![\"mounthood2\"](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/11\/mounthood2.jpg\")
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If I were smart I wouldn\u2019t tell you anything about my hometown of Portland, Oregon.\u00a0 I would not mention that this green, eclectic, and eminently livable hamlet of half a million lucky people located equally near to an ocean and a glacier has been ranked by such magazines as Money and Travel & Leisure as among the most livable cities in America.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t even whisper that parks and fountains are as ubiquitous as the coffee shops and hand-crafted beers we\u2019re known for: in fact, Portland is home to both the smallest park (24-inch Mill\u2019s End) and the largest city wilderness (5000-acre Forest Park) in America.\u00a0 It also contains a neighborhood park built on a dormant volcano (Mt. Tabor).<\/p>\n
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As for the handcrafted beers, the local McMenamin brothers are famous for their string of micro-breweries in combination with vintage movie theaters (Mission Theater, Bagdad Theater), concert venues (Crystal Ballroom), and unique hotels (e.g. the Kennedy School– actually in a converted grade school.\u00a0 Check out the \u201cDetention Room\u201d cigar bar).\u00a0 BridgePort Brewing offers two Portland pubs on tap– the Northwest neighborhood\u2019s old brick brewery, and the Hawthorne Street edition.\u00a0 The Lucky Labrador Brewpub welcomes dogs to the outside seating area and pours a great stout.<\/p>\n
I certainly shouldn\u2019t describe Portland\u2019s varied neighborhoods such as the artsy Pearl, trendy Nob Hill, the antique row in Sellwood, or the Hawthorne district, which the London Times described as \u201ca beguiling mixture of gentrification and radicalism.\u201d\u00a0 The city\u2019s distinctive sectors repose on both sides of the Willamette River, which is crossed by nearly a dozen bridges.\u00a0 Mass transit rules here, with light rail, street cars, an aerial tram, and other forms of modern people movers.\u00a0 People are moved, too, by the natural beauty of the surrounding snow-capped peaks, verdant valleys, abundant waterfalls, and accessible high desert.\u00a0 They\u2019re moved to shop by the fact that we have no sales tax.\u00a0 And speaking of art, Portland boasts several world-class museums, performing arts centers, and gaggles of galleries and public sculpture, murals, and other forms of creative expression.\u00a0 For what it\u2019s worth, the city also lays claim to the song \u2018Louie Louie,\u2019 which was supposedly written here, though nobody claims to understand a word of it.\u00a0 Portland\u2019s Rose Garden Arena is home to the basketball-playing Trail Blazers, who have been breaking the hearts of local fans since Bill Walton left town.<\/p>\n
By now you\u2019re probably hungry, so allow me to not describe the fresh, creative regional cuisine at such eateries as Higgins here in the hometown of James Beard.\u00a0 And permit me to avoid mentioning our wealth of great hotels, ranging from the old-world elegance of the Heathman to the boutiquey old-movie-themed Hotel de Luxe.<\/p>\n
I should also most certainly neglect to tell you that this hip, high-tech, sandal-wearing city also offers enough top-drawer urban golf venues to keep you busy until the cows come home (where do cows go, anyway?)\u00a0 In the early part of the 20th century Portland boasted more golf holes per capita than any other city in the U.S. (currently it seems to boast the most double lattes and body piercings).\u00a0 Golf around Portland is still accessible, inexpensive, and excellent, especially since a construction boom during the 1990s brought a handful of great modern courses on line.\u00a0 Golf orgiasts can mix a cocktail of old classic designs with spanky new venues, easily play 36 holes a day in the late light of summer, and then relax in– or outside of– a lovely, quirky city bustling with everything that makes a place strike just the right chord in your heart.<\/p>\n
