When the men and women from the CGA/CWGA course rating team made the rounds and did their duty at TPC Colorado in Berthoud last month, it was a bit of an oddity given the times we’re in.
After all, while it is standard practice for the state golf associations to rate and re-rate the courses in the state, it had been many a moon — almost a decade — since the CGA or CWGA course raters had last done their thing on a new 18-hole layout in the Centennial State.
In fact, to the best recollection of longtime CGA staffer Gerry Brown, the director of course rating and handicapping for the association, the last new 18-hole course done would have been CGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course, which opened in May 2009.
“With a new course, the hardest thing is there’s no yardage markers or GPS,” Brown said recently. “I won’t say it was unique or uncomfortable. Between us (the eight men from the CGA who rated TPC Colorado, along with the eight women from the CWGA), we have well over 100 years of experience rating courses. But this was best possible team of raters, reserved for captains who have five or more years of doing 10 or more rates a year.
“But it was seven sets of tees that we rated. That’s very atypical. We never anticipated people having more than six sets of tees. A lot of our formula (templates on spread sheets) broke.”
TPC Colorado, located just northwest of U.S. Highway 287 where the road turns east a little northwest of Berthoud, is tentatively scheduled to open around June 1, according to PGA general manager and director of golf Larry Collins, who’s moved into his new position after serving as director of golf at Boulder Country Club, then 18 years at the Omni Interlocken Golf Club in Broomfield.
In fact, the combination semi-private/high-end daily fee course has already been having select groups play portions of the course in recent months. Eighty-six members played a 10-hole shotgun on Sept. 18, and other groups have gone out on the course on nice weekends during the fall. The holes on the northern end of the property — 2 through 13 — are further along at this point.
But the agronomy team from the TPC Network, which is part of the PGA Tour, won’t fully open the course until it’s satisfied with the grow-in condition of the layout. Another factor will be when the initial stage of the clubhouse is ready to open.
(The top two photos come from the CGA rating team, with the bottom one courtesy of Devin Sena.)
The course “is phenomenal,” said Collins, who is now working at the sixth TPC stop of his career (including Plum Creek in Castle Rock, Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla., and Southwind in Memphis) and is involved in a new course build-out for the fifth time. “It’s really a stunning piece of land. It sits on 800 acres, overlooking three reservoirs (Lonetree, Welch and McNeil) with about 1,500 acres of water — with Longs Peak and a panoramic view (of the mountains) in the background. The community is just going to be loaded with amenities. It’s very, very exciting.”
Indeed, the Arthur Schaupeter-designed Scottish links-style course is good enough that an agreement has been reached in which a Web.com Tour event will be contested at TPC Colorado for at least five years, beginning in 2019, with course officials hoping for late-summer dates. It will be the first time a tour-caliber event will be contested over multiple years in Colorado since the PGA Tour’s International departed following its 21st and final time visiting Castle Pines Golf Club, in 2006.
The Web.com Tour — then known as the Nike Tour — previously had a stop in Colorado in 1996 and ’97, when Riverdale’s Dunes Course in Brighton hosted the Nike Colorado Classic. Stewart Cink, who has since won six times on the PGA Tour including the 2009 British Open, claimed the title in 1996.
While TPC Colorado can stretch out to 7,991 yards for events like the one planned for the Web.com Tour, it can also be played from as short as 4,157 from the front tees. And, as Brown noted, there will be a total of seven sets of tees possible.
The course can be both formidable and inviting, depending on a number of factors.
“We’ve had more female spouses closing their husbands on memberships because it’s very favorable for the bogey golfer,” Collins said. “We have seven sets of tees and you can play the course from 4,100 yards up to almost 8,000. And there’s only three potential holes where you can lose a golf ball. And (the course features) pretty expansive fairways, meaning fairly easy to hit into.”
Also, there are very few trees — indeed, those that there are are only on one hole — and out of bounds stakes seldom are a concern. Seven holes are situated along the reservoirs but Collins said the water rarely comes into play. And the fescue rough that frames holes is meant to be thin and wispy, allowing errant balls to be found and hit.
On the other hand, there are some formidable bunkers with stacked-sod faces which most players would like to avoid like the plague. And course mounding often results in views of only part of the flagsticks when hitting approach shots.
“From a bogey golfer standpoint, it’s a very scary-looking course with monstrous bunkers ready to gobble up errant shots,” Brown said. “TPC Colorado’s biggest obstacle to protect par is bunkers. They have Scottish-style stacked sod with steep, sheer walls. They’re 2- to 15-feet deep and you don’t go in and out very easily. They’re intended to be a penalty stroke and they’re strategically placed.
“But there are very few trees and most of the OB is away from play. The fairways are generous. And the native is thin and wispy so you can play out. The greens are hard to guess on a new course.”
Individual hole-wise, a few things draw attention at TPC Colorado.
One is the par-5 13th, which can stretch out to 762 yards from the “Tour” tee. That makes it one of the longest holes anywhere, a true three-shot par-5, even for long hitters. Adding to the difficulty of the long, sweeping dogleg left is the presence of a 110-yard-long “Hell Bunker,” which is inspired by the bunker of the same name on the 14th hole of the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. The one at TPC Colorado features three separate “hollows” with stacked-sod walls.
Another hole that draws from a famous relative is the par-3 eighth, which might bring to mind some elements of the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass, home of The Players Championship. No. 8 at TPC Colorado doesn’t feature a true island green, but it’s a peninsula of land that extends into Lonetree Reservoir, with water left, right and long.
Still another hole that would like to draw upon comparisons to well-known fan favorites is the sixth, one of three risk-and-reward short par-4s. No. 6 goes by the name Riviera and hopes to emulate the 10th hole at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, one of the best risk-reward par-4s around. The sixth at TPC Colorado features plenty of bunkering and a small green of about 5,000 square feet that will nevertheless entice bigger hitters to try to drive the green.
A hole that will also be of interest is the par-3 16th, named Center Stage, where players tee off right next to the clubhouse, potentially in front of a number of spectators.
“Art Schaupeter did a really fabulous design,” Collins said. “Sometimes you play great courses and you kind of remember each hole because they’re each individually identified. This is one of those courses where there’s 18 (disntinctive) holes. You don’t really play one then look at another and say ‘Oh, it has a lot of similarity.’ He really did some fascinating contouring and use of the land.”
Collins said TPC Colorado has already drawn commitments from more than 100 members. But by agreement with the City of Berthoud, the course will be open to the public on an ongoing basis, albeit at a high-end price. Collins said greens fees haven’t yet been set, but he added, “probably right now, if we were to open up next June, it’s probably going to be a mid-$100 round.
“Quite honestly, if this didn’t have the TPC brand on it, I don’t think we would have ever considered selling memberships until next March. This is really about the golf course that’s being built, and the Tour’s excitement to be not only in Colorado but the Rocky Mountain Region.”
About 5,500 square feet of the planned 40,000-square-foot clubhouse will open next year, if all goes as expected, including the golf shop and cafe, with the rest opening in 2019. Also planned are a sports center, community pool, boating and fishing memberships, waterfowl hunting, a beach club, a marina and a pier.
Golf members will receive TPC Passport deals at TPC Passport Reciprocal Properties and other courses, including The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass and several other facilities that host PGA Tour events.
