Player’s Corner PLAY AWAY
Closer to Pagosa Named for its healing waters, Pagosa Springs abounds in transcendent beauty and many ways to enjoy it—including 27 soothing holes of golf. By Chris Duthie PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS DUTHIE
FIRST UP: The drivable 295-yard opener on Pagosa Springs Golf Club’s Ponderosa nine requires negotiating a tight chute of pines to access this razor-thin green.
There’s a heaven on earth that so few ever find, though the map’s in your soul and the road’s in your mind. –Dan Fogelberg, “The Wild Places” DAN FOGELBERG got it right. In 1980, the multiplatinum-selling singer/songwriter bought a 590-acre spread just outside of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, where he would live for 27 years among the soaring ponderosa pines and craggy mountainscapes of the Weminuche Wilderness before succumbing to prostate cancer. “It’s a pretty calm existence here,” Fogelberg said in a 1990 interview with G. Brown of the Colorado Music Experience. The musician behind coloradoavidgolfer.com
such commercial hits as “Longer,” “Same Old Lang Syne,” “Hard To Say,” “Leader of the Band” and “Run for the Roses” often performed incognito to unsuspecting local audiences or to raise money for worthy organizations like the Humane Society of Pagosa Springs. “I’m an avid skier during the winter; summertime, there’s so much to do,” he said. “I enjoy the solitude of hiking and mountain biking. The mountains have always been a very healing place for me. You go through a lot of changes in life, but these mountains will always be here.” Solitude, calm and healing are words often used to describe another popular outdoor amenity: golf. While there’s no evidence that Fogelberg ever showed a predilection for the game, it’s not
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far-fetched to imagine the 2017 Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee chasing pars and birdies at the area’s premier daily-fee layout, Pagosa Springs Golf Club. As captivating as it is challenging, the 27-hole facility ensconces itself in a forest of old-growth pines and water-brimming meadows, all gloriously framed by 13,000- and 14,000-foot peaks that comprise the San Juan and Weminuche mountains. Originally designed in 1980 by celebrated PGA Tour player Johnny Bulla as a heavily wooded, 18-hole mountain course, the club expanded 15 years later with a lakes-infused links-style nine deftly crafted by DJ DeVictor. Undoubtedly, the course’s variety adds significantly to the club’s attraction, especially when frost delays—a frequent July 2021 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER
