Ballyneal Golf Club

Tom Doak - Back in the Ballyneal Sandbox After ten successful seasons, Ballyneal is excited to announce the addition of a short course to complement its existing 18 holes. Tom Doak and his team at Renaissance Golf have signed on for the project and are currently routing the 13-hole short course. Construction efforts are underway and the course should be completed this fall, with a formal opening set for July 2017. Ballyneal is situated on a unique sand dune formation in northeastern Colorado referred to as the chop hills. It’s among the largest of these dunes that the new course will be built. "There are so many dramatic possibilities out there, we've got to build three or four holes that rival certain ones on the original 18," says Doak. The entire 13 holes will lie within the front 9 loop of the existing course with a number of different routings possible, including a 6-hole loop accessible directly from the clubhouse. John Curlander, who owns the club, selected Tom Doak based on his prior work in the area. "He is familiar with the unique ecology of the chop hills and the type of golf preferred by our members," Curlander adds. "I'm confident that we will end up with an exceptional layout and ultimately a great addition to the club.” Ballyneal is looking forward to the Renaissance team's return to the chop hills. Tom Doak and Eric Iverson were both on property in April working on a new putting complex referred to as The Commons. Over an acre in size, The Commons is the centerpiece to the Ballyneal village. It offers a wide variety of putting options to entertain members and their guests into the evening hours. The Commons is set to open this summer by mid-July. Ballyneal is recognized worldwide as one of the finest inland links courses ever built. It is a private club, to be used exclusively by its members and guests. The club does offer a one-time opportunity to play the course for prospective members. For more information, please call Kelsey at +1 970-854-5900 ext. 6 or send an email to kelsey@ballyneal.com.

US Mountain Division Best in State Rankings 2018 Eight states in our West Region are updated in the second of nine US regional revisions. We established our Best in State listings for the United States six years ago so this is the fourth biennial review of those classifications. We’re re-ranking now across nine distinct divisions and this is the second of those reappraisals, covering the West region Mountain States of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Two years ago, we increased the number of courses featured in this geographical area by almost 50% and this time we’ve added a few more courses for Colorado and Montana, so we now profile over 200 courses across the eight states. Only half a dozen Mountain courses are ranked in the US Top 100 so, although the region isn’t exactly bristling with golf facilities listed at a national level, it still has lots of exciting layouts worthy of closer inspection. Arizona With the top five courses in Arizona remaining in the same position, it means the Canyon course at Forest Highlands retains its position at the pinnacle of our Grand Canyon State listings. A Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish design that was first unveiled in 1988, it’s a fun course which has entertained seasonal property owning members and their guests for the best part of three decades now. Considering the raft of modern courses constructed in Arizona over that period of time, the Canyon course demonstrates remarkable staying power by holding onto its number 1 status. Further down the state rankings, the Outlaw course at Desert Mountain is the highest of four new entries at number 25. Located within a massive 8,000-acre property in the high Sonoran Desert, the Outlaw course was the sixth and final Jack Nicklaus signature design to open at Desert Mountain’s private facility in north Scottsdale. Golf journalist and regular Top 100 contributor M James Ward said of this course just a couple of months ago: “how many have overlooked this course leaves me baffled. Outlaw personifies its name. It is neither conventional in penal alignment with other modern desert courses nor is it predictable. The genius of the layout is the fun factor – shots you relish and holes you wish to play again and again.” Rank/ Click the link to see full details of our 2018 Arizona Best in State courses Colorado We’ve added another ten courses to our Centennial State listings to create a Top 50 chart and Tom Doak’s links-like layout at Ballyneal in Holyoke continues to head the standings. Described by recent reviewers as “a course that is always fun to play” and “a real thinker’s course (with) blind tee shots, blind second shots and challenging greens,” Ballyneal is the only course in our Mountain Division to occupy a position within both our national Top 100 and global Top 100 charts. A significant climber in the Colorado state list is the century-old layout at Denver Country Club (up five to number 5), where Gil Hanse has been renovating bunkers and selectively removing trees. A