Southern California's No. 1 Source for Golf
STROKE OF THE DAY |
"Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing" |
-Dave Barry |
SITE
SEARCH
GOLF
CALENDAR
courses
|
||||
|
Talk about making a good impression. Less than a month after purchasing The Colony in Murrieta, new ownership instituted an aggressive maintenance program, overhauled the clubhouse and began spreading the word that the gates of the senior living community are open to all golfers. “That’s really the biggest challenge we saw at The Colony,” said Phil Vigil, director of golf. “This is a par-65 course less than 5,000 yards and ideally suited to beginning lady and junior golfers. Everyone thinks it’s private because of where it’s located, but we’re getting the word out that this is definitely public.” Pacific Golf Enterprises, which also owns The Cascades Golf Club in Sylmar and Shorecliffs Golf Course in San Clemente, purchased The Colony on June 19. Superintendent Mark Lincoln, formerly of Bear Creek Golf Club, quickly started a maintenance program to focus on immediate details and long-range course improvements that will include leveling tee boxes and replacing sand in the bunkers. “It’s not that the course was in bad shape but there were just details, like cart path edging and bunker edging that previous owners, for whatever reason, hadn’t taken care of,” Vigil said. “You can already see the differences and we’re hearing from local homeowners and other customers that they’re ecstatic.” Resident and regular player Virginia Norton agrees. “It’s good to see the greens play faster and the hillsides filled with vegetation,” she said. “You can feel the TLC that the new management is putting into the course.” The course, which measures 4,681 yards from the tips, won’t be changed, Vigil said. “We’re focusing on turf improvement and details, but the course has always been very playable and user-friendly and we’re not going to tamper with that,” he said. While short in length, calling The Colony an executive course is misleading, Vigil said. “When you think of executive courses, usually you think every hole is short,” he said. “Here everything is pretty much full length, except we don’t have any par-5s.” The Colony has elements that can challenge any golfer who doesn’t hit accurate tee shots or approaches to the greens. Many of the putting surfaces have ridges and slopes, and a creek comes into play on every hole and a pond is visible on five. Even though there are no par-5s, most of the holes are traditional length. Only two of the 12 par-4s play less than 300 yards, but even the shorter ones feature water hazards and bunkers that can make a player think twice about trying to drive the green. The Colony differs most strikingly from typical executive courses in its par-3s. Only two of the six play less than 160 yards, and all have trouble. The 120-yard fifth hole requires a tee shot over a pond to a green that is sloped toward the water, and the 95-yard 15th hole has two bunkers behind the green, so accurate shots are a must. The signature hole is No. 7, a 384-yard par-4 where players must hit a tee shot over or under a giant eucalyptus tree in the center of the fairway. Compounding the difficulty is a creek running down the right side of the fairway and more eucalyptus trees on the left. Even a perfect tee shot requires a testy approach to an elevated green. The combination of playability, distance and price makes The Colony one of the best-kept secrets in the Temecula area, but that could change. “The reason our company involves itself in courses like this is that we see a very real opportunity to take a course that is under-maintained or under-marketed and get the word out to people who maybe don’t know that much about it,” Vigil said. “This is a facility where you don’t have to plunk down $75 or $80 but which still gives you a great experience for the price. Most of the new courses coming on line are high-end and expensive, and the industry as a whole is forgetting beginning golfer, so we’re going to work hard to implement player-cultivation programs like free clinics for juniors and ladies.” n |
||||
RSS Subscribe
Digg This Article
