Denver Country Club

In 1905, eighteen years after its formation, Denver Country Club relocated from its original home at Overland Park to the current property it occupies alongside Cherry Creek, where Scottish professional James Foulis laid out a new course.

Down the years, a number of esteemed architects have made (or at least suggested) changes to the Foulis course and they include Donald Ross, William Flynn, A.W. Tillinghast, William Diddle and Ed Seay.

In 1985, Bill Coore was the latest man to be called by the club and his remit was to refurbish the bunkers in the style of Flynn and redesign two of the short holes. More recently, Gil Hanse carried out some further restoration work with the sand traps, completing this work in 2012.

Favourite holes on this tree-lined layout include the par fours at the 356-yard 6th and the 358-yard 16th although, truth be told, it’s a sad indictment to learn that there are only three of the old Foulis holes remaining on today’s layout.

Gil Hanse kindly provided us with the following comments:

"Denver CC has had a very long and distinguished list of golf course architects work on the golf course, with modifications that have ranged from expanding length to the re-routing of golf holes. Recent architectural changes had been under the direction of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who had worked to improve some of the details of the golf course and to rebuild several greens that had been changed from the traditional character of the course.

Due to scheduling issues Coore and Crenshaw relinquished their consulting arrangement and fully supported the recent move to Gil Hanse as the consulting architect for the club. Upon the appointment of Hanse, the club undertook a complete renovation of the bunkering on the property in 2011. The new bunkering scheme was based on early plans completed by William Flynn in the 1920s and was intended to restore some of the character of his bunker style, as well as placing the bunkers in a position that challenged the length of the modern golfer. Bunkers were brought more out into the line of play, diagonals created and fairway bunkers became the primary driving hazard as opposed to trees on this lovely parkland golf course.

The club has also begun a program of selective tree removal to restore internal vistas to the property, and to also open up views of the downtown skyline and the Rocky Mountains."