Saddle Rock Golf Course - Review

May 15th, 2008 by mulligan

Overview

Saddle Rock Golf Course is a relatively new track in the southeastern portion of the Denver Metro Area. Situated close to E-470 in Aurora, it was actually completed in 1997 - before most of us had ever thought we’d actually pay to use a road on the Colorado plains! Saddle Rock is described as a “long, high plains, links-style” course, and has been featured as a top ten in Golf Digest’s review of public courses in the United States.

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Along with that accolade, it also can boast one of Fox Sports “Colorado Dream Holes” in number 10. The facilities at Saddle Rock are complete with a large putting area, and a fairly large driving range with plenty of hitting boxes. From 1998-2000 it was also the home of the Colorado Open, which should tell you that this course definitely has the opportunity to defend itself quite nicely. However, along with the ability to play difficult, the course offers plenty of Rocky Mountain views and a decent feeling of tranquility even though it’s lined with houses throughout the majority of the holes. That being said, the homes are positioned well back of the fairway and typically are never crossing your pre-shot thought pattern.

Playability

The course is traditionally well kept. It offers a variety of different looking holes, and most of them require shape on a shot of some sort. The greens are often guarded with decent sized bunkers more often on the front 9, whereas the back nine makes use of some old Cottonwood trees and a mixture of green side bunkers.At 7,351 yards from the tips this course is more than decent in length. However there are a number of elevated tee boxes which seem to make this course feel more like 7,000 overall.

One thing I’ve noticed having played here a few times is to take an extra club on those uphill approach shots. Number 3 is a great example of this. It’s deceptively uphill to the green, and I’m guilty on more than one occasion of leaving the ball a good 10 yards short of my intended target. One drawback I’ve found about playing at Saddle Rock are the par 3’s. They’re not bad holes, but 3 of them are what I would consider severely downhill. Now two of them are quite lengthy, but it’s just that the two long par 3’s feel almost identical. I must admit though that one of my favorite holes on the course happens to be number 5 - which is the other par 3! It’s creative with the use of a pine and well placed bunkers, and the hole offers some really tough pin placements on a deceptively sloping green. A 3 there is a great score.

Something that I also find a bit lacking on this course is the use of water on the holes. There are “protected” areas, and I’m not saying that water is nowhere to be found, but I seem to walk away from this course not really remembering much water if any really interrupting my play. Number 9 however does a good job of mixing up the front 9 a bit. A long man made pond stretches the entire right side of the fairway basically to the green. I think the key to this hole is “don’t go right” :-).

Conclusion

All in all, this is a pretty good course. Now when you factor in the money aspect, last year 18 and cart was running about $55 during the week. Now to me, this is about average for a course of this caliber. It’s a fun course to play, and it’s in great shape all season long. Living in the area, I don’t mind the 20-25 minute drive to play it, but honestly I can’t say that I’d drive more than an hour unless there was a tournament or something else to play in. I’m not knocking this course by saying that, but I am saying that it’s about an average course for the greater Denver metro area.