By Jim Bebbington
Longtime Denver-area developer Pat Hamill unveiled his latest housing and private golf club development this week, saying the Bluebird Club would become a new home for its members to have fun and build a community.
The club is envisioned for property northeast of E-470 and Parker Road which has been part of golf course plans for several proposed developments on and off for decades. But Hamill said the project is ready to succeed, and construction has already begun on roads for the surrounding residential development and the course.
“Professionally I spent the last 35 or 40 years building great master-planned communities,” Hamill said. “Eventually over time I wanted to build a club and I’d have only one really great chance at it.”
Hamill said as construction on the project is beginning he and his team are seeking a good group of initial members that can help build a community that will enjoy each others compnay and be active in making the club a great experience.
“It was never about ego or prestige but it’s really about the camaraderie and the connection between various members,” he said. “And that’s all we want to do.”
The golf course is going to be a links-style 18-hole course and is designed by Dan Blankenship. It will run between 5,000 and 7,800 yards. As construction is beginning they project is trucking in hundreds of tons of sand from Nebraska to form the greens and tee boxes.
Blankenship grew up in Colorado and began his golf-design career working for the Pete Dye design group as it worked to build Glenmoor Country Club in Cherry Hills Village.
The terrain slopes significantly from east to west. Close to Parker Road the property is at its lowest, and the clubhouse will be positioned near there. The course will climb the hillside along an existing neighborhood to the north, with new residential construction on the southern edge of the property. The housing development is being spearheaded by Oakwood Homes, the housing developer that Hamill founded in 1991 and sold to Clayton Homes in 2017.
Chris Hyten, the new head pro of the Bluebird Club, was most recently an assistant pro at Castle Pines Golf Club. He said the course would be an undulating, “really fun, links-inspired golf course.”
“There’s going to be multiple ways to play each golf hole and ideally they’re going to have generous fairways and a routing that’s going to be enjoyable for a scratch player as well as those just getting into the game,” Hyten said.
Kevin Laura, who is the general manager, said the initiation fee is $75,000 for the first 50 charter members, who will then be tasked with helping recruit the rest of the membership. There will be a cap of 400 golf members, but social memberships for the pool, fitness and restaurant facilities will be available for residents in the Prairie Point residential community that is being built as well as existing neighborhoods nearby.
Work on the course itself is expected to begin later this summer and play is expected to begin in the fall of 2028.
Hyten said the course would also be building a strong caddy program. Ed Mate, CEO of the Colorado Golf Association, said any new caddy-based courses would be welcome in Colorado because the CGA has been working to train caddies through the Solich Academy system and would love to see more opportunities for trained caddies to continue to work at professional clubs.
There are approximately 22 golf courses in Colorado that use caddies, Mate said – 12 with youth-only programs, four with professional caddy programs, and six with hybrids of both.
“This is ideal,” Mate said.
Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.
Colorado’s newest private golf club to open in 2028 By Jim Bebbington Longtime Denver-area developer Pat Hamill unveiled his latest housing and private golf club development this week, saying the Bluebird Club would become a new home for its members to have fun and build a community. The club is envisioned for property northeast of
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