Jay Flemma | |
The Incredible Tale of Fossil Trace Golf Club
January 17, 2006
Jim Engh had to face incredibly stringent environmental restrictions, four different ecosystems on-site, the looming alternative use plan for the site of a detention center and — with 64 million year old fossils on the property — twelve years of battles with archaeologists, environmentalists, nay-sayers and meddlers in building Fossil Trace Golf Club in Golden, Colorado.
The result?
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Jim Engh to author: “64 millon years to find the fossils, twelve years to build and you hit a fossil monument on the first try. You couldn't do that again in 64 million years.” |
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The best muni course in America and a national golf masterpiece the town of Golden now celebrates as a Colorado treasure.
Engh's assistance in the recovery, research and preservation of Triceratops, Hadrasaur (a relative of the Velociraptor) and vegetative palm frond fossils is the greatest achievement at Fossil Trace, augmented by the genius in designing a routing of eighteen holes around not only the fossils, but the tricky topography in the rest of the site.
The land sits shoe-horned into a mere 130-140 acres within the Golden city limits and Rocky Mountain front range. The course features four completely different environments: open prairie (holes 6-9); an old clay mine (holes 11-15); a wetlands area (holes 1-5); a lowland pond areas (holes 10, and 16-18).
"Fossil Trace easily had the most trade-offs and environmental restrictions of all the sites I've worked on," Engh said. "Between wetlands and the archaeological treasures, it took twelve years from the start of the project until opening day.
"It was going to be a detention center for juveniles, but I told the city I could give them a golf course and there would be room for their center as well and we could preserve the fossils."
The result is a phenomenal triple use of the land, but only after a grueling twelve year battle fought on many fronts.
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The old incinerator chimney stands in the middle of the fairway at the short par-5 first hole. |
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The land on which the fossils resided was owned by the Parfet family who had mined clay on the property for five generations. Fossils were known to be there since 1877 when the family began mining, but since the land was private, no amount of public outcry could influence the Parfet's use of the land.
Mining went on continuously until 2001, although the family took great care to preserve all the archaeological treasures they found.
In 2001 the Parfet family donated to the city of Golden the 52 acres upon which holes 11-15 now sit. The land became public and well organized resistance to building the course erupted.
Skeptical that a golf course architect could ever be respectful of the ultra-sensitive environment and claiming that development of Fossil Trace would spoliate the precious remnants of history, paleontologists and environmentalists united with a neighboring housing community in a determined effort to convince the Golden city council to scuttle the project.
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The 12th green sits in a cathedral of sandstone monuments. The fossil wall lines the left hand side, on the outside wall of course. |
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But Engh knew the first duty of a golf architect is to be respectful of both the land and the history of the property and to preserve and promote both at all costs.
Turning lemons into lemonade, he convinced the Golden city council, the well-meaning researchers and the fervent environmentalists that golf course architecture is not merely an exercise in land development and money grabbing.
To their credit, despite years of fervent battles, the course's opponents proved not merely "loud for loud's sake" and blindly political to their agenda.
Perhaps showing deference to Engh's prior successes at beautifully natural sites like Redlands Mesa and Sanctuary, perhaps heartened that a fellow Coloradan was the architect chosen to promote and protect a state geological marvel and perhaps buoyed by the thought that Engh could work productively with Dr. Martin Lockley from the University of Denver and archaeologist T. Canner on the site, foes became friends and dream ultimately became reality to the golf world's inestimable delight.
Fossil Trace contains many of the trademark features Engh's fans have come to embrace. "Muscle bunkers" (as the Engh design team calls them), i.e. deep, rolling bunkers lined with bumpy hills that resemble a flexed muscular bicep, are turned perpendicular to the line of play, often with their axis pointed directly back down the fairway. They can be as much as ten feet deep.
Believing that undulation is the unsung soul of the game, Engh designed greens and fairways surrounded by high, pronounced sidewalls which rebound approaches, chips and even putts back onto the green and closer to hole locations. As a result, there are a lot of muni-friendly good bounces at Fossil Trace.
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The fanciful squiggle of Engh's deep muscle bunkers are one of his design hallmarks. |
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Finally, Engh takes full advantage of the stunning natural settings the site enjoys.
