Golf Scrapbook Blog (The Other Ones)

Arrowhead Golf Club (Denver-area Public Golf)

July 2022 – I’d love to give you a really well-written, hole-by-hole description of Arrowhead but if you plan to play here, you should give a rat’s ass about the architectural merits of the course and will just want to gape at the surroundings. So just gape away without distraction.

I’ll do a little review of Arrowhead, but will dedicate more time on whether Denver is a worthy dude’s golf trip destination. Hint…it is.

Arrowhead: This is a worthy stop on any golf trip. It features some of the most dramatic backdrops for any course, anywhere. Conditioning is what you would expect from a high-end public course – slightly below private and resort but way ahead of muni or public tracks. They do a shit ton of outings here so book early and be flexible. In fact, there was an outing on the day we played so we had to tee off at the crack, before the group went out.

As mentioned, you don’t play here if you’re exclusively playing courses to study golf course architecture. While the course was fine design-wise, the draw here is the backdrop. The first is a great downhill 434-yard par four (we played the Arrowhead tees which measure just over 6,300 yards). This is a Trent Jones Sr./Jr. effort so it is well designed though not recognized by any of the golf nerds for its design merits. However, if you’re a bogey, travelling golfer, you’ll love the variety of holes. I’d put all of the par threes among my favorites here and they would hold up against any other course I’ve played. There was a variety of lengths and challenges: The backdrop on three (197 yards) with downtown Denver in the distance, backdrop and water right on the 133-yard ninth, the truly spectacular 171-yard twelfth playing downhill and through the rocks, and the long 190-yard seventeenth.

I played with rentals here and they were meh. I couldn’t figure out my distances between the elevation and the clubs. At a 135 slope, this ain’t a push-over and since I was not getting any distance from the rentals, the elevation advantage was muted. I finished with a generous 94.

So to the Denver golf trip. You can cobble together a golf trip to pretty much any major city in the country if you have the private connections. Here you have Castle Pines and Cherry Hills (never played), a road trip out to Ballyneal (also never played) and a charity event at Sanctuary. But again, if you have those kinds of connections, there is not a major city in the U.S. that I couldn’t put together a good five-day golf trip. Also, there are always under the radar private clubs in any city that would make a great addition to any golf trip. Here, I’ve played Pradera and Cherry Creek that fit the bill. But any guy’s trip really comes down to accessibility.

So, here is the all-accessible guide to the Front Range Golf Trip. Mind you this doesn’t include a road trip up the mountains. I’ve never played there but just made plans for a 2023 trip so I will plug that trip in and review next year.

First off, stay in the DTC (Denver Tech Center). This is south of downtown Denver which (like all progressively run cities) has gotten progressively worse every time I visit. You’ll find every good restaurant in the DTC that you want including great takes on del Frisco’s and Ocean Prime. Road trip up to Buckhorn Exchange one night and The Fort the other. Plan the trip around a Red Rocks concert and rent an RV so you can wait out the traffic and enjoy cocktails and a user-friendly pee space after the show is over. YOU DON’T WANT TO SIT IN RED ROCK’S TRAFFIC COMING DOWN AFTER A CONCERT.

Gun to my head on a guy’s big city golf trip, for most cities, I’d prefer to plan around a road Eagles, Flyers or Phillies game versus a concert. Starting to conceptualize a Houston trip now. for the October Eagles-Texans game. Here you have to see a concert at Red Rocks and should plan around that.

Where to play? Arrowhead should definitely be on the list. Most high-end public courses then are south of the city so the DTC is a good launching pad. So book Arrowhead first then depending on whether you’re playing three or four courses, I would suggest The Ridge at Castle Pines North and Bear Dance. If you could squeeze in another round, I suggest a road trip: 1+ hour (TPC Colorado is north and is only open to the public mid-week or the Broadmoor is south and may require a stay at the resort) or -1 hour is a good track called Fossil Trace in Golden. Close in to the city you have some decent to less than decent tracks (in order of ranking form those I’ve played): Hyland Hills, Fox Hollow, and Inverness.

No matter what you do, if you’ve exhausted the golf resorts and want to do a city golf trip, you could do far worse than Denver. Your season is limited but you won’t fight the crowds on a mid-week trip and will have some nice options (even if none are in the Top 100 conversation). I’ll post a bunch of photos from Arrowhead and then a few from the other public courses I’ve played here.