Course Breakdown: El Dorado holes 6-9

#6

I don’t know about you, but when I see a par 5 listed at 460 yards, I get a little pep in my step. As I’ve become wiser, I know that a par 5 this short must have plenty of trouble, and that’s certainly the case on #6.

The tee shot has you hit through a shoot of trees that starts 120 yards from the tee box. At this point, the shoot is 32 yards wide. This tee shot can be intimidating, and it forces you to hit a straight shot to get through the shoot. As long as you make it past the shoot, the fairway widens to about 45 yards. There’s more room left than it looks, but from the left side of the fairway, your angle to the green is blocked by a giant tree. The fairway ends at 290 yards. When you add the 35 feet downhill and the prevailing wind behind you, I usually hit less than driver—typically my 230-yard club. There’s some junk right at 265 yards that I try to stay short of to make my landing area as wide as possible. The further right you are, the better your angle for the next shot.

With a decent drive, you have an opportunity to hit this green in two. The green is only 18 yards deep, and missing long is bad news. Short isn’t a great miss either, but I’d rather have an awkward chip shot than be searching for my ball in the woods beyond the green.

If you’re forced to lay up, make sure to get over the creek but stay short when the fairway narrows. Try to lay up between 95 and 130 yards. Purposely hitting a shot that leaves you inside 100 yards with no chance of reaching the green is doing yourself a disservice. You’ll either have tree troubles on the left or be stuck on the grassy hillside on the right.

The green slopes slightly back to front and right to left. It’s one of the flatter greens on the course. Long and left are the bad misses.

#7

The par 3 7th is another hole that requires a straight, if not left-to-right, shot to access the entirety of this green. Depending on where the ground crew places the tee markers that day, you could have a semi-blocked angle to reach the right side of the green. I’m not a fan of this, and a little T.L.C. could clean it up, but we are up for the challenge!

Usually playing around 150 yards, this hole demands a quality iron shot into this oddly flat green. I say "oddly flat" because I don’t remember it being that flat, but according to Google Earth, the elevation of this green is between 1300–1301 feet.

With the way the tee box is set up, you’re more likely to miss left. I know this because I do it almost every time I play this hole. There are usually two different outcomes I’ve encountered. The first is that you avoid the trees and cart path, and you’ve got to hit a low chip shot under the trees and onto the green. The less ideal situation is when your ball hits the cart path and launches left toward the skinny 8th tee box and the hazard area a few paces beyond it. A left-to-right shaping golf shot is ideal for this hole.

#8

When I do these breakdowns, I like to figure out what single hole represents the entirety of the golf course the best. I think #8 is my winner. The short par 5 is riddled with trouble but is completely fair as long as you don’t test your luck, which is how I feel about the entire course.

From the tee, you get a great view of the hazard that engulfs the entire left side of the hole. A few trees up the right side keep you from hitting your tee shot too far right, but they do give a bit of a claustrophobic vibe. The widest part of the fairway is between 200 and 240 yards (48 yards wide). The fairway then narrows to 275 yards (24 yards wide) before it widens again for your lay-up shot.

Now that you’ve got the info, I’m sure you’re not surprised when I tell you that I usually don’t hit driver here. A good 5-wood puts me at the fattest part of the fairway, and I don’t tempt myself to try and go for the green in two.

From here, your safest play is to lay up to the fattest part of the fairway, around 150 yards out. I like to get a little more aggressive because, more often than not, I’ll only need a 130-yard lay-up shot to get to my desired lay-up area, about 120 yards out. This part of the fairway is a little narrower, but I still feel confident I can keep it in play.

The green complex might be the most difficult part of this hole. It slopes dramatically from back to front. If you’re above the hole, chances are the best option is to just putt the ball completely sideways and pray it stops near the hole. I can recall a week when I played this course twice: one time, I hit a shot that landed pin-high, then spun off the front of the green into the rough. I managed to get up and down for par. Woo! The next day, I purposely played a little longer to account for the pin, and when the ball landed, it plugged in the fringe just beyond the green. I had to place my ball and, from there, had to putt straight downhill to the hole and ended up three-putting for bogey.

Moral of the story: don’t get greedy and miss long!

#9

The course opens back up for the front nine’s finishing hole. This dogleg left par 4 is a good opportunity to end your front nine on a positive note.

The tee shot is semi-blind, but you can see so much room to the right. I think the target line is the right edge of the left tree, which is essentially the middle of the fairway. The fairway ends at 275 yards on that line, but I’d say most can hit driver without hesitation. I personally hit my 3-wood here to stay short of where the fairway narrows around 260 yards.

A tree can obstruct your view of the green if you’re on the right side of the fairway, but it shouldn’t be in play as long as you get the ball airborne.

The green complex is very similar to the previous hole in that the green is really pitched from back to front. The green can drop as much as 8 feet from the back edge to the front edge. Don’t you dare miss above the back edge, but anything landing in the back half of the green should scoot right back toward the center. An uphill putt really helps your odds of leaving yourself a gimme on your next shot.

Stop by the club house and load up on snacks/drinks! El Dorado gets a +1 for keeping Reeses and Snickers in the fridge. One of the best snacks on a hot summer day.