The Bogey Golfer © Course Guides
Ptarmigan - Overview
Ptarmigan is a private country club located in Windsor, Colorado. This course was designed by Jack Nicklaus, and is purely a delight. It has every conceivable golf shot designed into it, and furthermore it has the kind of care lavished on it that you would hope a marquee designer would merit. The greens run fast and true, and the fairways are lush. So is the rough, as you might imagine...
The practice facilities here are first class. I would especially recommend you spend some time before the round familiarizing yourself with the pace of the greens, because they are pretty fast. An interesting feature of the putting green is a mini-hole. One of the holes on the green is about half the width of a normal golf hole. A small sign encourages players to "Do the Drill", which consists of sinking two putts in a row from two feet, three feet, ... successively to six feet.
Ptarmigan is a good walking course, if you're looking for a bit of exercise. While there are some streets that wind through the course, it's basically all contiguous. Clubhouse facilities are upscale and classy, including such niceties as a carpeted locker room, complete with hardwood lockers, a card room, a bar, a patio, and a full restaurant. Dark paneling in the pro shop, the whole nine yards...
An apocryphal story: Evidently the members felt like the back teebox on #7 was unfair. It's tucked all the way to the left side of the course boundary, in the middle of a swamp, leaving an impossibly narrow area to land your drive without rolling into the fairway bunker. They wanted to change the layout a bit to make the shot more achievable, but of course, they needed Jack Nicklaus's permission (copyrights, intellectual property, contracts, who knows?). Well, the next time Jack was in Colorado, he agreed to come up and take a look at the situation. He went out to #7 with his one iron, hit a few shots, and said, "I don't see a problem." The original layout is preserved...
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Ptarmigan Detail
This guide is written from the perspective of a bogey golfer, and is therefore shaded to the conservative side. Ptarmigan has four sets of men's tees. The longest tees play at 7223 yards, and Jack probably put them in just so he would have someplace to play from if he happened to be in town. The gold tees are at 6931 yards, and make a good test for your low-handicap types. The blue tees play 6617 yards, and are a stiff challenge for us bogey golfers. Finally the white tees are a more sedate 6078 yards. This review was written from the blues.
Hole 1 is a straightaway uphill par 4. It's only 356 yards, and doesn't need anything special in the way of a tee shot. Get it out in the fairway, and set up an easy approach from the 150 yard marker, and you're well on your way to a good round. The green is bunkered left and right, so take care on your approach.
Hole #2 is a long downhill par 5. If you can get your tee shot over the hill, it will run out a long ways, and you'll have a great chance of reaching in two. The members strongly advise against landing the ball on the green. Land it short, run it on, and let it roll to the right is the way they all play the hole.
#3 is an interesting par 4. The interest is all about the bunker that sits like a giant toad in the middle of the fairway. If you squint your eyes and ignore the bunker, you'll see that the fairway is wide and spacious. But with the bunker in the picture, you're looking at two very narrow, very intimidating chutes where you try to thread the needle. So there are three ways to play the hole:
- Take a long iron and play "thread the needle" down one of the two chutes
- Take a midiron and lay up (leaving a really long shot to the green),
- Or ignore the damn bunker, and swing away. You'll either miss it (because you're a bogey golfer and can't hit the ball straight anyway), or you'll fly it. I played with another bogey golfer, and we both flew it. (By the way, if you land in the bunker, it ain't my fault 'cuz I told you to miss it!)
The fourth hole is a 203 yard par 3, (by the way, three of the par 3s on this course are north of 200 yards -- I think Jack is a sadist that way). Whatever you do, hit it straight here. Missing short is okay, but missing wide is a disaster. The green is long (so long it's connected to #8), but it's a bit narrow, and difficult to deal with if you're chipping sideways. Also, pay close attention to the pin placement -- there's a big ledge in there, and putting to the opposite side of a ledge is always testy.
#5 is a 519 yard par 5, which is pretty benign lengthwise. To compensate for the relatively short length, there is a veritable blizzard of sand traps protecting the green. Attack at your own peril.
#6 is the second 200+ yard par 3. This one's is tucked against a water hazard (and the course boundary) on the right, so the bail out here is left. Although short is better for chipping on (again with the long skinny green).
#7 is all about sand. There's a huge sand trap that runs down the right side of the fairway. It stretches a finger halfway across the fairway right where your drive wants to come down. Come to think of it, the green is pretty well-bunkered too. Try to avoid the fairway bunkers. Sometimes you can get caught behind a lip, y'know... Also, you might think about laying up if you're concerned at all about accuracy. But that's just me...
