Three Courses For The Road Tri-Cities Layouts Offer Quality, Scenery, Challenges
As a spring travel destination, the Tri-Cities of Pasco, Kennewick and Richland do not exactly compete with the tri-cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton. But there is one compelling reason for people in the Inland Northwest to take a quick and inexpensive road trip to the Tri-Cities in the spring: great golf.
Let’s tally up the advantages:
The Tri-Cities are consistently warmer than Spokane in the spring. The average high in April is 67 degrees, compared to 58 in Spokane.
The Tri-Cities are consistently drier, being more directly in the rain shadow of some big hazards called Mount Rainier, Mount Adams and Mount Hood. Average April rainfall is a half-inch, less than half of Spokane’s average.
The Tri-Cities have three excellent open-to-the-public golf courses: Canyon Lakes, Horn Rapids and Columbia Point.
We took a weekend golf jaunt to the Tri-Cities in mid-March, and the climatic advantage was apparent as soon as we pulled into town (or should we say, towns). The plum trees and forsythia bushes were blazing with color, while back in Spokane, not a blossom had burst. That’s the effect of a big drop in elevation (the Tri-Cities are at about 300 feet above sea level), coupled with a slight drop in latitude. These bright colors presaged what turned out to be a perfect weekend of short-sleeve weather - and it wasn’t even St. Patrick’s Day yet.
Canyon Lakes
Our first destination was Canyon Lakes, perched against a hillside just west of Kennewick. Surrounded by a new, upscale housing development, this course has a lush country club feel.
The course was jammed on this beautiful Saturday - clearly, Canyon Lakes is wildly popular, especially among golfers who aren’t interested in wimpy courses. This 6,505-yard course (from the blue tees) is one of the more challenging tests in the region, with a course rating of 71.2 and a slope of 124, which puts it at about the Indian Canyon level of difficulty.
This rating is probably due to three elements: plenty of water, including a canal snaking through the entire course; numerous sand traps; and diabolically slippery greens.
Those of us who like our challenges a bit more subdued can play from the white tees, which reduces the yardage to 6,034 and the course rating/slope to 69.2/120. Even at that, the course is plenty challenging.
The huge, beautifully kept greens are the course’s defining elements. When we say huge, we mean huge: One green, on the par-3 No. 12, is touted as the largest green in the Northwest. We have no independent verification of this, but at 12,000 square feet, it’s hard to imagine a bigger one.
This green, like many at Canyon Lakes, has more than one tier, which makes hitting the green less vital than hitting the correct part of the green. You’re better off being just short of the green than being on a tier above the hole.
The greens were so fast that several members of our foursome rolled putts all the way off. However, once we got used to the sensitive touch required, the greens seem more delicate than diabolical.
Two of the most entertaining holes on the course come one right after another. The par-4 eighth starts off on an exhilarating elevated tee, allowing you to look out over the Yakima and Columbia river drainages as well as giving you an eagle’s view of practically every inch of the 388 yards to the hole.
“This is a fun one,” said one member of our foursome, a veteran of the course.
You can watch your drive bounce right up to the perfect landing spot at the elbow of a dogleg. From there, take a sharp left turn uphill to the green.
The ninth is almost as much fun. This 510-yard par-5 requires a strong drive, but the terrain gives you a feeling of security: The ridges on either side of the fairway seem to funnel errant drives back toward the middle.
A big enough drive may tempt you to go for the green in two. However, the walled, elevated green, with a nasty pond on the front right, dictates prudence. It’s smarter to lay up into the fairway that curls around the green’s left approach.
Canyon Lakes has many idiosyncracies and subtleties, but fortunately, the management provides uncommonly helpful assistance to the first-timer. Every cart comes equipped with a laminated, hole-by-hole map and description. It describes aiming points, landing spots and the hazards up ahead. Walkers can pick up one of these booklets in the pro shop.
Beyond that, the landmarks on the course itself are exceptionally well-marked. Every hole has a tall “barber pole” at the 150-yard mark. It makes aiming simple. In addition, yard markers are imbedded at regular intervals along the fairway.
