Glacier Club & Dalton Ranch Add Appeal to Durango

By: Steve Habel

There's a subtle sense of wonder that envelops those lucky enough to reside in Durango - a bustling city of about 17,000 near the southwest corner of Colorado. It's almost like they know a secret they are busting a gut to share but fear doing so could change the things that make the place so special.

Durango is located in the saddle of the lush Animas River Valley as sort of a way-station and social link between mountains to the north and desert to the south. The area has more than a thousand miles of mountain-biking trails, with the 500,000-acre Weminuche Wilderness (the largest such untouched natural area in Colorado) just to the north.

To reach the city from the north, one must drive over the Rockies on the Million Dollar Highway, a narrow byway with steep cliffs and mountain views that tempt drivers to take their eyes off the road (don't do it - there are no guardrails to keep you on the pavement).

For winter-sports fanatics, there are two ski resorts within a 45-minute drive of downtown Durango. For our purposes, La Plata County boasts four golf courses, including two that line up among the best in Colorado for their alpine terrain, beauty and playability.

I was fortunate enough the tee it up at the 27-hole Glacier Club and Dalton Ranch Golf Club on the same day, all after making the two-hour, 81-mile trek via the San Juan Skyway through the mountainous Uncompahgre Gorge and Red Mountain Pass. This was a total Colorado experience, both in the golf and oneness with Mother Nature.

Glacier Club is Great & Getting Better

On the western slope of the Continental Divide, 18 miles north of Durango among exposed cliffs, streams, meadows and wildlife, and surrounded by 3 million acres of national forest, is Glacier Club, a 27-hole centerpiece for the community around it.

Developed in the mid-1970s in the north Animas Valley on former grazing and pasture land, the site's original 18-hole layout (called The Cliffs at Tamarron) was designed by Arthur Hills. It routinely received top awards for best in the state and in the West.

In 2001, Tamarron was purchased by Rick and Andrea Carlton, who began work on Glacier Club. Hills' course was renovated and nine additional holes - designed by Todd Schroeder - were routed; they opened for play in 2003. Soon to follow was a 20,000-square-foot clubhouse (which sits on a cliff about 200 feet above the first fairway of the Glacier nine) and a heated outdoor pool for a club that eventually went private, open only to members and their guests.

Glacier Club offers three of the most scenic sets of holes in the Colorado Rockies: the Hermosa, Cliffs and Glacier nines. Surrounded by glacially striated cliffs and peaks that rise 14,000 feet, the three routings sit at an elevation of 7,400 feet. The layouts are chiseled out of mountains and forests, resulting in natural hazards and unparalleled vistas.

Each of the nines has its own identity. The Cliffs (playing 3,340 yards from the back set of four tees) is like two different courses, with several holes set against the mountain and others winding through a forest of ponderosa pine, mountain cedar and aspen.

The Hermosa nine is shorter (3,306 yards) and quite walkable, a rarity for a mountain course. And the Glacier nine (Schroeder's work) is aptly named as it curls across 3,583 yards of rugged terrain with dramatic elevation changes, high meadows, protected wetlands and ponds.

On June 1, Glacier Club broke ground on its fourth nine, enabling the resort to offer two 18-hole layouts. The additional nine holes (fashioned by Schroeder with help of Colorado native Hale Irwin) will combine with the Glacier nine to become the Glacier Course. In all, it will occupy 228 acres at Glacier Club's north end acquired as part of a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service in 2010. The Hermosa and Cliffs nines will be renamed the Cliffs Course.

"This completes the original golf vision to have a world-class venue that includes an opportunity for a members-only course and a semiprivate course within a resort setting," said Glacier Club general manager Jim Goodman.

Glacier Club also plans to demolish Tamarron Lodge, a 74,000-square-foot building that was once home to a convention center, restaurants and meeting facilities, replacing it with a luxury hotel. The portion of the building that has lived-in condominiums is not part of the project.

Glacier Club is all it's cracked up to be and will be even better once the changes are completed. The conditions are first-rate and the outdoorsy experience is a true joy.

For more information, visit www.theglacierclub.com.

Dalton Ranch No Second Fiddle

Although its scale is not as epic as Glacier Club's, Durango's other premium golf option - the semiprivate Dalton Ranch and Golf Club - takes no back seat to its bigger and older rival up the road. If anything, the golf here - 18 holes designed by Ken Dye (known for his handiwork at Pinon Hills and Black Mesa in New Mexico and, most recently, the wonderful Mystic Creek Golf Club in El Dorado, Ark.) - is even better as it's higher in the mountains.

Opened in July 1993, Dalton Ranch GC, located six miles from Durango, was an alfalfa field before Dye shifted 800,000 cubic yards of dirt to create rolling mounds throughout the 6,934-yard par 72 layout. When first built, many of the mounds were covered in thick fescue, but that turf has since been changed to improve playability.

Dalton Ranch's terrain is in a river valley and mostly flat, but Dye's mounding adds plenty of contour and slope to create uneven lies. Some of the mounds split fairways, forcing golfers to make choices off the tee.

Typical of Dye, the greens are raised and tilt significantly toward bunkers, and the fairways - though wide in the landing areas - narrow as they near greens.

The first seven holes at Dalton Ranch are straightforward, but the challenge kicks in on a five-hole stretch that begins at the 476-yard par-4 eighth and concludes with the 479-yard 12th, the longest and most demanding two-shot hole on the course.

In March when new owners took over Dalton Ranch, Irwin Golf Management (IGM), a firm owned by Irwin and his son Steve Irwin, was contracted to find ways to maximize the club's offerings.

"Dalton Ranch has always been a great course that's kept in great shape, thanks to continual capital improvements, and that's not going to change," Steve Irwin said. "We're just looking to build on the foundation that's already been laid."

IGM has introduced a referral program that's generated over 40 new memberships, and it's simplified and upgraded the menu in the clubhouse restaurant.

Dalton Ranch has been called "the sparkling jewel" of golf in southwest Colorado and it fulfills that promise. It provides an excellent test of course management and a rare blend of riverside holes, wavy terrain and splendid panoramas in a corner of the Centennial State where superlatives don't give the area the justice it deserves.

For additional info, see www.daltonranch.com.

Steve Habel is a freelance writer contributing Cybergolf news stories, features, equipment and book reviews and personality profiles from his base in Austin, Texas. He also works as an associate editor for Horns Illustrated magazine, a publication focusing on University of Texas sports, and is a contributing writer for Texas Golf Insider, Golf Oklahoma magazine, Tri-State Golfer and ATX Man magazine. Habel's blog (www.shotoverthegreen.blogspot.com) features news on golf and chronicles his many travels, including playing almost 1,000 golf courses since 2008. Habel is a member of the Golf Writers Association of America and the Texas Golf Writers Association.

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