked the 7,165-yard Frank Hummel design the state’s #1 municipal layout. Located two miles from downtown Aspen in the heart of the Roaring Fork Valley, the parkland course features water on all but four holes and jaw-dropping views of the Continental Divide, Pyramid Peak, Mt. Hayden, Independence Pass, Hunter Creek Valley and Aspen Mountain and Buttermilk mountains. aspengolf.com

Play Time DEDE CUSIMANO, a 20-year Class A LPGA teaching professional and winner of a CAGGY Award as Best Instructor for Women, heads up the Aspen Golf Club Academy, teaching men and women of all ages and skill levels. aspengolf.com ADRENALINE RUSHES abound at Snowmass Bike Park, where downhill biking trails weave the nearly 3,000-foot descent from the top of the Elk Camp Chairlift to the Snowmass Village base. The park also connects to more than 50 miles of cross-country tracks. Expert rider? Hit the twisting, aspen-laden Valhalla, Viking and Vapor trails. aspensnowmass.com

Snowmass Bike Park

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

PACK A PICNIC LUNCH and head to the Ajax— the 11,200-foot summit of Aspen Mountain—via the Silver Queen Gondola. Savor the views of the breathtaking Elk Mountains during a hike along wildflower-lined trails. Play a round on North America’s highest disc golf course or enjoy a Sunday bluegrass concert.aspensnowmass.com

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The Monarch

PRIME SPOTS: As you can imagine, Aspen’s dining scene sizzles with choices. The intimate No. 316 ties with The Monarch for best steakhouse. Both reflect decidedly distinct yet equally superb levels of sophistication and service.

Head to The Wild Fig for the aromatic charms of a European brasserie (and superb Steak Frites), or to CP Burger for a stacked Summit Burger or a healthy, hearty Kale Salad. cprestaurants.com coloradoavidgolfer.com

Vail’s Most Iconic Hideaway Stay and Play packages at the Sonnenalp include golf at the renowned Sonnenalp Club Call 800-654-8312 or visit www.sonnenalp.com to book

Official Vehicle of the

20 Vail Road,Vail, Colorado 81657 800-654-8312 • 970-476-5656 www.sonnenalp.com | info@sonnenalp.com

aspen SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Ranked the #1 Best U.S. Municipal Golf Course in Colorado

by Golfweek Magazine

Nestled in the Heart of the Rockies and Located Just Two Minutes from Downtown Aspen

- Over 7,200 Yards of Breathtaking Views - Golf Shop with the Latest Brands & Equipment - Chipping, Putting & Pitching Greens - Exceptional Dining at the Red Mountain Grill - Lessons Are Available

- 6 Clay Tennis Courts - Golf Club Rentals - 7 Sets of Tee Boxes - Locker Rooms - Practice Range

ASPENGOLF.COM | 9704291949 | 39551 HIGHWAY 82

GET HIGH with us this summer!

For Special MOUNTAIN GOLF Packages, RESORT DEALS, and WEEKEND GETAWAY Ideas visit today!

coloradoavidgolfer.com COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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J Bar

What To Do ISN’T IT ICONIC?: The term iconic gets tossed about far too liberally these days, but it certainly applies to the Hotel Jerome (hoteljerome.com) and The Little Nell (thelittlenell.com)—both of which quintessentially define the Aspen experience. The ambiences at their respective J Bar and Ajax Tavern certainly serve to enhance their iconic qualifications.

Chef’s Club by Food & Wine

FOODIE CENTRAL: The Food & Wine Classic in Aspen sells out every June, but you can enjoy the greatest hits at Aspen’s Chefs Club by Food & Wine, a nationally renowned restaurant in the St. Regis Aspen. The seasonal, innovative menu presents recipes curated by select winners of the prestigious Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs Award—all prepared in an open kitchen by the talented Chefs Club team. chefsclub.com/aspen coloradoavidgolfer.com

Presented by

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Keystone Ranch Golf Course

The River Course at Keystone

NIGHT AND DAY is how Keystone PGA Golf Professional Philip Tobias describes the difference between the resort’s two courses. The older Keystone Ranch layout, designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. in 1980, weaves through 7,090 yards of sprawling parkland, lodgepole pines and marshy heath, with two lakes and 68 bunkers factoring in. Opened in 2000, the 6,886-yard Hurzdan / Fry-designed River Course at Keystone climbs and tumbles precipitously through the forested mountainsides and along the Snake River. keystoneresort.com

Resorting to Fun Keys to Success TEE AND EMPATHY: To make its courses more playable for the less powerful, Keystone has shortened the Ranch’s front tees by 700 yards, and created tees that shorten both courses to a spunky 2,200 yards. keystoneresort.com TGIF: Kick off your weekend at Keystone Resort’s Friday Afternoon Club. Gondola up to the Summit House’s Overlook Grill for live music, drink and food specials and free activities like horseshoes, corn hole and more. keystoneresort.com CHOICE DIGS: With more than 800 rooms (including condos and townhomes), multiple award-winning restaurants, a 10,000-square-foot luxury spa and endless acreage for year-round adventures, Keystone Resort makes where to stay an easy decision. keystoneresort.com COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

SUMMER FAMILY PROGRAMMING at Keystone includes summer snow-tubing on Dercum Mountain, Keystone Bike Park’s 100 miles of lift-serviced single-track biking trails and the ever-popular Kidtopia—nature hikes, dodgeball games, interactive kite-building workshops, Wild West nights and other family-oriented activities. keystoneresort.com THE AMAZING Keystone Science School, which turns 40 this year, proudly offers a range of summer camp programs on its 23-acre campus. Varying in duration and topic, the programs balance hands-on science activities, adventure and traditional campstyle fun—all based upon scientific themes of comparative ecology, geology, and wildlife interpretations. keystonescienceschool.org YOU MAY HAVE MISSED last month’s Blue Ribbon Bacon Tour, but plenty of other fests fill the summer: Keystone Wine and Jazz Festival (July 16-17); River Run Village Art Festival (July 30-31); Keystone Bluegrass and Beer Festival (August 6-7); Mountain Town Music Festival (Aug.20); Keystone Oktoberfest (Sept. 3) and Taste of Keystone (Sept. 4) keystonefestivals.com

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Keystone Wine and Jazz Festival

coloradoavidgolfer.com

MORE THAN A GAME, A MOUNTAIN GOLF EXPERIENCE. THE ULTIMATE GOLF GETAWAY IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK.

STAY & PLAY FROM

$153

Discover breathtaking views from our two award-winning courses at Keystone Resort, just a short drive from Denver. Save with package rates including golf and resort accommodations—don’t miss your chance to play 36 holes by acclaimed designers Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Hurdzan-Fry. FOR THE BEST DEALS ON LODGING AND GREENS FEES, VISIT GOLFKEYSTONE.COM | 855-666-7465

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summit county

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Breck Summer Fun Park

What the Breck?

