GREAT FRIENDS, GREAT GOLF AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD
By Shane Sharp | posted September 8, 2009
Loyal FG readers who know publishing partner Darin Bunch are likely aware of the fact that he mashes off the tee. Some say he's the Bubba Watson of the publishing world. He was Alvaro Quiros before Alvaro Quiros was cool.
I had the pleasure of spending a few days in Colorado with “Big D” this summer, playing Raven Three Peaks in Silverthorne, Colo. The trip began, and closed, with a bang.
“RTP” is a Hurdzan-Fry, Tom Lehman collaboration about 70 miles west of Denver in what the locals call the “Front Range.” It’s a golfers’ golf course: beastly from the 7,400-yard tips and sporting slick greens that move fast and take no putting prisoners.
At 9,000 feet, saying RTP is a mountain golf course is like saying Jessica Biel is a woman. And with a number of holes offering up elevated tee boxes, suffice it to say that Darin – simply “long” at sea level – would be “sick long” at an elevation better suited to Olympic training.
The opening hole at RTP is a downhill par 4 that bends to the left. The tee box is up about 150 feet above the landing area. I hit what would be my best drive of the trip, flying the landing area and reaching the downhill power chute to a pitching area about 120 yards from the green.
Darin pulled his tee shot a little left, and just missed the sweet spot.
First time I drove it past Big D all trip. Last time, too.
But I had my chances. RTP's 514-yard par-4 No. 9 hole is the sort of mountain hole that golfers daydream about when they are suffering through pancake flat courses in the rest of the world. Elevation change from tee box to landing area? Around 200 feet. Total elevation change from tee to green? Around 300 feet. But still, I couldn’t get it past him there.
The No. 16 hole is the highest point on the golf course. Clouds can obscure your view from the tee box. A par 5 that weighs in at 601 yards, the drop from tee to landing area is (again) about 200 feet. And again, I couldn’t get him there.
So what are the chances I’d finally nip Darin on the uphill, par-4 No. 18, a stout finishing hole that deposits golfers on a green complex surrounded by Aspens and killer views out to the namesake Three Peaks in the distance? Slim and none, and slim had left town, as Curtis Strange says. But I wagered a couple drinks (pure, unbridled motivation for this guy), and it was on!
I got into the ball as much as a 5-foot-9, 160-pound dude can, and lucked out with a favorable bounce off the back side of a bunker. Big D busted his “usual” frozen rope with a slight draw, but at least the outcome was in question this time.
As I recall it, my ball was about four inches behind. As Darin recollects, his ball was about four yards in front of mine. Somewhere in the middle lies the truth, I'm sure. Either way, he wins. The beers were still cold, the times were still good and the golf course remains one of my favorites.
I am looking forward to our next sojourn together. Big D is a helluva a “magazine man.” But he’s a good golf buddy, too.
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Shane Sharp is the public relations director at Buffalo Communications and a publicist for The Raven Golf Club at Three Peaks. The views expressed about RTP being one of the best mountain golf experiences in the United States are biased, but true.
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