I'm a bit overdue for this review as I played Pronghorn for a tournament September 29th-30th.

Pronghorn is such an incredibly cool place. With two courses that are distinctly different it's a grea... Continue »

I'm a bit overdue for this review as I played Pronghorn for a tournament September 29th-30th.

Pronghorn is such an incredibly cool place. With two courses that are distinctly different it's a great place to hang out for a couple days.

First off, the location of Pronghorn is absolutely gorgeous. Its more of a high desert feel than mountain and the long drive in to the property gives you a feeling of seclusion. The golf facilities at Pronghorn are some of the best I have ever seen. The range is HUGE with just perfect grass, high quality golf balls and more targets than you need. I could hit balls there all day! Nearer the pro shop and snack bar is the Nicklaus course short game area and it's more of a zen garden than anything. With the trees and landscaping you can't help to want to practice all day.

As for the course, I have never played in better conditions than what we had at Pronghorn. This was tour level quality with tight bent grass fairways that were unreal to hit from. It was so cool to take those big pelt-like divots. Even though the course played extremely firm with tons of roll out, it was still easy to work through the ball on iron shots.

The tees were basically tees, flat and perfect grass. I never make a big deal out of tees unless it's something really bad seeing as you can do whatever you need to give yourself a good lie.

The rough could get a bit thick in places but it wasn't absolutely penalizing. The bunkers had a totally different kind of sand than the Nicklaus course, darker in color but lighter in texture. REally an interesting feel and I wonder if it was some sort of local sand as I've never played sand like it before.

As for the greens....AMAZING! They were rolling 12.5 on the stimp and were super firm. You'd leave small bruises on higher shot and could hold shots, but the firmness and speed really lent itself more to playing some roll with the mounding and undulations. I have never putted on greens that were this smooth. If you got the ball rolling it never went off line. Just the best thing I've ever putted on.

After playing the Nicklaus course the day before I was really looking forward to the Fazio. While the Nicklaus was more or less your standard Nicklaus course, the Fazio felt like each hole was unique and presented an almost unlimited amount of ways to play them. With greens open in the front, routing that took advantage of the landscape and greens with some crazy mounding and shaved surroundings you could get really, really creative on every shot. I spent the entire day almost laughing at how much fun it was. This is my kind of golf! On top of that, #8 is possibly the most amazing par 3 (not next to the ocean) that I have ever played. At about 160 yards you hit over these two massive caves from old lava flows, surrounded by cliffs. Just spectacular.

While the Nicklaus course was great, I can't remember having as much fun playing a course as I did the Fazio. I would HIGHLY recommend Pronghorn to anyone but I'd recommend playing the Nicklaus first and then enjoying the masterpiece that is the Fazio.