Palouse Ridge

Set within the rolling hills on Washington State University’s Pullman campus, the 18-hole layout at Palouse Ridge Golf Club is a bold, dramatic design that emanated from the drawing board of architect John Harbottle III and it’s the home course of the university’s Cougar golf teams.

The course replaced an old 9-hole layout dating back to 1925, which had two sets of tees for every hole, but it measured less than 6,000 yards (with a course rating of 65.4 against a par of 72 and a very low slope of 110) so it was hardly likely to ever challenge anyone other than a recreational golfer.

The old track was closed in 2006, before the bulldozers moved in to fashion the new $12 million course on part of the same site and on adjacent land acquired for the redevelopment. Two years later, on 29th August 2008 to be precise, the new course made its much-anticipated debut.

The 589-yard 5th is a very tough par five, with a broad swathe of wetland area cutting across the fairway at a diagonal angle. The offset green is slightly raised and well protected by bunkers so only the most precise approach shots will hit and hold the putting surface.

The back nine – configured with three par threes, three par fours and three par fives – plays shorter than the outward half and it concludes with back-to-back par fives, the second of which doglegs sharply left and uphill to a tiered green that’s benched into a hill in front of the clubhouse.