Jay Flemma

Four Great Places You Have to Play
Continued from page 2

September 24, 2005

C. New Mexico

Pink is the new black, the Patriots are the new 49ers and New Mexico is the new Arizona — a wild, untamed, exciting, and diverse golf destination in a rugged and inspiring natural setting — and at better prices than its more celebrated neighbor.

Ken Dye and Baxter Spann of the architecture firm of Finger, Dye and Spann claim the three best tracks in New Mexico:

Black Mesa outside Sante Fe, Paa-ko Ridge near Albuquerque and Pinon Hills in remote Farmington, near the Colorado border. Happily, they may also be the three most affordable courses as well. All can be had in high season for as little as $45 at twilight, $82 in prime time.

Spann notes that Black Mesa "has opportunities for eagles on a couple par fives and a couple par fours, but those holes are also fraught with the possibility of other scores. Black Mesa is a fantastic match play course for that reason. Each shot requires a strategic decision involving line, distance, wind, trajectory, and how the shot will react once it lands on the sloping, firm surfaces."

Photo: © Jay Flemma The green at the par-5 15th at Paa-ka Ridge runs away form the player and into the water hazard behind.

Nestled at the feet of the Sangre de Christo (Blood of Christ) Mountains and only an hour from Black Mesa, Dye's Paa-ko Ridge G.C. has similar strategic features.

The popular risk-reward par-5 15th features a green that runs away from the approach into a waiting lake.

Holes seem long on the card — two par-3s alone exceed 240 yards, but the course sits 6,500 feet above sea level so even the longest holes are negotiable in regulation by most players.

Photo: © Jay Flemma The largest in New Mexico, the green at the par-3 4th hole at Paa-ka Ridge is 100 yards deep.

The par-3 fourth features the largest green in New Mexico, over 100 yards from front to back. The hole is short, averaging only between 124 and 183 yards but the enormous three-tiered green sloping from back left front right features enough pin placements to lengthen the hole considerably.

No less than seven tee boxes grace the par-4 17th, but the tee box for the tips grants a panoramic view of the entire golf course, the Sandia Foothills and the mountains.

Standing on top of the tee box, one could hit the tee shot into either the eleventh fairway or the seventeenth but aim it right at the big ponderosa pine and let the fairway's natural right-to-left cant filter the ball into the center. A deep arroyo guards the entire left side of the green and a pot bunker guards the front right.

The fantastic par four dogleg left par-4 18th requires a carry over a deep canyon and then a second carry over an arroyo before reaching the green with the gorgeous adobe clubhouse standing sentinel in the background.

Photo: © Jay Flemma The green at the par-3 6th at Pinon Hills sits in a rocky grotto.

Pinon Hills, also by Dye and arguably the best muni in the U.S., winds around giant sandstone monuments and through atmospheric canyons offering risk-reward options at every turn.

Enormous multi-tiered greens also provide strong defense, as do dry washes cutting through fairways and scrublands filled with native pinon and juniper.

Gorgeous for looky-look yet challenging for shotmakers, the course is convenient to Mesa Verde National Park and its magnificent stone cliff dwellings, one of the seven natural wonders of the Western Hemisphere.

Truly the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico has miles of canyons, wilderness, and old wild-west towns to explore when not golfing. Canyon de Chelly and newly opened Canyon of the Ancients offer world class hiking and fascinating archaeological sites.

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