Hidden Valley Country Club – Mountain Nine – 3rd Hole
Last week I posted an article about one of my favorite Utah golf courses, Hidden Valley Country Club. HVCC is one I’ve played 1000’s of times and I absolutely love the course.
Redesign NOT
The club has been considering a course redesign by Rees Jones and the membership voted last week. 60% of the votes were in favor of NOT doing the redesign.
I’d have to say this is once more a case of “sometimes the best decision is to do nothing.” I don’t feel the course needs a major overhaul. It could use some tweaking, sure. Fixes in drainage and irrigation and a few other maintenance things would be appropriate. Perhaps a few new strategically placed tee boxes. Not $5+ million worth of work and certainly not work which would close down ⅓ of the course for three consecutive years.
Some of the membership seems to think the course will lose its playability and stature as time goes on. “We have a great club at the present time, but we have to look to the future and make sure we can say this ten years from now.” I’m not sure where this line of thinking comes from. Members make a great club first, then the course. 10 years from now the course will still be a gem and a joy to play and its only about 1300 years younger than the Old Course at St. Andrews. Do the members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club worry so much about upgrading the course so that it would still be great 10 years down the road?
Hidden Valley Country Club – Poisoned Tree – Mountain Course 8th Hole – click to zoom
Vandalism Reward Bumped Up To $10,000
In the same article last week I mentioned that the club had offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to the vandal (or vandals) who poisoned the trees on the Mountain nine, holes #6 and #8. Those were two of the three most strategic and crucial trees on the 27-hole course.
Add a 3rd tree now, and bump up the reward to $10,000.
The Valley Course hole #5 tree, a classic tree in the middle of the fairway which eats drives and forces players to execute great shots to either side, is now dying.
For someone to stoop so low as to poison trees on their golf course is beyond my comprehension. The golf gods will certainly curse these assholes with a lifetime case of the yips. This person (or persons) deserves some maffia style justice, the kind which involves a pair of pliers and a 9-iron. For good measure, add a Joe Pesci skull vice procedure like in the movie Casino.
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