Portland\u2019s golf courses are always lush and green from the ample rainfall, but summer weather is reliably sunny and warm.\u00a0 Autumn delivers crisp days, changing leaves, and often plenty of sunshine through October.\u00a0 In winter and early spring, locals slog around the fairways in knee-high clamming boots fit with golf spikes.\u00a0 Bring plenty of Gore-Tex outerwear if you visit between November and May.<\/p>\n
Portlanders have been enjoying classic golf at Eastmoreland Golf Course<\/strong> since H. Chandler Egan designed the 6,529-yard layout on the eastern outskirts of town in 1918.\u00a0 Eastmoreland romps through lowlands surrounded by natural springs, rhododendron gardens, and galleries of yapping ducks and excited waterfowl.\u00a0 And it\u2019s a veritable arboretum of huge old trees.\u00a0 Eastmoreland is one of those courses that looks easy yet still manages to beat the stuffing out of you with uneven lies, crowned or subtly sloped greens, and plenty of shrubbery to trim with mishit shots.\u00a0 The course opens gently with a 310-yard par four with a devious putting surface. Walter Hagen once said that the 462-yard thirteenth, a par five with a ravine and huge green-fronting swale, was one of the best holes he\u2019d ever played.\u00a0 And the seventeenth, a 150-yard poke to a peninsula green, is the determining factor in many matches.<\/p>\n Forty minutes west of Portland toward the Coast Range mountains, Bob Cupp\u2019s Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club<\/strong> spooks some golfers with its bag full of tricks and treats.\u00a0 Pumpkin was the site of the 1997 and 2003 U.S. Women\u2019s Opens, the location of Tiger\u2019s third U.S. Amateur win in 1996, and host to Nike Tour events and other tournaments.\u00a0 It was also Oregon\u2019s first upscale public\/private golf complex when it opened in the early 1990s.\u00a0 The public-side Ghost Creek course explains why Charlie Brown\u2019s friend Linus sat out in a field with his golf clubs waiting for The Great Pumpkin, and this is as great as a pumpkin gets. GOLF Magazine has ranked Ghost Creek<\/strong> among the top 100 courses in the U.S.<\/p>\n The 6,839-yard par-71 Bentgrass track exudes a rugged, clean-cut feel as it whisks through forests of fir, maple, ash, and oak, meanders through open meadows, and curls around two lakes. Cupp endowed the layout with classical bunkers featuring overhanging edges, which create dark, shadowy places where goblins may gobble golf balls.\u00a0 The frolicking creek after which the course is named disappears and reappears without warning like an elusive specter.\u00a0 Watch for it on number six, for example, a 371-yard slant left where the creek begins right about where the fairway bunkers do, tightening the landing area.\u00a0 And watch out for the triple-bogeyman, too.\u00a0 The ninth hole, a mere 469 yards of par four, features a large lake and two streams.\u00a0 Number eighteen provides a 454-yard opportunity to ghost bust by reaching the well-protected green in two without splashing.\u00a0 Who ya gonna call when you run out of golf balls?<\/p>\n A short drive from Pumpkin Ridge, The Reserve Vineyards and Golf Club<\/strong> decants two thirst-quenching wine-themed courses, one each designed by John Fought and Bob Cupp.\u00a0 The facility rotates the two tracks between public and private play twice per month– something that\u2019s great for the game.\u00a0 The entire complex is decorated with grapevine icons and even has its own wine label.<\/p>\n You may produce a few whines of your own if you misplace your \u201cA\u201d game– although the Fought and Cupp courses are more likely to elicit Bacchanalian delight.\u00a0 The Cupp Course, now called The North Course, runneth over with 6,845 yards of heathland-style golf featuring such modern elements as rolling mounds and distinctive ground shaping, short-grass green surrounds, tough putting surfaces, and what may well be the only triple green in the world.\u00a0 Put on your thinking cap for holes such as number seven, 289 yards from the blue tees with a tree guarding the green; you\u2019ll want to leave your woods (and possibly your golf ball) in the bag. Sip from the Cupp Course\u2019s directional bunkers and other lovely subtleties and you\u2019ll feel warm all over.