GET OUT: Located at the base of Peak 8 at the Breckenridge Ski Resort, the Breck Summer Fun Park has not only a massive amount of activities (including ziplines, climbing walls, bungee trampolies, super slide and 4x4 tours) but also chairlift-serviced mountain biking and hiking trails topping out at more than 11,000 feet above sea level. gobreck.com Beaver Run Resort and Conference Center

THE PERFECT LOCATION from which to explore Breckenridge, Beaver Run Resort and Conference Center features 515 rooms and suites right at the base of Peak 9, affording summer access to hiking trails zigzagging up the mountainside. You can take the free shuttle or easily hoof it to downtown.

The resort itself boasts swimming, hot tubs, fitness, tennis and the rejuvenating Spa at Beaver Run. Spencer’s and The Coppertop afford deliciously relaxed resort dining. beaverrun.com

Play Time GO KAYAKING. At 1,800 feet long, Breckenridge Kayak Park is the longest in the state and includes 15 water features to challenge all levels of boaters.

Located in the Blue River, it affords an opportunity to learn or practice kayaking skills in a convenient location. townofbreckenridge.com FUEL UP at one of Breck’s many eateries. The refined Hearthstone (hearthstonerestaurant.biz) rates among the best, closely followed by Relish (relishbreckenridge.com), Ember (emberbreck.com) and the delightful Le Petit Paris (lepetitparisbistro. com). And you can’t miss the line at Crêpes à la Cart (crepesalacarts.com). It moves tout de suite.

Crêpes à la Cart

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

TAKE A HIKE to Upper and Lower Crystal Lake near Breckenridge. The 8.6-mile loop, accessible via the Spruce Creek Trailhead, appears on just about every list of memorable Colorado hikes. Hoof past wildflowers and keep your eyes peeled for marmots, mountain goats and bighorn sheep. protrails.com

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Breckenridge Distillery

BOURBON OUTFITTERS: The world’s highest distillery, Breckenridge Distillery is quickly becoming one of world’s best, producing awardwinning bourbons, gins, vodkas and other spirits.

Free tours and tastings begin every half-hour between 11 and 5:30. Plans call for a restaurant to open this summer. There’s also a tasting room /gift shop on Main Street and occasional visitor bottling session. breckenridgedistillery.com coloradoavidgolfer.com

PLAY HARD.REST EASY At Beaver Run Resort—Where Mountain & Town Meet

Photos courtesy of Breckenridge Tourism Office

Come play Breckenridge's 27 hole golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

Escape the heat and play one of the most scenic golf courses in North America. Afterwards, kick back and relax at Beaver Run Resort in the beautiful town of Breckenridge, Colorado.

CALL IN, OR GO ONLINE FOR GREAT SUMMER RATES!

Breckenridge, CO BEAVERRUN.COM 800.288.1282

GOLF & MORE

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The Island Grill

Raven Golf Club at Three Peaks

SET AMID towering pines, lush groves of aspen, grassy wetlands and trout-filled lakes, the 7,413-yard Raven Golf Club at Three Peaks perches more than 9,000 feet above sea level and affords views of three 13,000-foot peaks. Tom Lehman teamed up with Dana Fry and Michael Hurdzan to create this mountain masterpiece just three miles north of the interstate in Silverthorne. Ample fairways, furrowed bunkers and true, undulating greens make for an exhilirating alpine golf experience. ravenatthreepeaks.com

Chillin’ in Dillon Frolicking in Frisco CANTINA AT THE MARINA: A hopping spot offering island fare, a mountain vibe and live music every Friday night, The Island Grill serves sensational tropical cocktails on its deck adjacent to the Frisco Bay Marina on Lake Dillon. islandgrillfrisco.com GET BIG AIR: The Frisco Adventure Park flat-out rocks. For one, it’s free. For two (as in wheels) there’s a bike park with a slopesyle course, dirt jump track and dual slalom course. A skate park, disc golf course, wagon rides and miles of Lake Dillon shoreline that offers secluded hiking and biking on forest service land. townoffrisco.com SUP, DUDE: Rent stand-up paddleboard, kayak, canoe, runabout, fishing boat or sailboat at the Frisco Bay Marina. townoffrisco.com/play COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

WATCH THE SAILBOATS race August 5-7 on Lake Dillon, home of Dillon Open Regatta hosted by the Dillon Yacht Club (dillonyachtclub.com) and benefitting its Junior Sailing program. Dillon Marina offers boat rentals, sailing instruction and races.

You can also rent grill-equipped pontoon boats, stand-up paddleboards (with or without a yoga mat) and kayaks. dillonmarina.com THROW BACK a Rum Runner or microbrew on the killer deck at Pug Ryan’s Lakeside Tiki Bar, located at the Dillon Marina and serving burgers, salads and more from a 28-foot mobile kitchen. pugryans.com ENJOY LIVE outdoor music every Friday and Saturday night at the Dillon Amphitheater on the lake. Sit on the grass watching the sun setting over the water and the Ten Mile and Gore Mountain ranges in the background. townofdillon.com CHOW DOWN at Arapahoe Cafe and Bonnie Q BBQ (arapahoecafe.com), home of great breakfasts and ’cue; or try the upscale pizzas, burgers and more at the rustic Red Mountain Grill (redmountaingrill. com) or the Dillon Dam Brewery (dambrewery.com).

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Dillon Open Regatta

coloradoavidgolfer.com

NATURE HAS CHOSEN ITS COURSE. FOLLOW HER LEAD.

Just one hour west of Denver, the hum of the city gives way to the stillness of one of Colorado’s premier mointain courses. Its spectaulas setting and unsurpassed service is matched only by the challenging, yet eminently playable Tom Lehman and Hurdzan/Fry design. Lush rolling fairways surrounded by towering stands of pine and aspen, snow-capped peaks and grassy wetlands attract many of Colorado’s indigenous populations. Fortunalely…elk, osprey and eagles make for a quiet gallery.

970.262.3636 www.ravenatthreepeaks.com 2929 N Golden Eagle Road Silverthorne, CO 80498

GOLF & MORE

SUMMERFUN

On the Move SOUNDBITES AT THE

DILLON AMPHITHEATRE Free Music & Food Festival Nights FRIDAY & SATURDAY June 24 - Sept. 10 | 7-9pm

FRIDAY FARMERS MARKET

Buffalo Street & Main Street June 10 - Sept. 16, 9am – 2pm Enjoy the harvests of the season with Colorado grown, farm fresh fruits, veggies, baked goods, free kids activities & live music.