couple of exciting new millennium designs by Jim Engh also make prodigious leaps up the state rankings: The Club at Pradera near Parker (up eleven to number 14) and Four Mile Ranch, just outside Cañon City (up fourteen to number 23). Click this link to see full details of our 2018 Colorado Best in State courses Idaho Tom Fazio’s layout at Gozzer Ranch Golf & Lake Club near Coeur d’Alene holds off a strong challenge from David McLay Kidd’s course at Huntsman Springs in Driggs (up one to number 2) to maintain a firm grip on the number 1 berth in the Gem State. The Gozzer Ranch drivable par fours are outstanding and three of its four short holes are carved through magnificent rock formations, with a jagged-edged bunker style not quite what might be expected from a Fazio design. The back nine in particular, in the words of a reviewer, is “nothing short of jaw-dropping”. Click the link to see full details of our 2018 Idaho Best in State courses Montana We’ve added another five courses to the Treasure State listings, expanding the table to a Top 20. Tom Doak’s Rock Creek Cattle Company layout is still the top track, a position it’s held since we first established our Best in State rankings in 2012. The eighteen holes are laid out across an expansive, rugged landscape where generously proportioned fairways offer all manner of approach options to heavily-contoured greens. Straight in at number 4, The Reserve at Moonlight Basin is the highest of our five new entries in the Montana chart. Opened in 2016, it’s a Jack Nicklaus Signature Course that’s draped across a dramatic landscape to the north of Sphinx Mountain in the Madison Range. Set at an altitude of 7,500 feet above sea level and measuring 8,000 yards from the back tees, this course is geared up to having the game of golf played out on an epic scale. Click this link to see full details of our 2018 Montana Best in State courses Nevada The Tom Fazio-designed course at Shadow Creek retains its position as the number 1 layout in the Silver State. Built for casino magnate Steve Wynn in the late 1980s, this completely artificial track was once regarded by some as the eighth wonder of the modern golfing world and M James Ward had this to say about it only last month: “Shadow Creek is a testament of man’s desire to build something on the grandest of scales. The pyramids of golf. How appropriate such a course would reside in the most fantasy related communities such as Las Vegas.” The highest of three Nevadan new entries appears at number 11 and it’s The Summit, another Tom Fazio layout developed in partnership with the Discovery Land Company. The course is situated less than ten miles from the Las Vegas Strip and it’s the centrepiece of a large residential development near the Red Rock National Conservation Area. There’s also a par three 19th hole next to the practice area, where the clubhouse will be built, and this extra hole is perfect for settling bets or tied matches. Click this link to see full details of our 2018 Nevada Best in State courses New Mexico The top eight places in our New Mexico chart remain exactly as they were when we last re-ranked two years ago so that means the Paa-Ko Ridge(1st & 2nd) layout in Sandia Park is still our number 1 course in the Land of Enchantment. A new millennium track designed by architect Ken Dye of the Texas-based company Finger Dye Spann Inc., the original 18-hole course at Paa-Ko Ridge Golf Club had another 9-hole layout added to it in 2005 to fashion a fabulous 27-hole facility that’s conveniently located less than a half an hour’s drive from downtown Albuquerque. Click this link to see full details of our 2018 New Mexico Best in State courses Utah The Beehive State’s new number 1 is the Championship course at the Sand Hollow Resort near Hurricane. It jumped an impressive six places up to the runner-up position two years ago and it has now gone one step further by replacing Tom Fazio’s Glenwild Golf Club and Spa at the top of the table. A John Fought design, the fairways are routed around steep ridge lines and deep canyons, with thrilling elevation changes and spectacular views offering golfers one of the most entertaining golf experiences in the state. The Championship layout is complemented by the 9-hole Links course, a 3,600-yard par 36 layout that is the perfect companion for its bigger sibling. Click this link to see full details of our 2018 Utah Best in State courses Wyoming Tom Fazio’s 18-hole layout at Shooting Star in Jackson Hole retains the top spot in our Top 10 chart for the Equality State. Set between the Snake River Ranch, a working cattle operation for the last eighty years, and the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Shooting Star is a first class skiing and outdoor recreation facility set within 1,300 acres of protected property in the shadow of three mountain ranges. Designed to resemble the glacial moraine landscape of nearby Grand Teton National Park, the layout occupies land that was once nothing other than flat pasture before its transformation into a distinctive 18-hole golf course. Click the link to see full details of our 2018 Wyoming Best in State courses We welcome feedback when we re-rank our state listings so please let us know what you think if you have a strong opinion about any one of these eight newly refreshed US Best in State charts. Which course have we inadvertently left out or perhaps we’ve included one that really doesn’t deserve to be listed? Maybe there’s one placed too high or positioned too low? Whatever your thoughts are, by all means click the “Respond to this article” link at the top or bottom of this page to share your views with us. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses

