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Salish Cliffs Golf at Little Creek Casino Resort
You know what makes golf course architect Gene Bates so good? He gets it. He designs interesting, playable courses that give the average guy, playing the right set of tees, a chance to score.
Salish Cliffs Hole 7
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And to walk off the 18th green—which is a dual green with hole No. 9 if you happen to be just finishing up at his latest creation, Salish Cliffs in the backwoods of Washington, you will likely be pleased with yourself. Not to mention excited to try it again. And again.
Salish Cliffs is near Shelton that is close to the state capital of Olympia. The course will be unveiled to the public this weekend and Seattle's own Freddie Couples will be on hand for it.
The brilliant new addition to Pacific Northwest golf is part of the Little Creek Casino Resort that is owned and operated by the Squaxin Island Tribe.
The goal, said director of marketing Martin Myers, is to be a destination resort.
There are plans for a spa and there is already an entertainment centre for concerts Merle Haggard and Kris Kristopherson are coming soon—and, of course, there’s a casino with lots of slots plus table games.
And they have got a slick and shiny black six-passenger Cadillac cart to whisk players from the front door of the resort/casino building to the clubhouse. It is about a five-minute ride and the fancy cart has leather seats, stereo sound and mag wheels and maybe an unnoticed wet bar. If the custom-made ride proves popular, they will order up another one. So one will be stationed at each place.
Head pro Dave Kass says, the idea is that once you park your car, you will never need to go to it again until your stay is over.
All of those accouterments are nice and will get tongues wagging, but the anchor of the place will be the golf course. And it is a beaut. Being built in the Kamilche Valley, there are 600 feet of elevation changes, comfortingly wide fairways with nearly every hole right there in front of you. That means no blind shots.
Being one of the fortunate ones to play it in advance of it's opening, it was almost a physical thing to take a divot out of the perfect bent grass fairways. There were no ball marks on the large receptive greens and, best of all, no Canada geese doing what they do on golf courses.
The happy honkers are the ones getting to play Salish Cliffs the first few months or so when course conditions, under the direction of greens superintendent Bob Pearsall, will be at their best. The staff will, of course, keep the playing conditions at consistently high level because management here wants to steal the thunder of Circling Raven in Worley, Idaho. It’s another Gene Bates gem that has been winning magazine accolades every year since it opened in 2005.
At Salish Cliffs, which offers five sets of tees from the championship ones at 7,269 yards to the forward at 5,313, there is only one forced carry off the tee and that’s the ninth hole. I don’t hit my driver very long, but I was well over from the middle or players’ tee (par four 355-yard hole) two of the three times I played it and the third I just hit a big slice that was over, but hit a tree and went in the hazard.
Don’t dare get the idea that Salish Cliffs is a pushover, though. While the fairways are generous from the tee, there is lots of ball gobbling fescue and Bates’ beautiful traps protect most of the greens on both sides and on the right side on all of them.
Here again, he gives the players a chance because his traps aren't deep and most of the bottoms of them are flat.
If you are planning on driving down, add about 75 minutes to however long it takes you to get to Seattle.
Kent Gilchrist is a free lance writer that provides golf stories and travel articles to BCgolfguide.com.
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