DANCE NIGHTS

Sunset Swing Dancing & Lessons* June 14 – Aug. 23, Tue., 6:00pm Country Dancing & Lessons with Tex DeGarie* June 15 – Aug. 25, Wed., 6:00 pm *Suggested Donation $5

DILLON MARINA

North America’s Highest Deep Water Marina.

970.468.5100 | DillonMarina.com Boat Rentals, Sunset Sailing Tours, ASA g, School and Stand-Up Paddle Board Rentals.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

FOR DILLON THIS SUMMER 970.468.2403 | TownofDillon.com Follow us on Facebook DillonColorado

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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Copper Mountain

A SEVEN-MINUTE DRIVE separates Frisco and Copper Mountain, site of North America’s highest 18-hole layout, Copper Creek Golf Course.

Other high-altitude activities await at the top of The American Eagle chairlift, such as Go Karts, Bumper Boats, Hydro Bikes, Diggler scooters and more. Pair lunch at Solitude Station with gorgeous views of the Ten Mile Range. coppercolorado.com DINING AROUND Frisco and at Copper Mountain presents a buffet of choices. Copper favorites include Incline (inclinegrill.com), CB Bar & Grille and JJ’s Rocky Mountain Tavern (both coppercolorado.com), while folks in Frisco head to FoodHedz (foodhedz.com), The Lost Cajun (see page 35) and the new Tavern West (tavernwestfrisco.com). The Butterhorn Cafe (butterhornbakery.com) remains a Frisco favorite for breakfast.

FISHING STORY: Want to fish Lake Dillon? It requires a fishing license. Most guides streamline the process of getting one. fishdillon.com

Ride, Walk, Float CYCLING THROUGH: The bike route between Dillon and Frisco is the ultimate easy cruiser ride across Dillon Dam. The 13-mile round trip ride climbs only 550 feet on short rolling bike path hills. The trip from Dillon to Keystone is twice the distance but an easy, scenic ride along the Snake River Rec Path. Feeling more ambitious? Pedal the 18-mile loop around Lake Dillon, which starts at the Dillon Amphiteater, ascends via a dedicated climbing lane up Swan Mountain and rewards you with stunning views from Sapphiire Point.

Download trail maps and suggested routes—including a Mount Evans “hill climb” at summitbiking.org

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Lake Dillon

BY FOOT OR FAT TIRE: 200 miles of hiking trails and dazzling wildflowers crisscross the White River National Forest surrounding Dillon. There are also 150 miles of mountain bike trails, 100 miles of Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) trails and 55 miles of paved, non-motorized pathways, connecting towns and resorts throughout Summit County. townofdillon.com.

BOOK NOW: On select mornings through Aug. 28, enjoy mountain views and fun facts during the popular “Explore Lake Dillon,” a 90-minute pontoon boat tour from Dillon Marina. $30/$15 per adult /child. townofdillon.com coloradoavidgolfer.com

Mountain Magic > Few things are more magical than a mountain town.

By a lake. With a charming Main Street.

With 5 golf courses within 20 minutes.

Rentals.

Runabouts. Fishing boats. Fishing poles. Pontoons.

Canoes. Kayaks. Stand up paddleboards.

Classic boat tours.

Sandy beach and playground.

Food and libations with waterside views.

Check us out. FriscoBayMarina.com

photo: toddpowell.com

PHOTOGRAPH BY TANJA MELONE

T

Nat

DEEP THREAT: Klatt bombs one off the first tee during a friendly round at The Ridge at Castle Pines North.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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coloradoavidgolfer.com

Former CU quarterback and self-professed golf freak Joel Klatt’s rapid rise to the national broadcasting stage has not been as effortless as it appears.

J

BY SAM ADAMS

OEL KLATT’S STAR is shining so brightly on the college football broadcast landscape that he probably could play a round of golf at midnight.

But Klatt, who is FOX Sports’ No. 1 college football television analyst, is settling for playing a morning round with his buddies on the sun-bathed Ridge at Castle Pines North.

Once the foursome is in place, they hop into carts and hurry to get in a few quick practice putts before stepping up to the first tee. Klatt’s rise to fame in the national TV booth make him an easy target for his golf pals—Chuck James, Dave Runyon and Tom Reimann. One playful jab follows another.

Having taken a fair share of hits during his three years as starting quarterback at the University of Colorado, Klatt is equipped to take the verbal blitz.

“Hey Klatt, is it hard to go to the gas station for you, people following you around?” muses James.

They all seem to find great delight in teasing him about wearing black camo pants. Klatt even joins in the banter, adding something about metrosexual golf outfits, manicures and pedicures.

The laughter subsides just long enough for Klatt to remind his partners that they’re playing the “friendly” wager game called Sweat, wherein players can double bets throughout holes.

Second on the tee, Klatt pulls a 3-wood from his bag of Titleists, and launches a drive that drops center cut and deep—about 280 yards—into the fairway of the 472-yard first hole. Runyon and Reimann follow with their tee shots, and James hits a second ball before the

he

ural coloradoavidgolfer.com

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

ARC OF AN ATHLETE: Klatt as a 10-year-old Little Leaguer; 18-year-old Minor Leaguer; CU’s starting quarterback; and NFL football analyst with Randy Moss.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

Legacy Ridge, Bear Creek and Bear Dance are among the many on his list.

“You don’t realize this until you live somewhere else. Colorado is one of—if not the best place in America—for public golf.

And let me tell you, after living three years in L.A. County, which has no good public golf, public golf in the Denver metro area is unbelievable.”

Klatt is a self-taught golfer who approaches the sport much in the manner that he approaches his college football assignments—with diligence and precision.

His television broadcasting career began in 2006, shortly after he lost a job at an investment firm. Denver-based FOX Sports Net Rocky Mountain gave Klatt on-air opportunities. Producers Ken Miller and Benjie Kaze saw right away that he had loads of potential in the studio.

He worked college football and Colorado Rockies’ broadcasts on FSNRM

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and later, Root Sports. He also landed gigs on the local sports talk-radio circuit after an encounter with Denver sports media icon Irv Brown during the Denver Golf Expo.

As Klatt gained notoriety in radio, demo tapes of his television work circulated around the country. He secured a role on FOX’s Big XII studio show, while bugging the show’s execs to let him out of the studio and into a broadcast booth to call a game.

Klatt eventually got his wish.

“It was a Texas Tech-Kansas State game,” Klatt says. “And it so happened that Eric Shanks, the president at Fox Sports, was watching. He liked my call, and all of a sudden the right people started to put me on a path towards where I am today.”

Versatility and knowledge of multiple sports have served Klatt well. He is paired with excitable play-by-play man Gus Johnson for FOX Sports’ lead college football telecasts. His knowledge of golf—“I’m kind of a golf freak,” he admits—earned Klatt a role in the network’s online coverage of last month’s U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club. coloradoavidgolfer.com

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF RITA AND GARY KLATT AND FOX SPORTS

group heads toward their carts.

