The heat of the day must have made details of Saturday's round at Ute Creek a little fuzzy - I'll start at the beginning and see what comes back. Checking in at the pro shop, I was surprised at how w... Continue »

The heat of the day must have made details of Saturday's round at Ute Creek a little fuzzy - I'll start at the beginning and see what comes back. Checking in at the pro shop, I was surprised at how well stocked it was - they stock all the latest in everything from drivers to wedges, balls, apparel, etc. If you need it on the course, they probably have it. We then hit their huge putting green for some practice. The surface was awesome - near perfect bent grass with plenty of different breaks and about a dozen holes. The facility also has a separate chipping green by the driving range.
If you play this course, make sure you check the card for your correct tee. The back tees are black, followed by gold, then blue, and the standard red is the forward tee. We played the blues (6196yds), which they recommend for handicaps 13-25. Every tee box was in awesome shape - completely level and lush with minimal damage. There are sand/seed mixtures on all par 3s and in every cart.
Walking the holes, it's easy to see that this course has seen a lot of water. Colorado's front range has seen unusually wet weather this past few weeks, which is both good and bad for a course. The fairways were definitely lush and nice for the most part, but the excess water has made the low sections quite soggy. There was also a good bit of ground marked under repair due to cart traffic.
Ute Creek is light on trees, so I think they chucked out bunkers to compensate. Strategically placed fairway bunkers catch misplayed shots both in distance and direction. There weren't many greens that didn't have a sand guard either - a wide variety as well - some deep, some shallow, none level! We played early so most of the sand was wet, with a few holding casual water. I think it would play very fluffy when dry. I didn't notice much water in play on par 4s and 5s, but most if not all par 3s had either a forced carry or water on one side of the green.
Since an early July trip to Wisconsin, I've been geeked on bent grass greens, and those at Ute Creek lived up to the standard. A few of the par 3s were a little beat from ball marks and recent hail storms, but most were very nice - soft and true rolling. Most putts I saw were pretty straight, but there are some nasty multi-tiers out there.
The roughs weren't overly long, but the thickness made it hard to get the club through clean. Word of advice: the fairways are big - play smart and stay on em! There is some knee high weeds that are in play, but it's pretty thin so if you can find the ball, you can usually get out fairly well.
Overall, it's a really nice course. Ute Creek has a simple layout but you really have to play smart golf to score well.
However, the people ended up being the gripe of this outing. The two we played with weren't terrible, but they weren't up for friendly chatting either. Our group was razzed by the old course marshall because the group ahead had already cleared the par 3 as we were walking/driving to it. Side note: we finished the round in a hair over 4 hrs, which included waiting for our partners to get food/drinks at the turn. This said, we had a group forgo playing #10 so they could get in front of us. They drove by with a-hole comments about not letting them play through. I'm usually the first to know when we're moving slow, but I never saw a push on us through the front. After that, our other two decided to break off and go ahead since they were "pros" in carts and we were walking. I think we played better/faster once they left anyway. If Saturday was an indication of regular drink service, bring a flag or bring your own drinks. We saw the drink cart twice during the 18 and since we didn't flag her down, she didn't stop. I don't mind since I don't buy from them, but you might. We paid $41 for 18 holes walking, which I thought was fine for the condition of the course.