Lakeside challenge

(Moses Lake, 113 miles from Spokane; 4.5 miles from Moses Lake Golf Club)

This versatile course plays 5,787 yards from the reds all the way to 7,549 from the blacks (championship tees). There are plenty of bunkers, including a number of wisely placed fairway traps, elevation changes, thick rough and water.

It’s a challenging layout that hosted the 2005 and 2008 Washington State Amateur and the 2011 Pacific Northwest Public Links Championship.

“The shaper did an amazing job with the bunkers. We use Ravensdale tan-colored sand and it highlights the grasses,” said Bill Porter, director of golf. “What’s unique about the greens is nothing is really super severe. There isn’t a green complex where people say, ‘Gosh, what were they thinking?’ They’re large and have lots of pin locations.”

You’ll deal with length, fairway bunkers and green-side traps on the 455-yard par-4 4th. The par-5 sixth has the same features as well as a fairway that meanders left then back to the right.

The picturesque ninth is 458 yards with a trap awaiting drives right of the fairway. Hit the fairway and you encounter a downhill approach with a mid- to high-iron with little margin for error. Water and several bunkers gobble up errant shots.

The 11th is 561 yards, the last 175 or so uphill. The fairway is guarded by a water hazard left and club-grabbing rough and O.B. right. After your drive, seven traps catch your eye. The green is flanked by big bunkers left and right.

“It forces you to hit a good tee shot because there’s not really a bailout with water left and the road to the right,” Porter said. “If you want to take off a little of the corner, you can get home in two and potentially make a three.”

No. 12 is par 3 over water to a large green with a spine in the back middle. It’s 173 yards from the whites and a whopping 234 from the tips.

The par-5 18th is a nice closing hole. There are traps on each side of a narrow driving area and a huge bunker front left of the green.

“All of the par 5s are reachable maybe with the exception of No. 1,” Porter said. “You have a line that you can take that’s a little more risk-reward and give yourself an opportunity to reach in two.”

Porter added that the thick rough, thanks to fertilizer and spring rains, would soon return to its normal, shorter length.