The Unpublished Article on Hunter's Run

You can read it here first... and last!  This is the article that will never be published (I am pretty sure I can say the word never in this case) in Four Corners Golf Magazine.  D.K. thought it sounded too "bloggy" (my word), and she was disappointed that Bob would not cooperate in order for me to get a more informational article.  She will pay me a "kill fee" (her words) for my time and trouble, and she plans to give me a much better writing assignment for next time, but this one ended up on the "cutting room floor", so I am posting it here.

As I reread it, I agreed.  It's better suited here on my blog...

   I can credit Hunter’s Run and Marianna Butte (in Loveland, CO) for my start in golf.  If it weren’t for those two golf courses and the two bachelor parties I was invited to, I would not have started playing golf eleven years ago.  I would not have bought that Mitsushiba (I know, not a brand name) starter golf set from Tom at Golf U.S.A. in order to appear to know what I was doing.

   When I first played Hunter’s Run, I recognized immediately that this course was low-key.  The owner allowed the groom and some of his friends to bring their own alcohol, a big no-no on other golf courses where a cooler is required and the alcohol must be purchased there.

   I remembered a few of the holes including hole #1.  I thought it was a short par four because I used an iron for my first tee shot there.  It is actually a par five, so that’s probably why I took an iron.  I had read somewhere that a driver is not necessary on par fives.  Now I know it’s more fun to take out a driver on a par five (if I’m feeling confident with it) because it opens up the possibility of getting on in two shots instead of three.  The first time I played #1, I thought it was cruel. I remember the small raised green and the narrow creek/ditch with all of the tall grasses and reeds sticking out that protected it. I had the hardest time pitching my ball so it would stay on the dang thing. 

   Hole #2 was the hole where one of the guys I was playing with was upset when he hit his ball into the water that was next to the green. He complained, saying something like, “I didn’t even know there was water over there!  I wouldn’t have hit it over there if I knew there was water!”

   I could not forget the par three #5 that was surrounded by the wild that makes up the “rough” at this golf course with all of its trees, sagebrush, rocks, dead branches, and all the other woodsy stuff out there.

   I recalled hole #8, too.  When I played it this second time, I imagined a seven-old boy (the son of an ogre, maybe) playing in the mud and water.  I pictured this little guy using his imagination and his small, mud-caked hands to create a golf hole, and then he got wild with it.  He carved out a huge moat that curved around the front of the green like a horseshoe.  Then he pushed the green up from behind to make a hill that got steadily higher and higher until it resembled more of a miniature cliff.  Not satisfied, he made the green narrow and added two tiers.  He bowed it a little to make sure any golf balls that actually did hit the green might roll into the moat or off the backside cliff.  Tough hole, no doubt, but that’s part of what makes this golf course challenging and fun. 

   For some reason (not alcohol), my memory of the other holes was a bit fuzzy.  Playing the course again gave me a chance to get reacquainted.  When I called the owner, Bob, a year ago to see if he would let me come do an article on his golf course, he flat out told me no.  He was polite, but he was blunt.  He said he didn’t want to be featured in Four Corners Golf Magazine, and that his golf course was low-key.  He simply did not want the attention.  When I tried again this year, I asked if I could just come play the course and then write about my experience.  He was fine with that, so away I went on a Wednesday afternoon, and it turned out to be a happy reunion for me, a homecoming of sorts.

   Driving to Hunter’s Run reminded me of how my adult life really started on this very highway twenty-five years ago when F.L.C. basketball coach Bob Hofman came out and picked me up at the Durango Airport.  I rode along in his brown Volkswagen van staring out the windows at the La Platas, full of excitement and nervousness, on the cusp of my independence and a new beginning. 

   The basketball didn’t really pan out, though.  I was in the top ten and I earned a scholarship halfway through the year every year after other players quit or dropped out, and I had a great time, but I stopped playing my senior year to focus on my upcoming teaching career.

   As I got closer to the course, I became nostalgic about the time I had first started playing golf.  That was about ten years after college, at the very golf course I was about to go play again: Hunter’s Run.  I wish I could have seen myself playing back then.  I wish I had written about it.  Or maybe not.  I am sure I stunk.  I bet I thought I was pretty good with my shiny new golf clubs, but I know now how lousy I must have been.  I don’t have the scorecard from that day, and I am not even sure we kept score, but I do know I am a better player today. 

   As I continued to drive along Highway 172, looking for the golf course, I thought it was closer to the airport road than I had remembered.  I had to drive a bit farther than I expected, so I was looking intently for golf course things like greens, fairways, and flags.  The golf course was still there, wasn’t it?  Then I saw some flags, and I thought I had found it, but they turned out to be some neon orange and yellow flags that belonged to oil field trucks instead. At the very next property, though, I saw real golf flags sticking out of the greens, and then I came upon the entrance, a modest opening with two small stone towers, but no sign that says Hunter’s Run Golf Course.

