The Valley Course at Oxmoor Valley makes a dramatic entrance with a tee shot that drops nearly 200 feet to a fairway bracketed by large clover bunkers. The rest of the routing covers the tamer flats on the western side of Little Shades Mountain with none of the big up and down of the Ridge Course, at least until the holes climbs back toward the clubhouse at the par four 17th and 18th.
The Valley Course’s elegant par three 16th stands in contrast to the rugged nature of the Ridge Course.
There’s a nice little grouping of holes at seven-eight-nine, including two good par fives and a tough 433-yard par-4 with Little Shades Creek snaking through the entire trio. Eleven is a good Knoll hole with a sharply elevated green that falls away on three sides, and 12, a par five, plays diagonally across a lake on the drive so you can be as heroic on the carry as you want.
This is a pretty solid piece of forested land marked with the typical RTJ Trail flair and huge tiered greens, and it’s plenty long at nearly 7,300 yards. But it comes off flat–literally and figuratively–next to its boisterous brother on the other side of the mountain, and if you can only play one, pick the Ridge for sheer excitement. (86)
Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail—Oxmoor Valley, Valley Course
Architect: Bobby Vaughan and Roger Rulewich
Year: 1992
