RUSTIC CANYON GOLF COURSE - 16 POINTS

So often in the USA, top quality golf is the preserve of the wealthy. Most of the top courses are either behind gates which require amazing connections to open, or only available at an eye-watering price. 

And then there is Rustic Canyon.

This course, designed by Gil Hanse and Geoff Shackelford, is less than an hour north of Los Angeles. The green fee ranges from $24 to $84 depending on when you want to play - and I suspect there isn’t a better value golf course on the entire continent.

Hanse and Shackelford have created a course which is full of strategy and fun. You could play it again and again and never tire of the challenge faced.

Rustic Canyon won’t beat you up from the tee. There is only one hole with a significant carry to find the fairway - and even there there is a set of tees available for those of us who don’t have the skill or strength to carry the ball 230 yards. You will almost always find your ball from the tee and be able to make good progress down the hole with your second.

However, like all good, strategic courses, to score well you need to make decisions about where you are going to play your ball and then execute. It is a little too trite to say that Rustic Canyon is a second-shot course, but, if you have put the ball in play where you wanted from the tee, the real challenge generally comes with your approach.

When I played this course, on many holes the pins were in barely conceivable positions. They were sometimes just a couple of paces from the edge of the green and I don’t think I have ever seen as many sucker pins in one round. I was sucked in a few times too!

Even if the pins had been in more accessible positions, the challenges would have been significant. Hanse and Shackelford went to town on their green complexes. Expect saddles which either propel your ball to the hole or repel it to treacherous runoffs, and shaping that could be straight out of a Scottish links. You will want to go out and play again immediately you finish a round, which is one of the very highest accolades I can give!

The opening two holes are straight out of the George Thomas playbook. The first is a par 5 which longer hits will be able to go for in two and which serves as the classic gentle handshake. However, with a gully bunker in front of the green, you find out early on that precision in approach is going to be key to scoring well. The second is then a fine, long par 4. Putting it on the left hand side of the fairway gives you the best line in for your long second shot, but out of bounds awaits there too.

You are asked the first really strategic question from the tee at the 3rd. If you go for the green just 300 yards away you risk ending up in one of the gnarly bunkers and par may be a struggle. The lay-up down the left hand side wasn’t really an option from the tee as overhanging branches made getting through them a very high risk move. Instead, the layup down the right meant a relatively straightforward pitch into the green and a birdie putt (duly missed!). It’s a classic, short par 4 and great fun.

The front 9 heads down the canyon towards the property entrance and the barranca (the dried up river bed) comes in to play on several holes. The 5th is a great example of what makes Rustic Canyon such fun to play. This par 5 is playable for golfers of all standards - but judging how much of the scrub area to take on with your second shot and choosing the line for your approach to the green will depend on how confident your are in your abilities to execute.

I really enjoyed the par 3s and the 6th is a good test. Over 200 yards, with a long carry, it once again demands a well hit shot. With the pin on the left I didn’t trust my ability to get it all the way to the tightly cut pin so bailed to the right - where there is more room, but bunkers await.

The 7th is another wonderful hole. Short par 4s rarely fail to please the average golfer but this one really makes you think from the tee rather than just blast away. Most golfers will do what I did and lay up short of the scrub area, but you then need to be dialled in with your wedge for the approach. Longer (and braver) hitters will be rewarded by taking on and clearing the area from the tee - the angle in to the green is so much easier from the far side of the scrub.

After a short par 4, the joy keeps coming with a short par 3! Rustic Canyon’s postage stamp is the 8th, with an island of green sitting amongst the sand, so you need to get the ball in the air to get it on. It’s only 123 yards but try not to be suckered in by the pin if it’s on the left as it was the day I was there.

Having weaved a figure of 8 away from the clubhouse on the front 9, you come back to the clubhouse on the 9th and the back 9 all lies on the other side of the property. While the front 9 is in no way crowded, the back half has a more isolated feel to it as you weave through the canyon, away from the coast.

It opens with two stout holes - a long par 5 (540 yards off the middle tees) and a 430 yard par 4. The 11th is a great example of a hole where you have to decide if you’re playing for par or bogey. Drive it close to the waste area and you are rewarded with a shorter shot into the green, bail out and it’s a tough two shots, though less likely to lead to disaster.

There’s more risk and reward at the par 3 12th. At 320 yards it’s tempting to blast a driver as close to the green as you can. One of the young bucks I was playing with had the length to get there, but a tug left and his ball was gone. Slow and steady won the race for me with a long iron followed by a short to get to the green.

The par 5 thirteenth is a great example of what makes this hole such fun. There’s width from the tee but a pretty innocuous looking bunker is waiting to gobble balls up from the middle of the fairway. A bunker lies in front of the incredibly wide green which means you really need to think about where the pin is for your second shot to take the bunker out of play. The day I played, the hole was cut directly behind the bunker on the cusp of two vicious slopes. There were a lot of extreme pins when I played but this one took the biscuit!

I took advantage of the ‘Hanse tees’ on the 14th. On a few of the longer holes there is a set of tees put in by Hanse which brings the course to a more manageable 6,440 yards and eliminates some of the excesses. The carry on this long par 4 was a stretch for me, slightly late in the day and jetlagged. If you go back then you’ll need a good, strong draw to have a reasonable approach in. Either way, it’s a strong hole. There is no doubt that this back nine, at over 300 yards longer than the front nine, needs more muscle.

However, you have two par 3s in the last four holes to look forward to. The last couple of holes really made me think of the Australian Sandbelt. The 17th is a middle length par 3 playing over a scrubby area which is especially in play with the pin on the right.

The sun was fading fast as we played 18 which only added to the magical feel as we headed in. There’s another waste area to the right which was like a magnet for our balls, but it was a chop out and then a running ball along the ground onto the green. The green itself was fun too - the back half was the practice putting green, something that had totally passed me by while using it before the round!

Rustic Canyon is a real joy. The three guys from LA I got paired up with to play were very different from me. They were young, athletic and at the beginning of their golfing odyssey. They had never played this kind of golf before - where you can use the ground to your advantage and length isn’t everything to get a good score. They absolutely loved the experience and when we finished booked to to play again the very next week.

It’s a course that can be enjoyed by anyone and everyone. From a rookie golfer to a player who has been lucky enough to play the best courses across the globe. You can’t ask for much more than that.

BOOKING A TEE TIME

This is a really easy one! You can book a time online on the Rustic Canyon website. You will see that they have quite a lot of variation in pricing depending on the time of day/week/month, but the range is from an amazing $24 to about $84 at the summer peak. That is nothing short of incredible given how difficult it is to get on most quality courses in the States at all, let alone at decent prices.

There are carts available for rent but it’s a pretty easy walking course.

It took me just over an hour to drive from LA and it’s an easy ride. I used a cool app called Turo to book a car. I simply paid $50 to pick up a car from someone’s house near my hotel and borrow it for the day. Saved all the hassle of using a car hire company and it was much cheaper too!

Prices correct as of August 2023.

CONTACT DETAILS

Rustic Canyon Golf Course
15100 Happy Camp
Canyon Rd
Moorpark
CA 93021
USA

Phone: +1 805-530-0221
Web: www.rusticcanyongolfcourse.com

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