A Footprint on our Fairways

By Dick Dean

During 40 years of playing golf in Colorado, I have played 199 different courses throughout the state. One impression keeps recurring—that despite their names and recognition given the national architects who have worked in our state—one man did more with less than the others. While you won’t see his name on the big prestigious country club or resort courses, Dick Phelps left a bigger footprint on Colorado’s fairways than anyone else. Though other local course architects—Henry Hughes, Frank Hummel and, of course, Jim Engh—have creatively altered the landscape, Phelps remains king of Colorado golf architects.

Jack Nicklaus, Pete Dye, Arthur Hills, Robert Trent Jones have dominated over the past two decades with high-budget course in the mountains and long the Front Range. But the majority of Phelps’ work was done for municipalities and medium-priced residential developments. His minimalist approach fit courses into the often limited space he was given and gave thousands of us “publinks golfers”—players who don’t need lockers, caddies, club cleaners but just a place to unload their clubs, slide on their shoes, pay their green fee, enjoy 18 holes and sip a beer while telling a few lies afterwards— affordable golf.

Phelps’ top ten courses in Colorado include Perry Park Country Club, Mariana Butte Golf Course, Raccoon Creek, Pine Creek and Saddle Rock, which all afford beautiful vistas and abundant challenges for lower handicap players. But we appreciate him more for the courses that allow the old, young, women and higher handicap player to enjoy a reasonable challenge at a fair price. More rounds are played on Phelps’  courses in Colorado than any other two architects combined.

Between 1957 and 1997, Phelps designed more than 33 courses across Colorado, concentrated mainly along the Front Range. Foothills, Indian Tree, Kennedy, South Suburban and Eagle Trace have probably seen more than a million rounds—many of those walked. The greens at South Suburban are often considered the toughest in the state. Many were supposed to have had two or three tiers, but construction financing eliminated them. The result: Never be above the hole at South Suburban.

The back nine at Rifle Creek and Mariana Butte are what people come to Colorado to see and to play, and the views from the Rockies from almost every hole at Pine Creek in Colorado Springs are breathtaking.

Dick Phelps was building courses during the period before the years of manic growth that began in 1990. I’d set a goal in 1988 of playing every course in Colorado—something my statewide sales job allowed me to do—but I couldn’t keep up with the rate at which new courses were built. There were 130 courses then—and more than 250 now.

Few of these recently built courses bear Dick Phelps’s name, though he would have done a great job on any one of them, thanks to his knowledge of the state. While many of these newer courses are struggling to survive, those populist bastions designed by Dick Phelps continue to fill the tee sheets.

In 1980, Dick Phelps served as president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects; it’s a position his son, Rick, now fills. Rick, like his father, believes strongly in affordable, playable and sustainable courses. “The most famous courses in North America are well known, but they make up less than five percent of the total number of courses,” the owner of Phelps-Atkinson Golf Course Design told a recent meeting. “The lesser-known projects also have stories to tell. I want to bring attention to the other 95 percent, including the public courses where over 70 percent of all rounds are played, and educate people inside and outside the golf industry that the median greens fee for those courses is $28.”

Rick’s masterful work at The Broadlands in Broomfield, Antler Creek in Falcon and Devil’s Thumb in Delta shows that the Phelps legacy continues to leave an everlasting mark on Colorado. And I think I speak for legions of avid golfers when I say thank goodness for that.

Dick Dean is an avid golfer who lives in Centennial. For a list of Colorado courses designed by Dick and Rick Phelps, visit ColoradoAvidGolfer.com.