Thanks for the tip on Harvester - had never heard of it and see it's won "best course in Iowa" by major publications almost every year since it was built. Now I'm trying to find a way to get it to work with my schedule.
This morning I played
Paako Ridge with my brother. It is behind the Sandia mountains near ABQ. He had heard of it but hadn't been out there. Glad he had, the course was spectacular, albeit very tight off the tee. And long - from the tips it plays to around 7600 yards and the hardest of the three nine combinations is something like a 75.8 rating / 138 slope. Elevation makes it play quite a bit shorter but the fairways are so narrow - it seems they were rarely wider than 20-25 yards in the landing zone - that the farther the ball travels the more likely it is to end up in the ****.
Rather than lay out the course as three individual nines with their own names, they simply number them 1-27. Apparently holes 19-27 were built a few years after the first eighteen. They acquit themselves well and that nine has three of each par 3/4/5 which I like.
Course is pricey at $92 on a Monday but in good enough shape with great views it was probably worth it. Greens were typically large with a lot of undulation and different tiers and zones that made putting tricky. They rolled great and held well. Only gripe is that people seem to suck at fixing ballmarks but that's everywhere.
I try to avoid boring round details because nobody cares, I am not sure I broke 90. Still need to add it up. Birdied the last hole though so at least it ended well.
The course wends its way through a lot of high desert. From my Arizona courses it reminds me of a mix of Talking Rock (similar vegetation) and Sedona Golf Resort (great views, narrow). We played five par 3s, and all of them played well downhill.
Anyway, took a lot of photos. These are merely some of them.
11th hole, long par 4, from the back tee:
14th hole, long par 3 (270+ yards from this back tee I believe):
15th hole, long dogleg par 5 with water behind and to the left:
16th hole...along with the 17th we were encouraged by two different staff members to check out these holes from the back tees. Great views to be sure, but other holes had no shortage of them as well:
17th hole, this is looking backwards towards the 15th green:
17th hole, medium length par 4, looking forward:
21st hole...this is a long uphill par 4, the picture isn't much but the mow job on the fairway gave it a nice look:
22nd hole, another par 3 that played much shorter because it was downhill. This was my brother swinging and this ball turned out to be lost to the right. If he lost fewer than 40 balls today I would be surprised. Not the best course for a guy who hasn't played in a year:
24th hole...notable because this looks directly back at the 22nd hole off in the distance. Another in the series of "long par 3s that play well downhill":
26th hole, the final par 3 of the day. Downhill of course, other than the house it had a nice backdrop:
Next stop should be the Cowboys course in Dallas on Friday.