There’s no masking the competitive nature within Klatt. “I like to win on the golf course, let’s just say that,” he says. “I shot 70 once at Indian Tree. Never broke 70.

Every time I tee it up I’m trying to break 70.”

Klatt has a picturesque golf swing that seems effortless yet powerful. With driver in hand, he hits the ball between 325 and 345 yards. “My strength is length off the tee,” Klatt says. Sounding like the former quarterback that he is, Klatt adds, “I struggle with my scrambling ability.”

His handicap fluctuates between one and six, an admirable range considering the lack of time he is able to spend on the golf course due to family and broadcasting commitments.

“In the fall it’s really tough,” he says.

“If I do play, it’ll be Monday mornings.

Sometimes Sunday afternoons when I get home. That’s my time if I can get out—it’s been hard with two little boys (four-year-old Henry and two-year-old Sam.) In 2013, Klatt, 34, and his wife of 11 years, Sara, moved from Colorado to Manhattan Beach, California. They recently relocated the family to Newport Beach. Still, you can’t take the Colorado out of the boy.

Klatt loves to play golf in his home state and it doesn’t take much to stoke his excitement about the tracks he likes to play: Green Valley Ranch, Colorado National,

“For anyone that has played athletics at any level, the transition into not being an athlete is very difficult. I absolutely dealt with depression— and I dealt with it poorly. I drank too much after I was done playing, which I’d curbed after I quit baseball.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY TANJA MELONE

He played the course earlier this year and called it “straight-forward brutal”— making par on the 18th hole to break 90.

The NFL might seem natural in the broadcast progression for Klatt, but he isn’t interested in making a move at this time.

“Not that the NFL isn’t great, but it’s a totally different sport,” Klatt says. “To me it feels a little bit more corporate. Every environment is similar. In college football, the pageantry and game-day traditions of each fan base and stadium…and the effort of players on a week-in and week-out basis…and the fact that every single game means everything to every person on the field… there’s just nothing like college football Saturdays.”

Klatt played football at Pomona High School and was coached by his father, Gary, who attributes a fear factor as a huge key to success in television for the youngest of his four children.

“He’s afraid to death of failure,” Gary Klatt says. “In fact, he’s his own worst critic. I’ll talk to him after a broadcast and he’ll tell me all the things he did wrong— could have been better with this or that. He’s really afraid to fail, so he prepares fanatically. I almost think it’s a bit of an obsession with him. But it’s really paid dividends for him because he’s been able to show the producers and directors that he’s worked for it and is wellprepared.

“As a result it’s put him in a pretty good position at FOX. “I’ve always been kind of a red-flag guy.

We’re very close, and I’m at stage now where I’m trying to be his ‘keep-his-feet-on-theground’ advisor.”

The senior Klatt advised his son to walk on CU’s football team in 2002, after a career in pro baseball proved unsuccessful. Klatt, who was an all-state infielder in high school, was selected by the San Diego Padres in the 11th round of the 2000 Major League Baseball draft—319th overall. He signed a pro baseball contract and immediately reported to the Padres’ Class A team.

Klatt struggled mightily on the baseball field, and even more so off it. He drank alcohol. Too often and too much. “We went on numerous road trips when Joel was in the minors. He wouldn’t let us see it, but it was obvious that he wasn’t in a healthy place,” Gary Klatt says. “I encouraged him coloradoavidgolfer.com

to go to college and get into a healthier environment.”

The alcoholism reared itself again after Klatt’s football career at CU ended in 2005.

“For anyone that has played athletics at any level, the transition into not being an athlete is very difficult,” Klatt says. “I absolutely dealt with depression—and I dealt with it poorly. I drank too much after I was done playing, which is something I had really curbed after I quit baseball.”

Golf played a huge role in his performance. “I was the complete unknown, so I was very nervous,” Klatt says. “I mean, very nervous. So, in order to relax a little bit, I totally ditched class the Friday before the game, and took my clubs over to Flatirons Golf Course. I played golf and it was really relaxing. I enjoyed myself tremendously. That was kind of the start of my career, but it all started with a round of golf alone that Friday at Flatirons.

“I don’t remember exactly what I shot. I can tell you, as many people might attest to, when their mind is elsewhere they tend to play pretty well. I broke 80, I know that.”

Former CU head football coach Gary Barnett once told Klatt that playing golf would serve him well down the line. Like Klatt, Barnett has turned to broadcasting.

He’ll be 850 KOA’s color analyst for all CU football games this fall. The two stay in constant contact, and play golf together often.

“We’ve played a number of times, but I don’t really have a golf story with Joel that stands out—he might have one that comes to mind quicker,” Barnett says. “I know he beat the pants off of me over at Bear Creek one year, just hammered me, and I vowed that would never happen again. But he hits it so far.

He’s got a great swing.”

“Nothing gets my juices going like trying to beat Coach Barnett,” counters Klatt. “Any time we play golf it’s so much fun.”

After the round at the Ridge, Klatt COMPETE PLAYER: and his pals continue to spar. James, who “I like to win on the golf started the day hitting two off the tee, course, let’s just say that.” won the game of Sweat.

Klatt credits the support of his wife and “He has not let me forget it,” Klatt texts his faith as the instrumental forces which me almost a week later. No smiley-face helped turn his life around. “The main thing emoticon tempers it. Even after a “friendly” I would communicate is, too many times we game, failing to win seems to stir his juices hide from those types of struggles in our for the next time. lives—because we view them as weaknesses,” And there will be a next time. Between Klatt says. “I’ve gone to counseling and I’m now and then, Klatt, a tireless worker, will not ashamed to admit it. The more I’ve hone his game. Driven by a fear of real or gone through, the more I’ve realized that perceived failure, he wants to succeed utterly everybody deals with some amount of pain. at whatever he does. It’s that drive—coupled The more I confronted my own struggles as with a telegenic poise, approachability if they were a competitor on the football field and wide-ranging sports knowledge—that or golf course, the more I found success.” continues to propel his star higher into the Klatt set 44 passing records during his firmament of sports broadcasting. time at CU. The game he recalls vividly was his first college start, in 2003. The sophomore Contributor Sam Adams is an award-winning completed 21 of 34 passes for 402 yards and sportswriter and stand-up comedian. He is the author of If You Don’t Believe Me...Lessons four touchdowns (without an interception) in Learned from Listening to the Greats. This is his a 42-35 win over Colorado State.

24th Colorado AvidGolfer cover story.

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July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

Congratulations to the Winners, Jason Addlesperger and Jamie Gard

THANK YOU to our sponsors and players!

TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT FOR NEXT YEAR’S EVENT please contact Ryan McLean at 720-493-1729 ext.15 or Ryan@ColoradoAvidGolfer.com

COLORADO LAND ROVER RETAILERS

AROUND THE HORN: Clockwise from top left, a Mountain nine vista; fishing along the Eagle nine; the Mountain’s par-3 eighth; The Powder Horn clubhouse; the club pool facility.

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

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Wyoming

WOW W Crouching at the base of the Big Horn Mountains, The Powder Horn in Sheridan embodies the tranquility, hospitality and spirit of the American West. BY JON RIZZI

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE POWDER HORN GOLF COMMUNITY

IDE-OPEN SPACES punctuated by the occasional stand of wind turbines and rock formations define much of the nearly six-hour drive from Denver to Sheridan, Wyoming. Antelopes prance across the vastness north of Cheyenne. Cattle graze and pumpjacks nod all the way through Casper and Buffalo.

But as you exit the interstate towards the verdant Goose Creek Valley, the scenery changes. Wales of irrigated farmland roll into fields alive with horses, Herefords and Holsteins.

And in the near distance, the peaks of the Big Horn Mountains carve the skyline, creating a vista not unlike that of Boulder and the Flatirons from the scenic overlook on U.S. 36.

Homer “Scotty” Scott, Jr. knows both views well. A Sheridan native with a sharp, droll sense of humor, the 81-yearold founder and developer of Sheridan’s magnificent Powder Horn Golf Community earned a football scholarship in 1952 to the University of Colorado. He planned to become a tailback in Dal Ward’s single-wing offense. However, playing behind future CU Athletic Hall of Famer Carroll Hardy and blowing out both knees limited his career to two games. After suffering a compound ankle fracture in an automobile accident, Scotty never got back on the field.

“I thought it was pretty tragic at the

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time,” he explains. “But in hindsight, it was a blessing.”

His athletic endeavors truncated, Scotty pursued degrees in civil engineering and business management. During his years in Boulder, he also found himself checking sites that would make great golf courses, including the bluff overlooking what would decades later become Colorado National Golf Club, CU’s home course.

Scotty had loved the game since his days as a 10-year-old caddie for a local district judge at the now-defunct Sheridan Country Club. He would work summers in the golf shop during high school—that is, once he had finished his chores on the family’s 3,000-acre Padlock Ranch 20 miles north of town.

His father, Homer, Sr., had purchased the ranch when Scotty was eight. Having grown up poor in Lincoln, Neb. Homer, Sr. valued hard work as the key to success.

His diligence, determination and ambition got him through engineering school at the University of Nebraska and advanced him to western district manager of the Peter Kiewit & Sons Construction firm, where he would work for nearly 40 years. During this time, he and his wife Mildred purchased the ranch, bought a bank and instilled an indefatigable work ethic in their five children.

Married with children of his own during the 1960s, Scotty gave up the idea

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THE COURSE Scotty tells his backstory as we sit in a meeting room on the second floor of the rustically elegant 30,000-square-foot stoneand-timber clubhouse that anchors the golf property he and his wife Janet finally decided to develop six miles south of downtown Sheridan in 1993.

What would open four years later as 18 golf holes on 608 acres in the Little Goose Creek Valley has grown to 27 holes on 930 acres. After rejecting a routing by Pete Dye, Scotty hired Scottsdale-based Dick Bailey, a former design partner of the late Jay Morrish, to design all three nines—Eagle, Stag and

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

Mountain—the last of which opened in 2002.

His choice has paid off in the form of hosannas from national golf magazines, which have ranked the course among “The Best Courses Wyoming” (Golf Digest), “America’s Premier Golf Properties” (LINKS) and “Top 100 Modern Courses” (Golfweek).

The differences between The Powder Horn trio are substantial. Eagle, the longest at 3,683 yards, begins as an open, meadow links-type experience, with dramatic vistas from the elevated tees on holes three and four, before turning riparian as it snakes around the willows, cottonwoods, aspens and cattails along Little Goose Creek and the adjacent ponds.

Considered the most difficult nine, the 3,491-yard Stag also plays through the trees and around water. Its 564-yard par-5 3rd, a dogleg-right crossed by three ponds, features a far-right backdoor landing area that can lead to a birdie—or a big wet snowman.

The photogenic par-three 6th, with its red barn crouching behind the elevated green, requires a carry of the diagonally crossing stream. Your humble narrator carded a birdie.

Powder Horn’s regular member’s

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE POWDER HORN GOLF COMMUNITY

of building a golf course “as ridiculous” and followed in his father’s footsteps, which, he says “were way too big.” After 10 years working for Kiewit in Colorado, he, too, became the company’s district manager in Sheridan. A few years later he went into the family business as chairman of First Interstate Bank. “It was a heck of a way to start—at the top,” he says with a smile, “but my training with the Kiewit company enabled me to handle the situation.”

Mainly, he jokes, “I always considered myself the bank’s athletic director.”

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HORN OF PLENTY: The par-4 fourth on the Eagle nine.

group—known as the Bandits—usually plays the above combination during their daily money game. Scotty says he prefers the Mountain, because it’s “about four shots easier than the Stag.”

Traversing some of the highest ground on the property, the 3,443-yard links-style layout also seems to be Scotty’s baby. Each hole bears a Scottish name. “Blink Bonnie” describes the beautiful view of the Little Goose Valley and the Big Horn Mountain Range from the fourth tee; “Deil’s Creel,” or “Devil’s Fishing Basket” describes the demonic carry over the powder horn-shaped lake on the par-3 eighth.

“Most people wonder about ‘Lang Whang,’” Scott muses after we play the 525yard par-5 6th. “Just so you know,” he says with a laugh, “it means ‘good whack.’”

Adding to the Mountain’s Scottish flavor, replica Swilcan Bridges cross burns on the first and seventh holes, complete with plaques, in Scots, celebrating a “guid roon o’ golf wi auld friends.”

A similar sentiment resounds above the fireplace in the clubhouse, where a prominent wood carving of Scotty, Janet and their four children—along with two distinctively dressed golfers and a bagpiper

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raising glasses on a golf course—hangs with the inscription: “A toast to the Old West Tradition and the Auld Scottish Game.”

“FAMILY” AFFAIR As it was to Homer Sr., family is extremely important to the Scotts. The couple and their offspring comprise the Scott Family Council that owns The Powder Horn, Padlock Ranch and, among other holdings, five Perkins restaurants around Wyoming, including the one in Sheridan.

“We consider anyone who works for us part of the family,” Scotty explains. “That

was our M.O. when we ran the banks. We had very little turnover in the operations we’re involved in. Our Perkins manager has been with us 34 years. Loyalty is next to godliness as far as I’m concerned. That’s the way we were raised.”

Loyalty, however, seemed to stand in the way of The Powder Horn moving from a semi-private club to the fully private one most members and consultants thought it should be. “I thought we had a team here that could handle all that,” Scotty admits. “Then my daughter and (Sales Manager) Scott (Sheehan) pushed to bring in Troon Golf.”