Horn Rapids Golf Course
A completely different golf experience awaits at Horn Rapids, located on a dry bench high above the Yakima River just northwest of Richland.
This is a desert course, designed as a target golf experience. You’ll find hardly any trees, and only two holes where water comes into play. What you will find is sand, lots of it, and not all of it in the sand traps.
Sand is the natural ground cover on this dry patch of central Washington desert, sometimes piling up in dunes. The sagebrush is what passes for a tree, and they grow some whoppers out here, some of them as tall as a person. Vast stretches of desert await any shot that goes off-line, as well as numerous shots that don’t. That’s because the fairways are regularly interrupted by wide swaths of desert, almost like massive fairway-spanning sand traps.
A typical hole might have a lush tee box set up above the sand and sage, followed by a patch of desert and then a stretch of well-maintained greensward. The objective, of course, is to drop your tee shot onto this length of fairway.
Your next shot, however, may have to carry another band of desert before it lands on the green or on the short fairway approach to it. If you clunk your second shot, the ball will probably roll straight into the desert.
Which could be worse. The good news: The ball is easy to find, since there is not much undergrowth. Also, the lie is usually not buried, since the grass is sparse or nonexistent. However, you usually have to hit off a hard sand lie, which makes for some real fliers.
The course itself is surprisingly pretty, with plenty of rolling mounds and berms rising emerald-green above the prevailing brown-and-khaki landscape. One excellent place to enjoy the view is at the elevated tee box on the 203-yard, par-3 No. 8.
According to the couple we were paired with, Felix and Lana Miera of Kennewick, the view will become even more spectacular in late April and May.
“When the wildflowers bloom in the desert, this course becomes so beautiful,” said Lana Miera. “It’s just breathtaking.”
Not only does the desert produce flowers naturally, but the groundskeepers sow wildflower seeds along the course.
If the crowds on this particular weekend were any indication, Horn Rapids is not as wildly popular as Canyon Lakes. However, the Mieras said they love Horn Rapids for several reasons: It is easier to walk than Canyon Lakes (it doesn’t have as many hills), and it is not quite so devilishly demanding, especially on the greens.
Still, this course is demanding enough for anybody from the blue tees, where it measures 6,945 yards, with a course rating/slope of 73.6/130. However, on the white tees (which we were smart enough to play), the yardage is 6,405 and the course rating/slope is a more reasonable 71/122.
By the way, both Horn Rapids and Canyon Lakes have new par-72 putting courses, built just last year, featuring bridges and waterfalls. Check those out while you’re there.
IF YOU GO Several hotels in the area offer appealing golf discount packages, including the Holiday Inn Express in Kennewick (509-736-3326), the Shilo Inn in Richland (1-800-222-2244), Cavanaughs At Columbia Center (1-800-THE-INNS), Silver Cloud Inn in Kennewick (1-800-205-6938) and the Doubletree Hotels in Pasco and Richland (1-800-222-TREE). Golf is a major tourist attraction in the Tri-Cities, so the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau offers information on these and other discounts through their special “Golf Getaway” discount package. Call the bureau at (800) 254-5824, and they’ll send you the package free of charge.
Course info Canyon Lakes Golf Course: 3700 Canyon Lakes Drive in Kennewick (go south on Highway 395, then east on 27th Avenue, look for signs). Fees range from $28 to $20. Phone: (509) 582-3736. Horn Rapids Golf Course: 2800 Clubhouse Lane, Richland (go north on Highway 240 from Richland for two miles, look for signs). Fees range from $25 to $17. Phone: (509) 375-4714. Columbia Point Golf Course. 225 Columbia Point Drive in Richland (take George Washington Way exit off I-182 north to first stop light and turn right). Fees range from $18 to $25, with discounts for seniors (55 and over) and juniors (16 and under) on weekdays. An increase in fees is expected later this spring, however. Phone: (509) 946-0710.