Ironbridge Golf Club
A Beautiful Challenge
by
9
2 miles east of Grand Junction
(and 5 ½ miles south of downtown Glenwood Springs) lies an
old, rusty iron bridge that crosses the
Roaring Fork River.
Just a good 5-iron south of the bridge,
on county road 109, you can catch your
first glimpse of Ironbridge Golf Club.
First impressions of the course and
clubhouse are quite favorable, and in
our case, included watching a couple of
bald eagles flying around their nesting
area near the driving range.
The spectacular beauty of the place,
however, is not fully experienced until
after you climb up the cart path into a
nearby canyon to the 10th tee box. The
10th thru the 13th holes exist in a secluded high canyon that sits well above
the level of the clubhouse.
There you are faced with some daunting golf holes that can intimidate first
timers, but that are really quite playable
provided you don’t hit your golf ball too
far sideways.
Having a GPS device here is helpful
(almost mandatory) to figure out yardages needed to navigate various canyons
or bunkers – especially with all of the
dramatic elevation changes.
The high point of these 4 holes is the
tee box on #12. There you are about
500 feet above the level of the clubhouse, which is now so far away that it
and every other remnant of a suburban
golf course environment is virtually
non-existent.
It’s almost like you’ve entered into a
Page 22 •
Our Backyard
lost world and expect to see dinosaurs
wandering around.
OK, maybe not – but I really like this
part of the golf course.
The 12th tee box is elevated so much
above the dog-leg right fairway that a
300-yard drive is a relatively easy task.
Go ahead, tee it high and let it fly …
soaring with the eagles until it falls to
earth and, with luck, avoids one of the
6 bunkers around the fairway. Even at
435 yards, you may have only a wedge
to the green, but even that shot has to
traverse another small canyon.
After that, you are ready to tackle the
par-5 13th hole, which challenges you
with two parts of a fairway separated
by another, even wider canyon. If you
manage to hit a good tee shot on 13, you
should be able to fly the next canyon
with just an iron to then reach the
downhill green in 3 shots.
That’s the theory, anyway, but it’s always good to pack a couple of extra golf
balls for this part of the course.
The true experience of this set of
holes, though, is one of real escape – to
an isolated, remote area of golf detached
from whatever else may be going on in
the world.
The mile-long cart ride from the 13th
green to the 14th tee box is a winding
descent back to reality. You once again
can see Mount Sopris and the community of homes surrounding the course.
THE IRONBRIDGE DESIGN
Ironbridge first opened in May of
2003 as a private club. The course was
designed by Arthur Hills, a well-known
golf course architect who has designed
hundreds of courses around the country. A couple of Hills’ more famous designs include Palmetto Dunes in Hilton
Head and Walking Stick in Pueblo.
Another Hills design that I have
played is Coral Oaks in Cape Coral,
561 25 Road
Grand Junction, CO 81505
970-242-3126 / 970-201-9420
• July 2015
Bud Winslow
Florida. A design trait that I noticed in
both courses is a tendency to keep green
surfaces partially hidden from view –
even from the fairway.
Those design features, however,
make the course even more challenging – especially for first timers - as you
anxiously walk up to the green to try to
locate your ball.
The number 1 handicap hole, the
10th, requires one of those blind shots
to an uphill green with a lot of slope
that allows the ball to roll back off the
green in a number of different directions.
According to Ironbridge Superintendent Eric Foerster, the course was
always intended to be a challenging design. In that regard, Mr. Hills succeeded
in giving the owners what they wanted.
After the course experienced bankruptcy and ownership changes, the new
team (Blue Heron Management, LLC)
enlisted the help of renowned golfer
Tom Lehman in 2014 to redesign much
of the course to make a number of
holes more playable. Lehman whittled
down the total number of bunkers from
around 70 to 40, and made some other
changes to give the course a cleaner
look.
The course is still challenging for pretty much all golfers, but with 8 possible
combinations of tees for all handicap
levels, a round at Ironbridge should appeal to everyone who enjoys the game.
As for the aforementioned 10th hole,
Mr. Lehman made some changes there
to make it play easier than the previous
version by removing a greenside bunker
and adding rough to keep golf balls from
rolling all the way back down into the
fairway.
GREAT COURSE CONDITIONS
If you enjoy playing golf on a course
with excellent turf conditions, slick
greens and beautiful scenery, then you
will enjoy Ironbridge. The golfers who
joined me on our round did a little
whining about the difficulty of this hole
or that hole, or complained about the
blind shots to many greens – but in the
end, all of them expressed a desire to go
play the course again.
That is the sign of a good golf course.
Foerster told me the grass on the
greens at Ironbridge is a strain of bent
grass called “Providence” that was developed in the late 1990’s. The greens
are firm and fast, but hold iron shots
that are well struck. The club likes to
keep the greens running between 10
and 11 on the stimpmeter – which is
fast enough to expose any flaws in your
putting stroke.
On a couple of occasions, putts in
our group struck with a little too much
speed ended up well off the green.
Green fees at Ironbridge run from $49
to $89 depending on the time of year,
day of the week and time of day. In the
summer, twilight rates start at 2 p.m.
All of the rates include a cart and range
balls.
It’s good that they include a cart –
because without one you would need
to hire a Colorado Sherpa to guide you
around the lost world of that back nine.
Gary on 10th tee Ironbridge. (Photo by Donna Winslow)