{"id":4679,"date":"2013-08-04T12:26:26","date_gmt":"2013-08-04T19:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/?p=4679"},"modified":"2013-08-04T12:26:26","modified_gmt":"2013-08-04T19:26:26","slug":"crosswater-golf-course-at-sunriver-water-water-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/golf\/4679\/crosswater-golf-course-at-sunriver-water-water-everywhere","title":{"rendered":"Crosswater Golf Course at Sunriver: Water, Water, Everywhere!"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n\"new-crosswater-golf\"<\/a>\n

Yesterday the Golf Road Warriors ventured south of Bend to Sunriver Resort<\/a>,\u00a0one of the most delightful, unpretentious, family-friendly communities you\u2019ll never want to leave. \u00a0It all began at Sunriver\u00a0<\/b>when fur trappers gathered in meadows along the Deschutes River 150 years ago.\u00a0 Now the only traps to worry about were set by golf course architects throughout the property\u2019s 63 excellent and varied holes. And there\u2019s plenty more to the resort than stellar holes of golf \u2014 namely bike trails, stables, marina, tennis, nature center, spa, fishing, and a raft of other action sports (including rafting).\u00a0 Sunriver offers a variety of condos and hotel rooms spread across 3,300 acres.<\/p>\n

Topping the golf offerings is Crosswater: 200 acres of target golf where bent grass fairways, tees, and greens offset bluegrass and golden fescue; where the routing winds through meadows, among gigundo pines, and over bird-filled wetlands, while huge volcanic peaks beckon in the distance.\u00a0 Holes cross the Little Deschutes River seven times, though if you’re like me and fellow warrior Tom Bedell you may not always cross it on the first try.\u00a0 Several major golf magazines rank Crosswater among the best 100 courses in the US. \u00a0Don\u2019t even think about playing Crosswater from its full length of 7,683 yards unless you\u2019re suicidal or enjoy the sound of golf balls splashing into hazards.\u00a0 A combination of blue and white tees works best because a few holes lose their character from the whites and may even penalize a long drive hit from those tees.\u00a0 From the back tees, Crosswater is pure carnage.\u00a0 The course may provide the prettiest round you\u2019ve ever lost a box of Titleists on.<\/p>\n

The layout was designed by Bob Cupp, who expresses the\u00a0essence of his golf philosophy through creation of so-called \u201crisk-reward\u201d situations on many of his golf holes. \u00a0Cupp says, \u201cA golf hole should have a basic demand and present a clear challenge of some sort.\u00a0 But it should never present a challenge without a reward.\u00a0 That reward may be that by hitting a shot closer to a bunker in a par-four fairway you get a better angle to the green, a shorter approach, a better stance, or all three.\u201d\u00a0 Although many players who espy a yawning bunker or the blue glint of the river at Crosswater may alter their stance to hit as far away from the danger as possible, by doing so they risk ignoring one of the principals that architects rely on: that hitting a good shot as close to the hazard as possible will often result in a bonus to the skilled and daring player. \u00a0Which is why it’s always entertaining to watch a couple of hacks like myself and Tom Bedell playing alongside a scratch player like fellow warrior Christopher Smith. \u00a0At times it seemed he was playing an entirely different layout.<\/p>\n

Crosswater opens with calm subtlety– a wide fairway with a handful of defining bunkers– like the beginning of an epic symphony that starts with a few clear, pure tones.\u00a0 The second hole introduces water and a few more trees.\u00a0 The third, a short par three, offers up a view of Newberry Crater in the background.\u00a0 By the fourth hole, wetlands enter the concert, and the Little Deschutes makes its entry on number five, among the toughest holes on the course.\u00a0 The 460-yard epic par four requires a long but precise carry over the river but short of containment bunkers and woods.\u00a0 The long approach demands another wetlands crossing, and the long, narrow green is divided by what seems like a buried tractor trailer.\u00a0 But don\u2019t relax even if you somehow manage to make par here, because the next hole plays upwards of 600 yards.<\/p>\n

With all the instruments in place, the tension builds in sweeping and dramatic melodies for the rest of the afternoon– lupines and forced carries, hard greens that deflect even well-struck shots, and plenty of glimpses of Mt. Bachelor and other peaks.\u00a0 The ninth hole is almost too beautiful to leave– a harmony of grasses, river, mountains, and trees that will leave your knees weak.\u00a0 Number twelve is a dissonant 687 yards from the biggie tees with water the entire way on the left side– which is longer than I like to travel on vacation.\u00a0 The back has an opus of wonderful solos and not a sour note, but no easy riffs, either.\u00a0 Sometimes you\u2019ll be glad to find a bunker that protected you from a worse fate.<\/p>\n\"new-meadows-golf\"<\/a>\n

Just when the buzz over Crosswater finally began settling down to a steady, musical hum, the resort added a new log to the crackling fire of golf excellence.\u00a0 In entirely re-designing Sunriver\u2019s Meadows golf course some years ago, architect John Fought took a page from the game\u2019s great golf course architects of the 1920s and 1930s\u2014Alistair McKenzie, Donald Ross, and H. Chandler Egan\u2014and suggested that while the meek might inherit the earth they could no longer count on tearing up the Meadows course.\u00a0 In turning the lovely and friendly but formerly undistinguished Meadows into a modern classic stretching to 7,012 yards, Fought relied on elements of style employed by these legendary designers of that earlier time.\u00a0 In particular, Fought\u2019s use of faced bunkers, directional bunkers, and other visually stunning techniques has transformed the Meadows into a real player\u2019s course.<\/p>\n

After frolicking through the new Meadows, graduate to the slightly more serious but equally fun Woodlands Course, designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr.\u00a0 At 6,880 yards, this traditional venue is chock full of lakes, deep bunkers, and elevated greens.\u00a0 While not flashy, Woodlands reveals subtle, well-thought intricacies.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a Stickley table: solid, well-made and a little old fashioned as it was designed before playing from the tips became a macho test of endurance.\u00a0 Plenty of tight chipping areas around the greens heighten the challenge, and the fabulous finishing hole leaves a choice between hitting across a hairpin turn over a lake, or knocking a long, straight iron to a safer but far more distant landing area. \u00a0Sunriver also offers nine holes of more family-friendly golf at the Caldera Links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Yesterday the Golf Road Warriors ventured south of Bend to Sunriver Resort,\u00a0one of the most delightful, unpretentious, family-friendly communities… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,39217,895735,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-road-warriors","category-grw-bend","category-courses-and-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/08\/crosswater-pink.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4679"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4688,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4679\/revisions\/4688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}