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE POWDER HORN GOLF COMMUNITY

BARN BURNER: The par-3 sixth on the Stag nine.

Scotty’s daughter, Sandy Suzor, is The Powder Horn’s sales and marketing director.

“After 21 years of doing it the same way, we had a chance to make something special,” Suzor says. “We’ve already seen cost savings and improvements in efficiency.”

That the world’s largest third-party manager of golf and club operations had as its Executive Vice President of Operations John Easterbrook—a former University of Wyoming golfer whose father coached the Cowboys’ football team—certainly helped smooth the transition from a familymanaged business. He sent in one of Troon’s brightest stars, Robert Kearney, to be the general manager. Scotty calls him a “godsend.”

The club is now completely private—full golf memberships run $4,400 with $450 per month in dues—and its current roster of 220 full golf members have reciprocal play at any of the more than 70 clubs in the Troon Privé private-club network (among them Colorado’s The Club at Cordillera, Club at Crested Butte and Bookcliff Country Club).

Nonmembers can play as part of a $399 per night stay-and-play package in one of The Powder Horn rental pool’s 20 properties (including 12 elegant two- and three-

bedroom cottages). The Powder Horn has also just broken ground on nine 3,330-squarefoot Creekside Cabins near the clubhouse.

It also currently offers a package with the Scott-owned Candlewood Suites in Sheridan.

With no state income tax, Wyoming’s “less taxing, more relaxing” mantra resonates with those looking to escape Colorado’s increasingly crowded and pricey Front Range. More than 510 of The Powder Horn’s 675 currently platted homesites have sold, and houses have sprouted on 230 of those lots.

“And we still have prime areas to develop,” Scotty says. “The PUD calls for 925 units.”

These aren’t all homes for retirees, either. Younger families have bought in The Powder Horn. Kelly Gould, the president of Pascal Public Relations, moved from Denver nine years ago. She, her husband Don and young sons John and Jackson appreciate the wonderful quality of life. “My entire social circle are members there,” she says. “We take up giant tables of 20 at dinner, and the kids run around outside in a safe perimeter.

It’s like living at summer camp, a really wonderful homespun community. In no other place would I have been able to forge this level of friendships.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY FLASH PARKER

HIT THE RANGE: The Big Horns rise up from beyond the grazing lands.

What visitors and residents discover, in addition to fabulous golf, is a welcoming lack of pretention. For example, the club’s Cowboy Bar lets guests “build their own” burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches.

When Scotty orders the latter and the server asks what kind of cheese he would like, he replies: “Melted.”

The Powder Horn’s food is top-notch, as are its two tennis courts, fitness center, pool facility, basketball court and fly-fishing along two private miles of Little Goose Creek. Two miles of nature trails attract joggers and birdwatchers. The nearby Big Horn Mountains, Bighorn National Forest and Cloud Peak Wilderness abound with meadows, streams, alpine lakes and trails brimming with hikers, backpackers, anglers and horseback riders.

Skiers may soon arrive as well. Located 59 miles from Sheridan and shuttered for 15 years, Antelope Butte Ski Area is slated to reopen this winter with a remodeled lodge, 250 skiable acres, 1,000 feet of vertical, three lifts and 23 trails.

SHERIDAN To many Sheridan residents, the lack of world-class skiing is the only thing that

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structure with an Art Deco façade that stages all manner of films, concerts, dance and theatrical performances; Frackelton’s, a dynamite restaurant specializing in highquality steaks, seafood and adventurous pastas; and The Mint, a long, dark, tinceilinged bar with a neon cowboy over the entrance and more than 100 years’ worth of photographs and taxidermy festooning every inch of wall space.

Sheridan, astonishingly enough, even has its own winery. Sourcing grapes and fermenting juices from California and other regions, Weston Winery cellars and blends its own wines, which it sells under the 307 (the state’s area code) label. On June 30, Weston opened its eponymous taproom in an old bank building at 112 Main Street, where it serves 14 wines—as well as cider and mead—on tap and by the bottle. Not only is it surprising that Wyoming produces wines; the wines it produces are surprisingly good.

The 86th Sheridan Wyo Rodeo takes place July 13-16 at the Sheridan County Fairgrounds, highlighted, as always, by the electrifying Indian Relay Races. On Sept. 3, the Cowboy State Elite Rodeo arrives with the sport’s biggest names in action.

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FLY SHERIDAN Air service between Denver International Airport and Sheridan County Airport occurs daily via Denver Air Connection aboard a 30-seat Dornier jet aircraft. Two flights leave in each direction every day, with one being a direct 80 minutes from Sheridan to Denver; the other three require a stop in Riverton, making the total trip 2:18.

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has kept the city from becoming the next Jackson Hole. That cuts two ways.

Although he says he’d like to get into the “same fly zone” as the coveted Wyoming address, Scotty says “you couldn’t pay me to live there. It’s nice to visit but it’s tough if you’re looking for serenity. Plus, they’re at 6,500 feet, so their seasons are shorter than ours and they have less oxygen than we do.”

Sheridan’s location on the Montana border leads to a misperception about the weather. “People think this is the frozen tundra,” Gould says. “But we get these winter Chinooks, and it can climb into the 60s and 70s in January. It feels like the Northwest.”

Sheridan also has more of a connection to The Powder Horn than most cities have to their nearby private enclaves. Having grown up in Sheridan and invested heavily in the community, Scotty justifiably takes great pride in his hometown of 17,500.

A walk down the historic Main Street bears him out. There’s nary an empty storefront or chain establishment. That is, except for the J.C. Penney Company store that has occupied the same modest brick building since 1907.

Other downtown attractions include the 93-year-old WYO Theater, an ornate

international polo also come every July and August to compete in matches at the Flying H Polo Club, one of only three summer venues in the United States to offer high goal polo.

Flying H neighbors the Big Horn Polo Club, founded in 1893 and one of the 10 largest polo clubs in the country.

Both clubs are in the town Big Horn, which is three miles closer to The Powder Horn than downtown Sheridan is.

Big Horn’s Brinton Museum showcases the nation’s largest collection of Western and Native American art, thanks in large part to the new three-story, 24,000-squarefoot Forrest E. Mars, Jr. Building named for the confectionery heir who donated $15.8 million for its construction.

Equally as noteworthy, albeit in a different way, is Big Horn’s bitty Last Chance Saloon. As Wyoming’s oldest bar, it manages legally to maintain a drive-through window where customers can grab one for the road.

“WESTERN PARADISE” Big Horn and Sheridan both invest in making their communities strong, vibrant places to live. The money doesn’t just come from the seven billionaires who live there.

