Teeing Off in Indian Country

From a report in The New York Times:

Today, there are more than 50 tribal-owned courses in some 17 states, with several more under construction. From the San Carlos Apache tribe’s Apache Stronghold Golf Club in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona to the Mohicans’ Pine Hills Golf and Supper Club in the Wisconsin woods, tribal courses have changed Indian country’s physical and cultural landscape, helped diversify the tribes’ casino-dependent economies and given American golf some of its finest new playgrounds.

In nearly every case, the courses sit near the tribes’ casinos, whose profits have allowed some American Indian nations to pay in cash for their golf ventures, which run about $5 million to $9 million.

But many of the tribal courses are so good that they are hardly seen as mere casino amenities. Twin Warriors Golf Club, on the Santa Ana Pueblo north of Albuquerque, is ranked 49th on Golf Digest’s 2006 list of the best 100 publicly accessible courses in America. Thirty miles north, near Española, N.M., the Santa Clara Pueblo’s Black Mesa Golf Club was named the 62nd best modern (post-1960) design by Golfweek, which also gave the 93rd spot to the Barona Band of Mission Indians’ Barona Creek Golf Club near San Diego.

“I think the tribal courses are probably the single most impressive force in golf architecture over the last 10 years,” said Ron Whitten, Golf Digest’s architecture critic. “I’ve been impressed with every one.”

Nowhere in America has tribal golf had more impact than in New Mexico, which has the equivalent of nine 18-hole courses on six reservations. By any impartial golf standard, they are uniformly challenging and well-maintained and have a restorative solitude. All but one are found roughly between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, at 5,000 to 7,000 feet, built along mountain foothills or near the banks of the Rio Grande in the fragrant piñón-and-juniper high desert, which still surprises some tourists who come expecting arid desolation.

There’s more worth reading in this well-done article.

By the way, those who know far more about golf than I, don’t consider Twin Warriors, good as it is, to be the best public course near Albuquerque. First place usually goes to Paako Ridge (not mentioned in the article because it isn’t Indian-owned).