Located in Hobble Creek Canyon Utah (a few miles South East of Provo), Hobble Creek is an old style, traditional tree lined golf course. The holes wander up and down the canyon, taking advantage of the mountain terrain and fresh mountain streams.
The Course
This par 71 course is not long (6315 yards) and many of the holes play shorter than their yardage due to the higher altitude and many of the hole’s elevation drops.
Hobble Creek’s 18th hole
Nearly every shot on this course is visually worthy of a postcard. If you stop and look around wherever you are, you have awesome mountain views and beautiful tree lined, plush fairways and greens.
The course has numerous hazards. Many holes have either OB or red hazards left and right of the fairways, requiring accuracy off the tee. There are also streams and gullies which cross many of the holes, requiring you to think about what distance you want to hit your tee shot rather than simply bombing a driver. On many par 4 holes I found myself teeing off with 4 or 5-irons.
Once you are successfully in the fairway the course is not extremely difficult. If you do hit the fairway, you’ll be rewarded with short to mid-iron approach shots to the green.
See the moon peeking over the mountain on the right?
The course’s 2nd line of defense (the first being the tightness and hazards) is it’s fast, sloped greens. If you are a weak putter, Hobble will reveal your weakness on the greens. You have to play perfect line and speed if you want to get the ball to drop or at least end up close to the hole. Get your speed or line wrong, especially on a downhill putt, and you’ll be faced with a long recovery putt.
The greens were not only fast, they were extremely soft. My group had several shots hit the center of the green and literally spin all the way off. We had to try to fly the ball past the pin and bring it back in order to get the ball to pin high. It’s amazing a course can have greens that fast, yet that soft.
If you are a strong putter (which I consider myself) you can score well. I carded 5 birdies when I played there. The last 2 birdies were on holes 17 & 18, which not only helped me finish in a good mood, it helped me finish with a few more bucks in my wallet thanks to my opponents. Even better, my opponents pressed on 17 and then also on 18. Talk about a butt kicking…
Clubhouse
The clubhouse is a classic, salty old building. There is a ton of personality in the design and old style dark wood interior.
There are many great trophies and pictures on the walls dating back decades. I checked out shots of Johnny Miller, Billy Casper and other PGA stars playing the course and practicing on the range.
No beer for you
I really liked the restaurant/coffee shop. It was a “real” restaurant, not just a hot dog stand in a building.
What I didn’t like was the fact that I couldn’t buy my deflated opponents a beer after the round. You see, there’s a local law that makes beer sales on Sunday illegal. So my opponents had to drown their sorrows in a soda pop.
Conclusion
Hobble Creek Golf Course is a gem. If you’re accurate off the tee and a decent putter, you should be able to score quite well. The course is a wonderful design and maintenanced to perfection. If you’re in the area of Provo, Utah, make a trip up to HC. It will be worth the $36 (with cart no less) to play it.
Click here for the Hobble Creek Golf Course photo gallery
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Looks like you have an open tag somewhere in here causing a problem (in IE) with your left column… FYI
fixed it! Thanks for the heads up. Looked ok in firefox!