A striking K-12 campus with robust

ART HOUSE: The new Forrest E. Mars Jr. Building at the Brinton Museum.

technology and low student-teacher ratios just earned Big Horn High a U.S. News & World Report distinction as Wyoming’s top high school. The two-year Sheridan Community College will debut its $20 million Whitney Center for the Arts this month. The YMCA is about to build a $15 million aquatic center. Another $6 million in sponsorships and donations has converted the outdoor ice rink into an indoor facility.

“It’s a Western paradise,” Gould says.

“There’s just enough urbanism—hip coffee shops, cool stores—to go along with the surrounding natural beauty. Quality of life is embedded here. It’s like people from their mid-30s to their 50s have discovered the secret to the good life.”

Jon Rizzi is Colorado AvidGolfer’s editor.

For more information on The Powder Horn: thepowderhorn.com; 307-674-9545.

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A Flood of Opportunity Five years after the dikes breached, North Dakota’s Minot Country Club moved to higher ground— and hired Colorado architect Jim Engh to put it on the map. BY JON RIZZI

L PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY JIM ENGH GOLF DESIGN

ANGUAGE, LIKE WATER, flows from one place to another, giving names to places and things and changing the course of history in the process.

Our state’s name derives from the “red-colored” rio colorado— named by 18th Century Spanish explorers. Another Colorado river, the Cache la Poudre, translates to hide the powder, because French trappers stashed gunpowder along the river’s snowy banks. (Today, a powder

DOUBLE-DOG DARE: The Puppy Dog Coulee twice crosses the par-5 third, creating an unseen landing area.

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stash still refers to snow but it now suggests recreation not extermination.)

Further north and east, French trappers also named the Souris River. It curls south from Saskatchewan into North Dakota and back up to Manitoba. As anyone who took high-school French remembers, souris means mouse. Although anglophonic North Dakotans had the name legally changed to the Mouse River 55 years ago, few in the city of Minot call it that.

To them it’s the Souris, identicalsounding to tsuris—an English word appropriated from Yiddish for trouble or distress.

Regrettably, trouble and distress are precisely what Minot residents experienced in June 2011, when the Mouse roared through town. Swollen from fast-melting snowpack and relentless rains, the Souris overflowed its banks. Similar to the 500-year deluge that would decimate parts of Colorado’s Larimer and Boulder counties two years later, North Dakota’s record-setting floods forced mass evacuations and inundated more than 4,100 homes and businesses—among them, Minot Country Club.

Built over rolling river bottoms in 1929

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by Tom (brother of the legendary Harry) Vardon, Minot Country Club had flooded twice before. But this time, the members had had enough. They decided to move to higher ground.

Or at least they did at first. During the three months it took the waters to recede, nostalgia and economics started kicking in, dividing the membership between those who wanted to relocate to a rolling 200-acre site 10 miles east and those who wanted to rebuild the old course in the flood zone.

“It was a very emotional, financially challenging time,” remembers Minot Country Club board member Robert Dick.

“About a third of the city had lost their homes, and a lot of the older members didn’t also want to lose their club.”

Ultimately, both sides got their way.

In 2013, the diehards reopened the original course as a semi-private facility with a FEMA-mandated dike protection program and rechristened it Vardon Golf Club. They bought out the separatists who kept the Minot Country Club name and had already hired North Dakota native Jim Engh to design it.

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A GOOD ENGH GOING For the last 25 years, Engh has made his home and reputation in Colorado with such courses as Sanctuary, Fossil Trace and Pradera. But he still roots hard for the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux and takes pride in the values he learned growing up in Dickinson, some 180 miles southwest of Minot.

Seventy miles closer to Minot than Dickinson, Bismarck Municipal Airport is where Engh and I rendezvous. The wind howls as we stop for a peek at the nationally ranked Hawktree Golf Club, a sprawling stunner Engh carved into a valley just north of the capital city that hints at what awaits in Minot. Hawktree’s clubhouse also hosts the North Dakota Golf Hall of Fame, a wall on which hang photos of Engh and his dad Wally (and one of Minot’s Rudy Zupetz, Sanctuary’s first and only head PGA professional). True to his humble North Dakota roots, the architect deflects any discussion of his honor.

“I’ll let the guys at the club tell the story,” he says when the car conversation returns to Minot Country Club. “It’s pretty incredible what they did. It makes me proud to be from here.”

July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

POTS APLENTY: Seven bunkers surround the par-3 7th.

PAYING THEIR DUES The remarkable narrative begins to unfold as our journey through the high plains ends at a modernist clubhouse seemingly perched on the edge of a cliff. Beyond it, in a valley carved by alluvial glaciers and crisscrossed by the tsuris-free Larson and Puppy Dog Coulees, spread the broad, lush, heaving slopes of a golf course for which Engh says he did “no fewer than a half-dozen reroutings.”

“What we went through, we were going to call this thing dead a number of times,” says club president Mark Hildahl, a dentist who grew up at the original club. Part of the problem owed to the political back and forth with members loyal to the old club, various government agencies and local utilities.

In addition, the club lost half its original site, Dick says, “literally at the 12th hour,”

but eventually the club secured an equally dramatic parcel.

Much of the financing for what would become a $12.5 million project came from the business community, five banks, two foundations, private donors and other sources. Most implausibly, however, 200 members covered more than $1 million by continuing to pay monthly dues despite not having an actual club or course to play for nearly four years.

“It was a leap of faith,” Hildahl says.

“We escrowed the money. They knew we were going to knock this out. Meanwhile, most of us would drive to Bismarck and pay to play Hawktree.” (Minot’s flood-ravaged Vardon and municipal Souris Valley courses reopened in August 2013.)

Dick, Hildale and Engh all praise Head

Superintendent Christopher Strange with working miracles in getting the course ready. Strange, whose pedigree includes jobs at Colorado Golf Club and Sanctuary, served as the project manager during an extremely challenging construction and grow-in phase. The coup de grace came at the course’s grand opening a year ago, when a massive thunderstorm washed away much of the grass and top soil on the par-3 7th.

Strange brought back the hole in days. He’s also now the club’s general manager.

THE COURSE The 7,029-yard course he oversees is echt Engh—an ocular feast defined by idiosyncratic bounces, pot bunkers and quirky greens with surrounds that can both feed and defend a putting surface. To account for wind, the

ONE AND ONLY: A solitary bunker guards the par-4 first hole.

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY BYRON SIEBER (TOP) AND JEANNINE HENEBRY

fairways spread as wide as 130 yards, with mounded shoulders that represent what little earthmoving was done.

“The native ground, the quirks of nature, are cooler than anything I could ever create,” Engh says, looking out towards the undulant expanse of prairie grasses and mature trees into which he sculpted 18 tremendous holes. “There was so much going on here, it would have been overkill to add much more.”