<\/p>\n The Fought Course, now known as the South Course<\/strong> pours more like a bold cabernet, though a sandy one, as more than 100 bunkers (in the tradition of Tillinghast at Winged Foot) speckle this venerable layout that winds through mature trees over natural terrain. If you\u2019re like me, you might play the entire layout without landing on grass– although I don\u2019t recommend this, as grass is much softer than sand and doesn\u2019t get in your eyes.\u00a0 Reaching to 7,172 from the tips with three par threes over 200 yards, Fought\u2019s layout has the potential to stomp you like a barrel full of grapes.\u00a0 A rock-walled creek appears in several places, such as on number ten, where it crosses the fairway.\u00a0 Imbibe this delicious vintage Fought layout– with classic overtones, heady bouquet, and a bold, turfy nose– and still wake up without a hangover.<\/p>\n Whoever told me that I couldn\u2019t hit the side of a barn with a golf shot should have seen me at Langdon Farms Golf Club<\/strong>, twenty minutes south of Portland.\u00a0 Designed by Bob Cupp in partnership with John Fought, the par-71 6,931-yard layout expresses a farm theme, with the aforementioned red barn (built in 1918) decorating the eighth hole.\u00a0 The \u201cdepressed fairway\u201d design is actually quite uplifting– lovely containment mounds impart the sense that you\u2019re golfing through soft, grassy canyons.\u00a0 Mounds rise alongside the short grass, virtually hugging the landing areas, and kicking some wayward shots back homeward but also making for occasionally enigmatic lies.\u00a0 Langdon\u2019s highlights include amusing rooster tee markers, fabulous service, a covered range, church pew bunkers, and a par three of 125 yards that may be the toughest hole on the course; it\u2019s like chipping onto the top of a bowling ball.\u00a0 Design elements such as colorful wildflowers, stone walls, and bridges add to Langdon\u2019s charm.<\/p>\n Amidst a pandemic of so-called \u201cupscale daily fee\u201d golf designs (often meaning, simply, \u201cover-priced\u201d)\u00a0 it\u2019s refreshing to encounter an admittedly affordable new public venue without pretensions.\u00a0 Designed by Peter Jacobsen and Jim Hardy thirty minutes southeast of Portland, Stone Creek Golf Club<\/strong> is a role model of sincere public golf.\u00a0 The architects maximized the potential of an unremarkable site that once housed a turkey farm but still retains plenty of stately firs. Jacobsen says, “We built this golf course economically at a time when the price of golf courses is spiraling up and the cost to play golf is spiraling up.\u00a0 We fired a shot across the decks of all those people and said \u2018look, you can do this economically and be able to play affordable golf.\u2019”<\/p>\n Three lakes reflect the ever-changing Oregon sky at Stone Creek and distant glances offer views of glacier-capped Mt. Hood.\u00a0 Four sets of tees play to as long as 6,873 yards.\u00a0 A number of holes are decorated with huge, orange, naturally sculpted boulders that lend the course its name.\u00a0 The welcoming, sweepy greens are immaculate.<\/p>\n Stone Creek\u2019s first few holes rollick through open meadowlands before darting into the forest.\u00a0 Number four, a 498-yard par five, wends between trees and water en route to a green containing a Scottish \u201ctoe\u201d where players can bail out rather than straining to carry a sea of bunkers to the heart of the putting surface. \u00a0From the toe, the meek will inherit an amusingly steep putt up over a ridge.\u00a0 The 151-yard sixth hole was the site of my first (and only, so far) hole-in-one, scored during my first outing with a local men\u2019s club that has not invited me back since I won all their money.\u00a0 The ninth hole also entertains\u2014with a split fairway, one half of which tunnels between a canyon of angled bunkers.<\/p>\n Holes twelve through fifteen are Stone Creek\u2019s rock-solid heart, featuring tree-lined fairways, forced carries, elevation changes, and several blind shots. Number fourteen, at 141 yards, calls for a surgical strike over wetlands to a sort of putting patio held up by the ubiquitous giant boulders.