Nothing Below Par Here
Consider yourself warned.
Unlike Sears commercials, Emmett Burley’s golf course wasn’t designed to cater to your softer side.
If pampering is your thing, try Club Med. But it you want to test the limits of your patience, temper and mental toughness, tee it up at The Links, the region’s newest 18-hole layout.
And don’t forget to check your ego at the door of the pro shop.
Burley’s unique and exhaustively challenging Post Falls course is a genuine monster, especially when the wind kicks up. From the back tees, this links-style layout, which opened in early May, stretches some 7,357 yards, plays to a par of 73 and features eight par-4 holes longer than 400 yards.
It also boasts a rare par-6 - the 740-yard 9th, which is in the process of being lengthened, mainly because Burley doesn’t fancy the idea of even the longest of hitters getting home in three with a short iron.
Burley, 73, is a longtime Spokane resident and former owner of Quarry Tile Company. He sold his business and retired nearly 20 years ago, but just recently realized his dream of designing and building his own golf course.
His creation, which sits on 150 acres of relatively flat, treeless terrain just 3-1/2 miles north of Post Falls on Chase Road, is still in its infancy. The fairways and greens have filled in nicely, but the rough is a rock-infested nightmare, capable of chewing up clubs, no matter what kind of space-age metal they’re made of.
As a result, local rules allow golfers to roll their ball to any soft, safe tuft of grass they can find, even when it comes to rest off the wide, inviting fairways.
It’s one of the few concessions the course makes to the purity of the sport, which is an obvious source of pride for Burley.
“It’s a different golf experience,” admitted the son of a former golf professional, who grew up in Ohio and played at Ohio University as a teammate of former PGA Tour standout Dow Finsterwald. “I tried to build a golf course where the younger players could come out and learn to play a tough golf course.
“When I first moved out here from back east, people used to ask me why there weren’t more players on Tour from the Pacific Northwest. I told them it was because there weren’t any tough courses out here.”
That was back in the mid-1950s. And while several challenging public courses have been built in the area since then, none can compare with The Links.
On the day I played it, the wind was howling out of the west. The first three holes played into its teeth.
On the 380-yard, par-4 opening hole, I hit driver and 3-wood, both pretty well, and was still short of the green. I chipped on, three-putted for a six and stalked over to the tee box on No. 2, another par-4, only to learn that it measures 451 yards - which translates, in my world of the high fade, into driver, 3-wood, full wedge and three more putts.
I would later stumble upon the 457-yard 13th and 468-yard 14th - both par 4s that were playing into a crosswind - and realize I was well out of comfort zone playing The Links from its tips.
“One of our biggest problems has been that we can’t get people to play from the tees that suit their game,” Burley said, pointing out that the 7th and 14th holes require carries of more than 220 yards just to reach the fairway from the back (black) tees.
The course features four sets of tees, the shortest of which plays to 5,598 yards. The front tees are painted green instead of the traditional red - and for a good reason.
Most golfers might want to avoid even the blue tees, which play to 6,898 yards. And many should probably walk past the whites (6,143 yards), as well, all the way up to the front tees in order to keep their golfing experience enjoyable.
“And when was the last time you saw a man break down and play from the red tees?” Burley asked, in reference to the color normally associated with “ladies” tees.
Burley wants golfers to swallow their pride and play from the tees that best fit their abilities. But even if they do, they will probably encounter more perils than they can imagine.
The greens, several of which are designed after those on particular holes at such legendary courses as Augusta National, Pinehurst and Pine Valley, are huge, but undulating and severely sloped. Several are steeply tiered, teeming with treacherous pin-placement possibilities and protected by deep pot bunkers.
The fairways, as inviting as they might seem, bend in odd ways. And the rough, even when playing preferred lies, can cost you a half a stroke per extraction effort.
The course record, which is held by Coeur d’Alene Resort head pro Mike DeLong, is a modest 69.
“I think it’s great,” Burley said. “Some of the pros are shooting par or 1-under, but nobody is burning the thing up from the back tees.”
Burley, who was a scratch golfer in college, filed for a permit to build his course back in 1994, about three years after he purchased the land, which had been used to grow crops. He was determined not to go in debt over his dream project, so actual development didn’t start until he cut a sweetheart deal with Burlington Northern Railroad, which purchased 50 acres of Burley’s land so it could build a refueling depot.
With the money he made from the sale, Burley was able to start moving dirt. And by renting much of the heavy equipment and operating the back hoe and road grader himself, he was able to bring the project in at the unheard-of cost of $1 million.
Dick Baiter, who purchased Quarry Tile from Burley and still owns the business, is a financial partner in the venture and is probably glad he bought into Burley’s wild dream.
“The golf course is debt-free. I don’t owe a dime on anything,” said Burley, who constructed his club house and snack bar from four of the portable buildings that had been used to house students at Hamblen Elementary School, which his two daughters attended. “When I took out my permit, I could see it was going to take a lot of money, and I was determined I wasn’t going to do it unless I could own it free and clear.”
Greens fees are $25 for unlimited daily play and $15 after 5 p.m. Carts are $22 for 18 holes and $13 for nine.
Burley enlisted the help of local golf course architect Keith Hellstrom in designing his greens. But he laid out the course on his own and ended up with his much-discussed par-6 ninth hole almost by accident.
“I was going to build a true links course, one that goes out and then comes back, with the ninth green being the farthest from the clubhouse,” Burley explained.
But after laying out the 220-yard par-3 8th hole, it was suggested by a local golf pro that it that it might be best to close the front nine near the clubhouse to accommodate golfers who just want to play nine holes.
So instead of continuing his layout back toward the west, Burley looked east at nearly 800 yards of potential fairway stretching back toward the clubhouse and constructed the only par-6 in the area.
He is building a new tee box that will make the hole play 777 yards. Some of the better golfers were reaching the green in three with short irons and making too many eagle-4s and routine birdie-5s to suit Burley.
“But they won’t get on from 777 yards, because they’ll be hitting their drives into the hill,” Burley said in an almost devilish tone. “Now, with no wind, it’ll take a 3-iron or fairway wood to get home.”
The Links, it seems, is all about toughness. It is not particularly scenic, and its untamed character won’t set well with all golfers.
Still, I would hate to see Burley’s course sent to finishing school. It was designed to be played in its natural state - as rugged and unrefined as that might be.
But a little smoothing of its rough’s edges wouldn’t hurt.