That restraint evinces itself on the first hole, mid-length left-dogleg par 4 from an elevated tee to a kidney-shaped green bent around a deep pot bunker front and center— the only one on the entire hole. A solitary bunker appears on the par 5 that follows.

And none turn up on the number-one handicap hole, the par-5 third defined by the Puppy Dog Coulee, which runs along the right side of the fairway before curling twice across it, suggestive of the burn snaking through Carnoustie’s 18th.

“Because of nature, you get one cool shot after another,” Engh says. The “cool shot” here isn’t carrying the hazard and getting on in two; it’s hitting to a hidden second-shot landing area short and to the right of the second crossing. This area, which from the first landing area doesn’t actually appear to be in play, affords a better angle into the green.

“Ron Whitten said he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything like that before,” Engh says, referring to Golf Digest’s venerable architecture editor. “He meant it in a good way.”

Engh calls the third and sixth his

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severely tiered No. 8 green at Sanctuary, spits back any putt not rolled with authority.

NON-GOLF: COURTESY MINOT CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU; COURSE: CHRISTOPHER STRANGE

favorite holes. The latter—a reachable but uphill par 4 he calls the “catcher’s mitt”— sports three pot bunkers on a fairway that banks hard left, leaving a blind pitch over the hazards. “I love this shot,” he says. “It’s fun.”

Fun defines Engh’s approach to golf.

An acolyte of Irish courses, he prefers the eccentricities of Carne and Enniscrone to the predictability of Royal Portrush, which will host the 2019 Open Championship. The latter, he says, “sits on perfect land for golf. I was bored with it after six holes.”

That won’t happen to players at Minot Country Club because it sits on extreme terrain that’s imperfect for traditional golf, which means it’s perfect for Jim Engh.

Wild topographic slopes may lead to blind shots, uneven lies and tough stances, but they also produce booming drives from elevated tees, speed chutes, hot spots and devilishly circuitous putting lines. Visually intimidating holes—such as the long par-3 7th, cross-sloped par-5 14th (with a tree in the middle of the fairway) and mighty-carry par-4 15—often play easier than they appear.

There’s nothing easy, however, about two longest holes on the course—the backto-back par 5s that close the round.

The penultimate challenge measures 625 yards from the tips and requires a blast off the tee just to reach the fairway. Skirt the trio of wee pot bunkers and the coulee again squiggles through the fairway, splitting it 150 yards in front of the green and forcing the kind of choice that could decide a match.

Another decision waits on the final tee: blind shot to cut the dogleg left, or carry a huge expanse of native to reach the fairway straight ahead? The former can naturally help get you on in two, but if the pin is back, don’t come up short on the approach. The tongue-shaped front, reminiscent of the

NORDIC PRIDE: Statues, structures and symbols stand tall in Minot’s Scandinavian Heritage Park; “gnomes” at the annual Norsk Høstfest (bottom, page 95).

NO REGRETS Engh certainly justified the club’s decision to relocate. As of May, it had 320 members, and discussion about “best in state” and “best new course” filled the air.

“As much as I wanted to stay on the old ground, it wasn’t going to be a country club,” Hildahl explains. “You need a place for family. Vardon is now mostly older men. Our average members are in their late 30s.”

Minot Country Club’s amenities— including the brawny new course, pool and the superb Elevation restaurant— explain part of the demographic disparity.

Another reason is the post-flood change in population. Many older folks left after 2011, replaced by younger people drawn by jobs in the nearby Bakken oil and gas fields.

LOOKING FOR GLOVE: The par-4 6th, dubbed the “Catcher’s Mitt.”

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An even more compelling explanation is the absence of an initiation fee for those 34 years and under. The $299 in monthly dues for Junior Members is only $30 higher than what a Conventional Member pays. And if you’ve already turned 35, you can pay the $4,000 initiation over three years.

PLAY AND STAY “Our members pay more for a golf vacation than they do in annual dues,” jokes Hildahl.

And if you’re thinking of a golf vacation in North Dakota, anyone living 50 miles outside Minot is welcome to play the club for $112. A delightful four-day loop would include Minot, Hawktree, Bully Pulpit in Medora and The Links of North Dakota on Lake Sakakawea near Williston.

Staying in Minot has its upside, too. Like much of North Dakota, Minot is home to Nordic descendants. The city’s Scandinavian Heritage Park features structures symbolizing Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland. This September 28-October 1 brings the “pure Scandimonium” of the annual Norsk Høstfest, known for its authentic cuisine, culture displays, handcrafted merchandise and rollicking fun.

The name Minot, however, isn’t Swedish or Norwegian in origin; it’s French—like Souris—and anglicized as well. Good thing, too. “Correctly” pronounced me-no, the city’s unofficial motto could never have become the catchy “Why Not Minot?”

And then you would miss the chance to respond, “Why not, indeed.”

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95

July 2016 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER

The Games of Golf TRIVIA | PUZZLERS

PHOTOG

RA

HN M PH BY JO

CL ACHL

TE AN, COUR

YA L TROO SY OF RO

N

That Which We Call a Hole…

THIS MONTH’S NBC Sports broadcast of the 145th Open Championship will feature a “Wire Cam”—a moving camera suspended from a wire, akin to the type used during NFL broadcasts and the Players Championship—to track shots on Royal Troon’s legendary 8th hole. All five of the hole’s bunkers will have cameras in them as well. The shortest hole in Open Championship golf at 123 yards, the par-3 8th sports a wee green (420 square feet, about one-tenth the size of Sawgrass’ 17th) that has rightfully earned it the nickname of “Postage Stamp.”

“Alps”

“Bobby Jones”

Other courses that have hosted the Open also have cleverly nicknamed holes. Can you match them?

1. Road

A. No. 5, Gleneagles (King’s Course)

2. Het Girdle (Hot Griddle)

B. No. 5, Prestwick

3. Spectacles

C. No. 10, St. Andrews (Old Course)

4. Mrs. Forman’s

D. No. 13, Gleneagles (King’s Course)

5. Dinna Fouter (Don’t Mess About)

E. No. 6, Royal Troon (Old Course)

6. Alps

F.

7. Braid’s Brawest (Braid’s Best)

G. No. 4, Musselburgh

8. Calamity

H. No. 17, St. Andrews (Old Course)

9. Turnberry

I.

No. 10, Turnberry (Ailsa Course)

10. Bobby Jones

J.

No. 11, Royal Liverpool

11. Tom Morris

K. No. 14, Carnoustie

12. Himalayas

L. No. 18, St. Andrews (Old Course)

No. 14, Royal Portrush (Dunluce Dourse)

ANSWERS: 1-H, 2- A, 3-K, 4-G, 5-I, 6-J, 7-D, 8-F, 9-E, 10-C, 11-L, 12-B

COLORADO AVIDGOLFER | July 2016

96

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