   I drove up the dirt road that circles behind the teeing ground on #1 and the dirt parking lot for the golf carts, and I was impressed with how green and tidy everything looked.  The golf course was in great shape, and I was getting excited to play it again.

   Before I teed off, I practiced pitches away from the #1 tee box and then back to it.  I did some stretching and I made some big practice swings with my driver.  I had a decent tee shot that was long, but it went left into the dirt area between the road I had just driven and the fairway.  As I walked by the shop, Bob shouted out a challenge, “If you break 40 I’ll buy you a beer.”

   And I really thought I was going to do it.  I told him I usually shoot around 45, so he said maybe breaking 50 would be better, but lately I’ve been playing well (low eighties), and my first four holes were dreamlike.

   I was on in two shots on #1 this time, and I used up only two putts to start with a birdie!  I pitched onto that dang green, and from the dirt this time, flying my ball right over that little creek with the tall reeds.  On #2, I was on in two again and used up only two putts for a par.  On #3, I had an uphill six-footer for a second birdie, but it missed on the left side when it ran out of speed.  Then I earned my first over par score with a bogey on the very long and difficult par four #4, so I was even after four holes.  Later, when I showed Bob my scorecard, he was impressed more with that bogey than the other scores.

   And then the golf course showed me who the boss was, and I understood the challenge for the beer.  This was a guy who was confident in the difficulty of his course, a layout he designed and built himself.

   Hole #6 befuddled me.  I walked up to glance at the fairway, and I still did not know where to aim when I went back to the teeing ground.  This hole is the narrowest hole I have ever played.  The really bad golf showed up here and continued until hole #9 (my swings were bad, but the course was unforgiving), and after a couple of lost golf balls, a couple of drops and penalties, I ended my round saddened, confused, and tired.  I finished with a 49, barely breaking 50 and wanting to go buy a beer for Bob instead.

   I drove into Ignacio, a ten-minute drive, grabbed some cash at the ATM inside the Sky Ute Casino (my first time there) and bought my dinner at the closest faster food restaurant on the left side of the street.  I went back to the golf course to pay Bob for the round I had just played (yes, he let me play without paying because he said I had an honest face) and ate my dinner there at one of the picnic tables near the shop and hole #1.  I did not know he was a cash only business still, but it had been eleven years since I had first played there, so I thought there was a chance I could use my debit/credit card.  I was wrong.  Remember, it’s low-key.

   While I ate my smothered burrito from Ignacio with the Fritos I had bought from him, Bob and I talked.  I thought he knew who I was since I am now a famous writer for Four Corners Golf Magazine (written facetiously), but he didn’t, and I did see the magazine promptly displayed on his patio there.  Bob and I got to know each other a little bit and we discovered we already did know each other in a roundabout way.  He knew Farren Webb.  I knew Farren Webb; I had taught Farren’s granddaughter years ago when she was in third grade.  Bob and Farren are longtime friends, and the plan was for him to come drink some wine and eat cheese and crackers with Bob that night, but something came up and he couldn’t make it, which is too bad because it would have been great to see him.

   We also had teaching and basketball in common.  He taught math for three years at different schools before starting this golf course.  He knew every one of the players I mentioned from the Fort Lewis basketball team I had “played on” back in the eighties including Rich Hillyer, Jeff Norton, Joel Tribelhorn, and Matt Goebel.  He used to come watch the games, and then we talked about Coach Hofman, and we became a mutual two-person admiration society for him for a few minutes.  He even knew who Shawn Smith was, one of my idols who played at my high school before I did, and later played at Mesa State with my brother Guy.  He remembered that Shawn had earned a shot with the Denver Nuggets many years ago.  He did not make the team, but we also mutually admired him and his skills for a few moments.

   And then he asked me who I was and I told him, and I thanked him for the golf and the visit, and I left.  I plan on going back, but much sooner next time. 

   During this most recent round, as I was getting ready to tee off on hole #3, I looked over at the trucks with the flags I had noticed on the way in, and then I saw the gorgeous La Plata Mountains in the background, and I thought, “Home!  I am home again.”
   Coming back to Hunter’s Run was a special homecoming for me, a return to the start of so many important things in my life.  It reminded me of my first trip to see Fort Lewis as an incoming freshman basketball player, and it’s one of the courses where my golf infatuation started way back in ’99. And what a great place to get it going!  It is exactly how Bob described it a year ago when I called for that first interview: low-key.  Tough, beautiful, almost brutal at times (holes 6, 7, and 8) but yes, definitely also low-key.  Thank you, Bob.  I’ll see you again soon.