#8 is the hardest hole on the front nine. First of all, it's 404 yards. Second, it has a pretty stiff dogleg right in it. Thirdly, it has a massive sand trap fronting the green. How to play? Well, accuracy pays here. The hole can be reached in two even if you tee off with a three wood. So tee off with a three wood. Stay just right of those two bunkers on the far left side. On your approach shot, if you're going to miss, either miss short (before the bunker), or miss left (wide of the bunker). Unless you really like bunkers, and then... But no, this column is for bogey golfers, and we don't tend to like bunkers.
#9 is another long par 4 at 400 yards, slightly uphill. The green is nestled into an amphitheater style hill, meaning there's no penalty for going long. Although you will wind up making a downhill chip, which can be tricky. There's also a ledge running longitudinally down the middle of the green. (It slopes downhill from right to left.) So pay attention to the pin placement.
#10 is the hardest hole on the course, and with good reason. It's a longish par 4, at 416 yards, the first part of which is uphill. Once you get to the top of the hill, you'll discover the Grand Canyon between you and the green. You want to be on the right half of the fairway to minimize distance to the hole (the hole doglegs right). You also want to leave yourself a 160 yard shot to the green -- any closer, and you're flirting with the chasm. This second shot is not that difficult, except for all the scary images that you're sure to dream up in your bogey golfer head! The green is two-tiered. If the pin is up, a bump and run shot will come back off that hill for you. If the pin is back, make sure you land on the back tier.
#11 is the only short (!) par 3, at 180 yards. This is a very imposing tee shot, with bunkers fronting the green, and a hill behind it. The green is also huge, and there are some four-putts out there if you're not careful.
#12 gives you a chance to kind of catch your breath after the first two holes. It's a downhill par 4, playing only 369 yards. There's a huge fairway bunker on the right. I was just short of it, and had a 130 yard shot into the green. The green is pretty well-defended, with bunkers on all sides, including a nasty one about twenty yards short. This hole needs a bit of precision on the approach.
#13 is a 355 yard par 4. It has OB on the right, and a long massive sand trap on the left. There's a creek running across the fairway in front of the green. Depending up on the prevailing breezes, a fairway wood might be a good choice for the tee shot -- you don't particulary need (or even want) distance, but you do want to hit it pretty straight.
#14 is a short par 5, only 477 yards. But it's mental all the way. There's a huge pond left of the fairway, which also necks in and constricts the fairway about 200 yards from the pin. So you definitely want an iron or a five wood off the tee. On your second shot, you have a choice of either staying to the right of the pond (which gets pretty narrow), or of hitting across the pond to the second fairway on the left side. (Or you could go for the green too, but again, we're all Bogey Golfers here, right?) Leaving the third shot. From the left-hand fairway, you have to cross the creek in front of the green with precisely the right distance in order to keep from rolling long into the bunkers behind the green. From the right hand fairway, you don't need quite so much precision on your distance as you do on direction (miss a bit left and you're in the creek, miss a bit right and you're in the trap). I usually go to the left side because I have more confidence in my distances than in my direction. This hole is a scoring opportunity, despite all the watery distractions.
#15 is the last long par 3. This one has its own silo (honest to goodness, I caromed a shot off the silly thing once). It's not as picturesque as a castle tower, but it's close... Anyway, 205 yards, bunkers on all sides of the green -- the miss is clearly short. Up and down from the grass is usually easier than from the sand.
The sixteenth hole is a 557 yard par 5. It runs along the other side of that pond on #14. There aren't any split fairways here, but there are some narrow spots, especially when you're teeing off. The lake runs down the left side, and the course boundary runs down the right side next to a county road (have a glance at the road before you tee off -- you wouldn't want to take a windshield out with a slice...). Because of all the trouble on both sides of this hole, always favor accuracy over length here, and remember -- it's a par 5, you don't need superhuman shots to reach this. One last word of caution. There is no room to miss on either side up around the green. So get close enough that your approach shot can be accurate. Bogey is a good score here.
#17 is 406 yards, and it needs a decent tee shot in the middle of the fairway. Stay calm, and hit a club that will get you there. There are bunkers short and right of the green, so stay to the left if you can. If you miss the tee shot, lay up to 100 yards, and be happy with a bogey. If you nail the tee shot, this hole can be had.
The home hole is only 348 yards, but it demands accuracy every step of the way. I usually play it under the trees on the right, which is a horrible plan. There's OB next to the driving range, plus all these bunkers over there. Hit a fairway wood down the middle and spare yourself the hassle. A stream runs in front of the green, and the green is two-storied, so watch the pin placement. There's every reason in the world to par this hole, and feel good about coming back, so take advantage of the opportunity.
This is the only course I've played so far that was designed by Jack Nicklaus. I love it, and would gladly play on any of his other courses. He favors 200+ par 3s which are always a challenge for me, but the rest of his ideas seem to favor my eye.
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