Promontory, Painted Valley Course
Park City, Utah (Private)
Scooping out a few ponds and lakes is all in a day’s work for course builders these days. Leave it to Jack Nicklaus to build a river. No fewer than fifteen holes on this 8,098-yard potboiler bring the gurgling hazard into play. In the distance are snowcapped Wasatch Mountain peaks for the golfer to gaze at. Even though the ball travels ten yards farther in the thin air, from the tips you may find yourself overswinging—Painted Valley opens with a 718-yard par five. The greens are fast and undulating and the wind can wreak havoc, making this a black-diamond run for the average player. —David T. Friendly
Architect: Jack Nicklaus. Yardage: 8,098. Par: 72. Membership Inquiries: 888-458-6600, promontoryclub.com.
The Golf Club of Cape Cod
Falmouth, Massachusetts (Private)
Unearthed boulders tucked into the oaks identify this site as part of the Buzzards Bay Moraine, a rugged upland landscape where the last glacier slammed on its brakes back in the Pleistocene days. On the second fairway of this Rees Jones design is a human-built glacial kettle that collects every decent drive down the right side and forces steep, tender pitches up to a shallow green. Terrain of this type is always ripe for elevated tees and greens, but that tactic isn’t used to excess here. At the sixth, a longish par four, any player coming up short will have a wedge to a green perched high. The next hole is a two-shotter whose putting surface is basically level with the fairway but guarded by a pot bunker etched into the front middle of the green. Stylistically the course tends toward a formal look with casual tatters here and there. Bunkers and bumps are arranged into dazzling swarms in places. And although the greens are young enough to have excuses for how they roll, no such apologies are needed. —David Gould
Architect: Rees Jones. Yardage: 7,047. Par: 72. Membership Inquiries: 508-457-7200, tgccc.com.
Creek Club at Reynolds Plantation
Greensboro, Georgia (Private)
The late Lee Lynch, Al Geiberger’s semiliterate caddie, used to describe a hole that looked one way but played another as "one of them optional illusions." Lynch never saw a Jim Engh course, but if he had, he would likely have applied his pet phrase to it. Engh’s Creek Club is the fifth course at this lakefront development and the first built exclusively for members, who are quickly realizing that tee shots hit anywhere within a hundred-yard corridor can wind up on the fairway. Likewise, approach shots struck the right distance might land twenty feet to either side of the pin and still funnel toward the hole. There are several risk-reward shots, most notably at the par-five twelfth, with its alternate fairway. But the real risk on this course is hitting approach shots short. Make that error and you’ll be blasting from deep, steep bunkers or facing an epic putt over a five-foot swale. Engh’s contours are too odd and the bounces too haphazard for some, but players who can pull the right iron should find it pleasing, both visually and on the scorecard. —Steve Eubanks
Architect: Jim Engh. Yardage: 7,079. Par: 72. Membership Inquiries: 800-800-5250, reynoldscreekclub.com.
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