Golf in Death Valley

Filed in archive Golf Courses on February 19, 2008

Courtesy: Greg Hand

It's now the halfway point in February. Only four weeks until Spring. Another eight weeks until Spring really arrives in the snowy North.

Golf is back on network TV with signals beamed from sunny locales on the American West coast. I can taste my envy.

It all got me thinking this morning of golf travel. But then my thoughts shifted - for some bizarre reason - to extreme golf conditions. Maybe that's because I was gazing at four-foot high snowbanks at the time.

Bring up Google, enter "World's most extreme golf courses" and what pops up? A book called Extreme Golf.



Now this post is not a plug for the book but I think it would probably be a fun read dealing as it does with some odd-ball courses in some frightening locations.

One course profiled in the book is neither odd-ball, really, nor in a frightening location - unless you get lost at sunset.

It's called Furnace Creek Golf Course and it's part of the Furnace Creek Resort.

Location: Death Valley, California.

It bills itself as the world's lowest golf course because it is 214 feet below sea level. Interesting.

But this is a unique layout for more reasons than simply negative altitude.

Back in 1927, a date palm grower by the name of Murray Miller decided, for some reason, to build 3 holes in the desert. Four years later, he made it a full nine holes. All grass. Golfers are surely crazy at times.

Miller probably didn't realize it but he had created the first grass golf course in California's desert.

Fast forward 37 years to 1968 and one William Bell created the second nine holes.

The final touch came when Perry Dye, son of Pete, re-designed the entire shebang in 1997, installing a full irrigation system at the same time.

Here's where it gets interesting. The course is in the middle of Death Valley, 214 below sea level and the annual rainfall doesn't exceed the amount of moisture from spitting.

In a year and a half, the amount of rain has totaled just over an inch and a half.

So how can such a golf course have a full irrigation system? Because Furnace Creek sits in a classic desert oasis, fed by underground streams.

Way back before humans wandered by, the Furnace Creek area had wetlands and marshes and was, in fact, a lush oasis indeed.

Not today. The influx of "civilization" has diverted much of that water for human use, i.e., the Furnace Creek Resort. The wetlands and marshes are now gone.

What is left is no less remarkable - a fully grassed golf course measuring just over 6200 yards from the tips. It's as if there is no desert for thousands of miles.

I doubt such a course could be built today in similar conditions, what with environmental concerns. And the cost factor.

Only Dubai could pull it off. And they have, of course, over and over again.

But Furnace Creek, at age 81, is still going strong. And it has to rank as one of the more extraordinary golf courses on the planet.

The name alone says it all.