<\/p>\n The Oregon Golf Association Members Course at Tukwila<\/strong> may have one of the longest names you\u2019ve heard, but it\u2019s also long on great golf.\u00a0 Bill Robinson stitched together this tapestry of holes in Woodburn, forty minutes south of Portland.\u00a0 The fabric of Bentgrass stretches 6,650 from the longest of four sets of tees and boasts a couple of reachable (and especially good) par fives, a huge double green at nine and eighteen, and some of the finest putting surfaces in the region.\u00a0 Water, wicked bunkers, and pesky woods are also on the menu of this stupendous walking course.<\/p>\n The holes here are pure and clever.\u00a0 OGA opens with an inviting slight dog right followed by the opposite dog, but this one has more bite\u2014 in the form of a hazelnut orchard right, a pond left, and a tree and bunkers that could come into play.\u00a0 Number four is a complex 516 yards: blind tee shots runs down toward a ravine.\u00a0 The second shot climbs back uphill between bunkers and forest over the chasm to a plateau green.\u00a0 A second par five follows.\u00a0 The back side contains the best par three on the course, a volatile 172 yards that slope toward water.\u00a0 Fourteen is another strategic 517-yard puzzler that can be solved in several ways, all of which require at least one ravine crossing.<\/p>\n Although the Willamette Valley is the grass seed capital of the world, an even more enticing product grows close to great golf: grapes– as in wine grapes, as in some of the best pinot noirs ever fermented.\u00a0\u00a0 The most intoxicating non-golf activity in the valley is wine tasting, with a bit of antiquing thrown in.\u00a0 Try a side-trip to McMinville, close to the OGA golf course (and not far from Pumpkin Ridge and the Reserve), where you\u2019ll find more than half a dozen wineries, including the well-loved Eyrie Vineyards, which is open by appointment to taste wines with complex fruit flavors, aromatic nuances, and sea breezes.\u00a0 Or try Eyrie\u2019s product along with others at the Oregon Wine Tasting Room nine miles south of McMinville.\u00a0 The driving between sips is pastoral, with views of the Coast Range Mountains, small old western towns, and cute shops.\u00a0 If you\u2019d rather leave the driving to someone else, Grape Escape Winery Tours offers half-day, full-day, or evening outings, most of which stop at three wineries.<\/p>\n Recognizing the symbiotic relationship between golf and drinking, most golf courses offer at least a humble place for a tired hacker to sip a pint after a grueling round.\u00a0 But at the McMenamin’s Edgefield Pub and Brewery<\/strong> twenty minutes east of Portland, management took the opposite approach: they actually built a golf course for patrons to enjoy with one of the brewery\u2019s personable hand-crafted beers.<\/p>\n Originally built in 1911 as the Multnomah County Poor Farm, the vast Edgefield property was bought by the entrepreneurial McMenamin brothers, who created a complex of hotel rooms, music venues, restaurants, gardens, a theater, winery, and gallery.\u00a0 But the McMenamins were also sharp enough to eventually realize that one essential element was missing: golf.<\/p>\n The 991-yard 18-hole Pub Course<\/strong> winds through hills of blackberry bushes overlooking the rest of the unique estate.\u00a0 Holes range from 40-80 yards and most require perfect carries to immaculately maintained greens set amidst thick, thorny flora.\u00a0 The informal venue (where sixsomes are not unwelcome) features holes named \u201cRuins,\u201d \u201cPump House,\u201d \u201cFlash Flood,\u201d and \u201cChute.\u201d\u00a0 But perhaps the greatest draw of The Pub Course is that players can stop several times during their round to retrieve a Terminator Stout or Hammerhead Ale from the Distillery Bar or the Red Shed, strategically located along the routing.<\/p>\n An hour east of downtown Portland, the town of Welches\u2014home to the Resort at the Mountain<\/strong>\u2014has been attracting hotel guests since 1893 and golfers since 1928. Nestled at the foot of Mt. Hood, the Resort has acquired a Scottish accent, discernible in such touches as Scottie-dog tee markers and its very own tartan.