 Snowmass Club
Texas Outside Rating: 9.7
18 Holes - Golf - Semi Private
Snowmass Village, Co
970 923-5700
Website
Date Played: September 01, 2009
Front Nine Rating: 10.0 Stars
Back Nine Rating: 10.0 Stars
Approximate Weekend Price Range: $75.00 to
$195.00
Brief Description:
Snowmass Club is what makes me excited about another round of this silly, frustrating, and expensive game. When you play this fantastic course at the base of Snowmass Village and ski area, you'll find: - magnificent panoramic views of the mountains (with peaks over 14,000 feet), the Snowmass ski runs, and some stunning homes dotting the mountainside
- near perfect conditions
- a fantastic layout with no two holes similar and each with its own personality and unique characteristics
- large but fast greens with slope, undulation, and spines
- huge steep faced bunkers with soft sand waiting for your ball
- fairly open to pretty tight perfectly manicured fairways with lots of contouring, valleys, and ridges
- plenty of challenging but fair holes
- excellent facilities and service
- multiple tee boxes to make it fun for all skill levels
- a very good 19th hole with tasty food
Snowmass Club twists and turns up and down the rolling Rocky Mountain hills at the base of Snowmass Village and has the feel of an Irish links course - open, roughs and natural areas, and no trees. To score well here, you really need to study the hole layout, check pin placement, manage the course, and deploy your "A" game on the approach shots and on putting. What makes Snowmass both fun and challenging is that it throws a little bit of everything at you including: blind shots, ups and downs, dramatic elevation changes, risk reward opportunities, strategically placed bunkers, plus water and natural areas. This is a course where you can bite off as much as you want (7000 yards and a 146 slope from the tips) or move forward one or two tee boxes and have a more relaxing round. There are a lot of very fun holes that will make you want to come back and play Snowmass again. For example: #1 is a beaut at 595 yards as it plays along a lake and heads left over to a green that is at a right angle to the end of the fairway - which offers lots of risk reward go-for-it second or third shots; #9 requires an accurate drive from an elevated tee box to a narrow down sloping fairway and then a precise second shot to an oblong green protected by a lake; on #14 you need to nail your tee shot to avoid trouble and make the turn to carry a waste area to a green with pin placement that can be a killer; and 18 is a fantastic finishing hole - an elevated tee box with dramatic panoramic views to a dog leg right narrow and well protected green. Not wanting to end the round, I was tempted to order lunch and just sit on the 18th tee box soaking up the sun and views for a couple hours.When we played in early September 2009, the conditions were near perfect. The sculpted fairways were lush and green, the rough was cut playable, greens were in fantastic condition, and the course was well manicured and maintained. The greens can be killers and can make two putting rare. They are fast with lots of slope and undulation and pin placement can add multiple stokes. So practice putting before you head out, study the pin placement, and take your time reading the green. The bunkers can also be killers - do whatever you can to avoid these deep, big, steep faced monsters, some of which could swallow a school bus!Wow, what a fantastic course - can't wait to get back and play it again.
| Texas Outside Scorecard for Snowmass Club |
| Beauty: |
|
  |
| Difficulty: |
|
|
| Variety: |
|
|
| Fun Scale: |
|
|
| Value: |
|
|
| Condition: |
|
|
|
Other Good Information:
Designer/Architect: 9
Beware of water on 13 holes
and the 47 sand traps.
Snowmass is a first class operation all the way - great service, excellent pro shot, complete practice facilities, and a good restaurant and bar.
Condition of the greens is 10.0 and the green difficulty is 10.0 out of 10.
Type of Greens: Bent
The 19th hole is excellent and the clubhouse food is excellent.
The pro shop is excellent
Walkable: Yes, but hard
GPS: No
Course Map
Scorecard
|
|
|
The Texas Outside rating scale ranges from 1 to 10 – a perfect 10 course would be something like this: links along a cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean and bordered by tall trees; lush fairways on rolling hills with lots of natural hazards; water (which is crystal clear) on most of the holes; immaculate greens (but they are undulating and tough); lots of variety and character (each hole is completely different and includes blind shots, elevation changes, doglegs, and significant challenges); perfectly manicured traps with the whitest and prettiest sand you’ve ever seen; a nice club house with great food and a 19th hole; a GPS; plenty of beverage carts or your own cooler and ice; and it only costs $40 bucks! What this means is that you probably won’t find any 10s in Texas – try Cabo San Lucas, Pebble Beach, or some of the Hawaii courses!
Texas Outside rates courses on the following:
- Beauty – tall trees, rolling hills, beautiful houses, waterfalls, and similar stuff would score high; a 1 would be flat, bushes or cactus instead of trees, and some grass but mostly weeds
- Difficulty – a straight, 300 yard par 4 with no traps or hazards, no out of bounds or water would probably get a 1; if it is a 460 yard par 4 over two ravines, with water along one side, natural hazards on the other, strategically placed traps or that dreaded tree right in the middle of the fairway, we are talking a 10.
- Variety – what would you give a course where all the holes looked and played exactly the same (“I thought we just played that hole!”); were side-by-side, which is good for finding or dodging other people’s balls, but not much fun; and you can see the flag from every tee box? That’s right, it gets a 1.
- Fun Scale – a 10 is where you walk off the course and say “now that was fun” and you can’t wait to get back, or you immediately turn around and play another 18 holes
- Value – a 5 is $50 to $60, a 10 is $20 to $30, and 1 is $200 or so – of course all of this is dependent upon how you liked the course. For example, if a run down, boring municipal course, with six players on each hole was only $10; it would still get a value rating of 1.
- Condition – this one’s pretty easy – what condition are the fairways. A 10 commands very lush perfectly manicured fairways, compared to a 1, which has fire ants, weeds, and more dirt than grass!
- Condition of Greens and Difficulty – very hard to read greens with lots of undulation and tough pin placement, rate very high on the difficulty scale. Condition is self-explanatory.
All of the above determines the overall score for the golf course. In other words, we like courses that are pretty, fun, very challenging with a lot of variety, and fairways and greens in excellent condition – all for $40. We also tend to play the courses that are affordable for the masses, which means in the $30 to $80 range. We rate hard and we haven’t found a 10 in Texas yet – don’t worry we haven’t given up and we’re still looking.
|
|
|
