Morgan Creek

In the first few years after leaving Robert Trent Jones Jr’s design company to start out on his own in 1997, Kyle Phillips continued working on European projects such as Kingsbarns in Scotland, Eichenheim in Austria and Lage Vuursche in The Netherlands.

Nonetheless, he was still active back in the United States and the course at Morgan Creek Golf Club, located less than a 20-minute drive from his Granite Bay office, became his first solo design in his home country when it opened without fuss or fanfare in 2003.

Routed around a large housing development, the 18-hole layout is, according to Daniel Wexler in The American Private Golf Club Guide, “occasionally rather heavily-shaped” while still managing to “succeed in capturing something of a classic feel.”

The author liked the “muscular standouts” at the 2nd, 9th and 11th holes, while also remarking: “a pair of watery par 3s (the 210-yard 7th and 177-yard 16th) are also worth noting, as is the finisher, a 420-yard two-shotter with [its] green fronted by a small bunker and flanked left by a pond.”

Since the publication of The American Private Golf Club Guide in 2010, Morgan Creek has become a public golf facility.