Mountain Division Best in State Rankings 2016 Eight states in our West Region are updated in the second of nine US regional revisions Top 100 Golf Courses inaugurated its Best in State rankings for the United States four years ago so we’re now conducting our second biennial review of those charts. In 2014, we published the revised standings for the fifty States in four news releases, covering four rather large geographical areas. This year, we’ve decide to extend our reporting across nine distinct divisions and this is the second of those announcements, covering the West region Mountain States of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. We’ve also expanded the number of courses that we display for every State (apart from Wyoming, which retains a Top 10 chart) so, for the Mountain Division, we’ve increased our coverage from 130 to 195 courses. Arizona now features a Top 50, Colorado has a Top 40 and Nevada a Top 30. All told, there are only 6 Mountain courses ranked in our Top 100 for the United States so the region isn’t exactly a hotbed for high quality golf courses at a national level. Nonetheless, there are still plenty of interesting layouts worthy of closer examination within the eight states that are under scrutiny. Arizona The Canyon course at Forest Highlands retains its number 1 status in the Grand Canyon State listings. A Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish co-design that debuted in 1988, it was reviewed last year by our US Consultant Fergal O’Leary, who awarded it a 5-ball mark, along with the following comment: “It’s a manicured course that doesn’t play “firm and fast” so to some extent it feels like target golf, however, this doesn’t (at all) take away from the demanding nature of the course.” Three courses make significant upward moves within the Top 10 portion of the state chart: Desert Highlands, an early 1980s Jack Nicklaus track (up three to number 3), Whisper Rock (Lower), where Phil Mickelson teamed up with Dallas-based architect Gary Stephenson to turn a boulder-strewn area in the Sonoran Desert into a very special golf venue (up three to number 8) and Pine Canyon, a Jay Morrish solo design from 2004, which is the centrepiece of a residential community in Flagstaff (up eight to number 9). In order to expand our Arizona listings to a Top 50, we’ve added twenty new courses to the state chart and this raft of newcomers is headed at number 22 by Talking Stick (North), which is one of two 18-hole courses laid out by Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw in the late 1990s for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community within their luxury hotel and casino resort near Scottsdale. Rank/ Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Arizona Best in State courses Colorado Tom Doak’s “inland links” layout at Ballyneal is still our number 1 course in the Centennial State. Such is the quality of this fabulous new millennium design, it’s also ranked very highly in both our US Top 100 and World Top 100 charts so don’t expect to see it displaced from the top of the state listings anytime soon. Rising one place to the runner-up position in our revised Colorado chart, Cherry Hills is a 1922 William Flynn layout that Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design company extensively renovated in 2009. Site of numerous national amateur and professional championships down the years, the course also climbed eight spots to number 87 in our US Top 100 chart when it was revised four months ago. Three other courses make significant upward moves with the state Top 10: the 2007 Jay Morrish design at Ravenna in Littleton (up three to number 7), the 1984 Jack Nicklaus Signature course at Country Club of the Rockies in Edwards (also up three to number 8), and Tom Fazio’s 1995 design at Maroon Creek near Aspen (up four to number 9). Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Colorado Best in State courses Nevada Shadow Creek (North) remains our number 1 course in the Silver State. Constructed for casino mogul Steve Wynn from a barren, featureless desert site outside Las Vegas by Tom Fazio in 1989, this totally artificial – yet seemingly natural – track was seen by some at one time as the eighth modern wonder of the golfing world so it just goes to show what can be achieved when money is no object. Four hundred and fifty miles northwest of Las Vegas, a couple of 18-hole layouts near Lake Tahoe take small steps in the right direction in our new state listings, with both rising two positions. At number 2, Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw’s 2009 production at Clear Creek, just outside Carson City, is a much-admired, rugged mountain track and at number 8, the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at Montreaux Golf & Country Club is an annual PGA Tour stop, hosting the Barracuda Championship (formerly the Reno-Tahoe Open). Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Nevada Best in State courses New Mexico The Paa-Ko Ridge(1st & 2nd) layout in Sandia Park was our number 1 course in the Land of Enchantment when we first established our state listings in 2012 and it remains top of the standings after our latest round of re-rankings. Designed by Ken Dye and opened early in the new millennium, the original 18-hole course had an additional 9-hole circuit added to the layout in 2005 to form a fantastic 27-hole facility. Rising one place to number 2 in our New Mexico chart, the Sunset course at Las Campanas is the newer and slightly shorter of two Jack Nicklaus courses that are laid out within an exclusive country club located just outside Santa Fe. The Golden Bear marked the opening of the course with a match against Ben Crenshaw in “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf” television series soon after it debuted in 2000. Click the link to see full details of our 2016 New Mexico Best in State courses Utah Tom Fazio’s Glenwild design in Park City is still on top of the ranking chart for the Beehive State. Unveiled in 2001, this course is routed around a wandering creek with a number of associated lakes so keeping the golf ball dry is imperative on this 7,541-yard layout. The Championship course at Sand Hollow, a John Fough design located near Hurricane, makes an impressive leap from number 8 to 2, just coming up short of the Fazio layout, but it’s one to watch out for next time around. Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Utah Best in State courses Idaho Another Tom Fazio design, Gozzer Ranch, comfortably holds onto the number 1 slot in the Gem State. Ranked inside the top half of our US Top 100 chart, the course isn’t quite a “typical Fazio” layout, as discovered by this reviewer: “Without question or debate, Gozzer Ranch looked, felt, and played so much like a Coore & Crenshaw with its ragged edges to bunkering, wonderful use of fescue, holes perfectly placed on the land… the front nine is very good, but the back nine is nothing short of superb.” The highest of five new entries in our expanded Top 15 chart is Rock Creek at number 6, a recent Tom Weiskopf design located on the cliff tops overlooking Lake Coeur d’Alene. It was originally meant to be an additional 18-hole layout for the adjacent Black Rock development (which is number 2 in the Idaho chart) but the same gentleman who owns the Rock Creek Cattle Company in Montana acquired the property and he’s decided to give his Idaho course a very similar name. Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Idaho Best in State courses Montana The Rock Creek Cattle Company course prevails as the number 1 track in the Treasure State. Tom Doak routed the eighteen holes across a rather remote, rugged landscape, with wide, Kentucky blue-grassed fairways offering all sorts of approach options to heavily-contoured greens. As might be expected of a Doak course, there’s more than enough design interest on every hole to keep golfers totally engaged from start to finish on this layout. Closing in just behind this nationally-ranked layout, two courses climb two places in the chart. The first of these is Wilderness Club at number 2, a Nick Faldo layout from 2009 which is appropriately named due to its remote location outside of Eureka, near the Canadian border. The other course, at number 3, is Stock Farm Club, a late-1990s Tom Fazio design that’s laid out in Bitterroot Valley, near Hamilton. Click this link to see full details of our 2016 Montana Best in State courses Wyoming The Equality State retains a Top 10 ranking chart which is headed by Tom Fazio’s Shooting Star, a Jackson Hole layout that has water in play at more than half the holes. Two other courses move up the listings: Snake River in Jackson Hole (up three to number 2) which is a Tom Weiskopf design from 2006, and Rochelle Ranch in Rawlins (up one to number 9), where Ken Kavanaugh set out the course in 2004. Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Wyoming Best in State courses We always welcome your thoughts when we carry out our re-ranking process so please let us know what you think if you have a strong opinion about any one of our eight newly updated US Best in State charts. What layout have we omitted or maybe there’s a course that really shouldn’t be included? Perhaps there’s one positioned too high up in the listings or one sitting too far down? Whatever your feelings are, please click the “Respond to this article” link at the top or at the bottom of this page if you’d like to get in touch with us. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses