Salt Lake City Golf Courses
By Joel Zuckerman, The Vagabond Golfer
True story: We were in Utah for a late-winter ski vacation some years back. One of the guys was getting frustrated at his inability to master powder skiing, so rare on the icier slopes of the east, to which we were accustomed. He decided to take a day off and dropped the rest of us up at Alta, where it was snowing hard upon our arrival. We reveled in the foot of fresh snow that fell during the course of the day, adding to already sublime conditions. And we were surprised during our late afternoon rendezvous with our missing party, who had become the designated chauffeur, that he was also sporting an ear-to-ear grin. Asked how he had whiled away the hours while we were thigh-high in the fresh stuff, his reply made us incredulous. We thought he was pulling our leg. "I went down into the valley and rented golf clubs,"...
he related. "It was probably 55 degrees, partly sunny, and I played 18 holes on a really nice track near the airport."
It was at that moment I realized how incredibly diverse the recreation options are in northern Utah. Greater Salt Lake City is one of the very few places on the continent where one could pull off a "ski and tee;" barrel downhill in the morning and then smack a drive on verdant green fairways in the afternoon.
The other candidates include Lake Tahoe, Whitefish, Montana, and perhaps Jackson, Wyoming. But great as that trio of destinations are, all their golf courses combined (not to mention their world-class ski hills) don't add up to what's available within a one-hour radius of downtown Salt Lake City.
The beauty of the situation is that the vast majority of the golf options, just like the ski hills, are available to anyone who wants to indulge their passion. (One notable exception is the venerable Salt Lake Country Club, one of the oldest private clubs west of the Mississippi.) There might be 50-odd public-access courses to be found in greater Salt Lake City. These are among the best:
Within the city limits, it's arguable that the best bets are Wingpointe and Stonebridge. Thanksgiving Point is a Johnny Miller design just to the south in Lehi. Valley View is in Fruit Heights, Talon's Cove can be found in Saratoga Springs and South Mountain is in Draper. Lastly, south of the city but close to Utah Lake in the city of Orem is Sleepy Ridge. Designed by up-and-coming Matt Dye, nephew of legendary Pete Dye, this is one of the better courses on the outer periphery of the state capital. But there are a dozen-or-more equally compelling courses found much closer to the city's center.
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