Elevated tee boxes showcase stunning panoramas and green backdrops. Native grasses serenely line the edges of the sidewalls adding color and texture to the canvas.
No slave to traditional routing, Fossil Trace features five par-3s and five par 5s.
Like any world class course, the first hole sets the theme of the round admirably. This par-5 has a dramatically downhill tee shot that plays to a sidewall lined fairway. The second shot can reach the green only by negotiating a tight gauntlet of cottonwood trees jealously guarding the right side and a long deep muscle bunker guarding the left. Short hitters can play safe and easily reach in three. Engh creatively left the remnants of a 100 year old incinerator chimney in the middle of this bisected fairway.
The third green exhibits Engh's philosophy of design perfectly. The green has severe sloping sidewalls that bump errant shots back onto the green.
"You can putt completely off the edge of the green, and the ball can roll back toward the hole location" he says, knocking a Pro V-1 that was two feet from the cup completely off the green in the wrong direction and onto one of the side ramps. The ball rolls back down the slope to within inches of the cup.
"That's the way I like my holes to play. There is more than one way to get it close," he says with a nod and a wink.
The tight fourth may be the toughest hole on the course. A 426 yard par-4 (480 from the tips), Engh requires a fairway metal or long iron approach to a heavily guarded green. Most players fear the pond on the left, but that plays into the designer's hands.
"There is more room behind the pond than there appears," Engh said pointing to a forty-yard patch of safe landing area behind the hazard. Those afraid of the water risk finding the deep muscle bunker guarding the right. Fearing one hazard, the player inadvertently points himself into the other.
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The short but dangerous par-4 10th hole. |
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The fifth is perhaps the only shortcoming on the course. Engh had a tough choice. With an access road dangerously close on the left, a par-4 or par-5 were out of the question — too many shattered windshields would result. Engh decided on a 100 yard par-3. The green is still well defended by deep bunkers on three sides and by undulations and swales.
Many of the par-4s and par-3s at Fossil are short.
"The shorter the hole, the more sex appeal — you know — design features that I can throw in. These added features result in lots of creative ways to play the hole," Engh says.
Nevertheless, Engh makes up a lot of ground at his 660 yard par-5 9th. The hole plays shorter at 6,500 feet above sea level, but it's still a bear. Engh hit a 325 yard 5-metal to reach it in two.
Never having seen anyone achieve that feat, PGA Head Professional Jim Hajek fell to his knees and cowtowed repeatedly, bowing in half-mocking, half-sincere homage.
The most celebrated hole on the course is the show-stopping, eye-popping twelfth — lined by the fossil encrusted sandstone monuments for which the course is named.
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The fairway at the par-5 15th looks like it just ends at the rock wall... |
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Twenty foot tall pillars of sandstone line the left of the fairway. More monuments pepper the landing area on the second shot and frame the backdrop of the green. Engh even made creative use of fine ceramic fly ash waste by-product left by an uncaring prior landowner.
"We just piled it up and built the pulpit tee for the twelfth."
The finish offers all sorts of opportunities to save or squander strokes.
The gorgeous, rumbling par-5 fifteenth rolls through the rugged remains of the old clay mine, before ending with a semi-blind approach to a green set well below fairway level in a small dell.
Engh loves a short par-5 as a finishing hole as both a comfort to amateurs and for a thrilling finish for experts and tournament play. With water guarding the right side and front of the green and with the front portion of the green narrow and rolled off into the hazard, no lead is safe until the final putt is holed. Two deep muscle bunkers also guard the green.
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...but really the rock wall hides a hidden entrance to the green. |
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Fossil Trace is a triumph on more levels than most golf courses can even imagine.
With the forces that conspired to scuttle the effort from its inception, it's a miracle the course exists at all, let alone as the strategic and historic tour de force that into which it has evolved.
Although he moved about 400,000 cubic yards of earth — a goodly amount — Engh still made the course flow naturally with the landscape. It won second place for best new public course in 2003 from Golf Digest, and deservedly so.
At 6,500 feet above sea level, the 6,400 plus yards play shorter, but still present plenty of challenge. For a muni, it's downright stellar and a steal at $60.
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