Friday, Apr. 10, 2009

Some stats about Walla Walla's new course

By Eric Degerman, sportstricities.com

On May 1, Walla Walla is scheduled to see its second public championship golf course.

It's called Wine Valley Golf Club, which makes sense considering there are more than 120 wineries in the Walla Walla area.

In fact, to get to Wine Valley Golf Club from the Tri-Cities, you take Highway 12 east, drive past Lowden (Woodward Canyon Winery and L'Ecole No. 41) then turn left at Cougar Crest Estate Winery's new home on Frenchtown Road — formerly Ireland Road — and drive head north about a mile, past Long Shadows Vintners.

Judging by the price of greens fees, it's narrowly less expensive to purchase a bottle of red wine from the famed Long Shadows (typically about $60) than to play 18 holes at Wine Valley GC. It will cost between $60 and $75 for walkers to play.

Recently, the Washington State Golf Association released the inaugural U.S. Golf Association course and slope ratings for Wine Valley.

Wine Valley, par 72, will play 7,360 yards from the gold tees, with a USGA course rating of 75.5 and a USGA slope rating of 130. The black tees will play to 6,760 yards and a rating/slope of 72.5/126. Blue tees will play to 6,335 yards and a rating/slope of 70.6/123. White tees will play to 5,845 yards and a rating/slope of 73.7/124 (women), and the red tees will play to 5,105 yards and a rating/slope of 69.6/114 (women).

By comparison, the posted ratings for Meadow Springs gold tees are rated 73.3 and 132 with the yardage at 6,957 yards. The blues are 71.3/127 at 6,537 yards. The red tees are rated for women at 72.6/129 for 5,471 yards.

Northwest native Dan Hixson designed Wine Valley, which is co-owned by John Thorsnes, a former Walla Walla Country Club professional. He shares ownership with Jim Pliska, who also owns Emerald Valley in Creswell, Ore.). Hixson, former club pro at the prestigious Columbia-Edgewater in Portland, made quite a splash with his first 18 hole design, Bandon (Ore.) Crossing.

Since Wine Valley is less than 10 years old, it will be re-rated every three years. Courses more than a decade old are surveyed every 6-7 years, according to the WSGA.

The WSGA noted that the slope rating measures the relative playing difficulty of each set of tees for non-scratch golfers compared to the course rating (e.g. compared to the difficulty of a course for scratch golfers. A course of standard playing difficulty has a slope rating of 113.

It added that course ratings are "objective evaluations of a course's difficulty based on a number of factors including roll, elevation, forced lay-ups, prevailing winds, altitude, topography, fairway width, green targets, recoverability and rough, bunkers, hazards, trees, and effective playing length."

Ironically, I will have my hands full with a wine competition for Wine Press Northwest magazine, so Herald sports editor Jeff Morrow readily accepted to serve as my stand-in at Wine Valley's media day on April 30.

Look for Morrow's review of Wine Valley in the Herald soon after. I hope to form my own opinion at a later date.