\u00a0 Though visitors can hike, fish, raft, ride horses, play tennis and croquet, and even ski nearby in summer, there are also 27 distractions in the form of golf holes.\u00a0 The Foxglove, Thistle, <\/strong>and Pine Cone<\/strong> nines make for a great walk and potentially great scores.\u00a0 Stretching to a maximum length of just over 6.400 yards, any eighteen-hole combination will provide a handful of challenging holes, several unforgettably beautiful ones, and plenty of others that will simply make you glad to be out beneath old growth forest in the shadows of the Cascade Mountains.\u00a0 A number of renovations performed in consultation with architect John Harbottle include seven new greens, additional tee boxes, and improved fish passage for threatened salmon and steelhead on property.<\/p>\n The first hole on the Foxglove nine plays 311 yards over a mid-fairway boulder, and those cutting the dogleg may have a shot at the green or else hear the echo of surlyn on stone.\u00a0 Thistle number one proffers a view of the Hunchback, an El Capitan-like rock face.\u00a0 460-yard Pine Cone #5, with its new tee box set on a rock slide back in the woods, is now a fun, birdieable par five rather than a straightforward (read: boring) par four.<\/p>\n If you happen to visit Portland on a golf trip\u2014and if you by some chance stop in at any of the courses, bars, restaurants, hotels, galleries, or other attractions that I\u2019ve referred to here\u2014do me a favor and leave my name out of it.\u00a0 If you asked me I\u2019d simply tell you that it rains here all the time and the locals are ornery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"13](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/11\/13-Green-LR-300x225.jpg\")
You needn\u2019t venture far from downtown to enjoy some of the Northwest\u2019s finest golf.\u00a0 For that matter, you barely need to leave the airport.\u00a0 Convenient to the city core and close enough to PDX\u2019s runways to hear an airline safety talk, the two Robert Trent Jones Jr. layouts at Heron Lakes<\/strong> dance lightly through wetlands just north of town.\u00a0 The courses comprise the best 36 holes of the \u201cPortland 90,\u201d a series of munis owned by the city.\u00a0 Heron Lakes\u2019 Greenback Course<\/strong> (named after a duck) tops out at 6,608 yards and purveys a traditional design punctuated by elevated greens, occasional forced carries over water, and bold, strategic calls. One local pro describes the 207-yard par three sixteenth as \u201cone of the hardest on the planet,\u201d because it requires a perfect two-iron when the wind is ripping in your face.\u00a0 The Greenback course recalls Jones\u2019s father\u2019s work– a tidy classic venue in the old style.<\/p>\n![\"Heron](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/11\/Heron-Lakes-15-Blue-300x226.jpg\")
But Jones Jr.\u2019s Great Blue<\/strong> (as in heron) is the bird of paradise here.\u00a0 The 6,902-yard track\u2019s open fairways ramble between Scottish-style mounds and pose a collection of excellent risk\/reward riddles while offering views of 11,245-ft Mt. Hood.\u00a0 Many locals consider the 466-yard par-four eighth hole among the toughest to solve.\u00a0 Big hitters can attempt to squeak a long drive between a line of trees and a slough that guard the left-dog-legging fairway, but registered conservatives will opt for a three-wood aimed at a directional bunker, leaving a LONG shot into the tucked green.\u00a0 Great Blue\u2019s three finishing holes all present the classic backpacker\u2019s dilemma: how much water to carry.\u00a0 The sixteenth fairway is actually split by a lake and by wetlands; only monsters and lunatics will try to thread a shot between these for an easier approach, although during the annual Quarterback Shootout held here, one former professional ball tosser made a hole-in-one double eagle. Great Blue doesn\u2019t contain a single uneventful hole, and a number of quirky greens tucked behind ponds provide ample opportunities for heroism or sheepishness.<\/p>\n