Lander Golf Club

Normally I don't like to go golfing if there is a chance of thunderstorms, but since thunderstorms were forecast for our entire week here at Lander, Wyoming, we decided to give it a try.

Lander Golf Club is a municipal golf course and the only game in town, other than a semi-private golf course in Riverton which is 25 miles away.  Lander's golf course is an eighteen hole course with the first nine being a tree lined, carefully mowed course and the back nine being a newer, rougher, still undergoing work links style course.

Denny played the blue or longest tees at 6574 yards with the course rating/slope of 71.5/129.  I played the red or senior tees at 5191 yards with a course rates/slope of 69.6/127.  Conditions were a little rough on the course although the fairways and greens were being mowed as we played.  I think the delayed spring had a lot to do with the course condition.  I must say the staff was very friendly and helpful, even putting a cart cover on our golf cart knowing the rain was inevitable.

As evidenced by the photos, we were practically the only people on the golf course, which allowed us to take the time to look for lost balls in the creeks and rough and to take practice shots when our first attempts were ugly.  And there were a few of those also.

The scenery was a bit distracting also; this view from the eleventh hole shows the Wind River Mountains in the distance.  Certainly the course was convenient to us from the campground--we pulled out of the campground, turned right, drove a half block, turned right and followed the driveway to the clubhouse.  On the tee box of the ninth hole, you not only are making the turn, you could walk down to your rig for lunch.  That's us in the middle of the picture, partially hidden behind the tree.  Hi Beast!

I have to say that this is the most expensive golf course we've played in a lot of years (like since Hawaii in 1992?), especially considering the condition of the golf course itself, however it is a challenging golf course and we enjoyed our round.  Despite the rain, despite the roughness of the back nine, despite the occasional ugly, ugly golf shot.  Yep, had fun.

A Day at the Rochelle Ranch Golf Course

As any golfer could see from this first picture, the Rochelle Ranch Golf Course is a links-type course.  Located at 2808 E. Rochelle Drive in Rawlins, Wyoming it's advertised as being the 29th hardest course in the country per Golf Digest Magazine.  Denny and I agree that that claim just may be true, certainly according to our play that day.

I don't think the course has been open long this season as there are four holes that have large areas of ground under repair.  And when I say large, I mean 125 yards deep large.  Since you can't retrieve your balls from the ground under repair area, we lost a few balls to the course.  But that was about the only bad thing we could say about this course.

There are five different tee boxes, the longest making the course 7925 yards long with a rating/slope of 75.9/182 and the shortest at 5763 yards with a rating/slope of 70.9/124.  I was tickled by the tee box markers, which were cast iron horse shoes, brands, spurs and silhouetted images of antelope and coyotes.  The price during the week to play 18 holes is $30 for golf, $15/person for an electric cart.  And this is a long, long course to walk.  As Golf Card members, we were able to get the 2 for 1 greens fees price, which was nice.

The skies were threatening to rain all day but it was the wind that got to us in the long run.  This course would be challenging at any time, but coupled with high winds it was a tough, tough course to play.  However, the scenery was wonderful and we were surrounded by wildlife.

This pair of pronghorn antelope were lying on the course watching us and prairie dogs were constantly popping up out of their burrows to check us out, but they were too quick to be photographed.

This American Avocet was a new breed to us and there were several pairs on the various lakes on the golf course. He is actually wading here, not swimming.  Other than some seagulls and red wing black birds, there were surprising few birds to be seen around the course, but of course there weren't any trees around for perching, either, just a lot of sagebrush.  We saw several large dens which I assumed were fox holes so there's a possibility of a large number of critter sightings here when you play.

This is definitely a course we'd play again.  When gale force winds aren't predicted for the entire darned week.