Lake Valley GC Rides High at 50

Lake Valley Golf Club fetes a colorful half-century.

Jon Rizzi

Like any competitive golfer, Mitch Galnick usually prefers the lower of two numbers. Perhaps this explains why the club he owns and manages, Niwot’s Lake Valley Golf Club, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year—even though every “official” source lists it opening in 1964.

Is he pencil-whipping Father Time? “We’ve struggled with what we call our anniversary,” says Galnick, who’s been involved with the club since buying and developing the 88 lots around it during the 1980s and ’90s. “What’s currently the back nine opened in the fall of ’64, and the whole course opened in the spring of ’65. It was originally called Foothills Golf Club.”

More than Foothills’ name changed. Plans originally calling for swimming, tennis, stables and other amenities were scaled down to a daily-fee facility with a modest clubhouse and a challenging 6,891-yard par-70 golf course designed by Colorado Golf Hall of Fame architect Press Maxwell.  Lake Valley annually hosted 35,000 rounds, as well as the Hale Irwin Invitational (won by such Colorado legends as Dale Douglass and Les Fowler).

The course enjoys a colorful history. The number of reptiles initially slithering in the rough led to the nickname “Snake Valley.” Pebble Beach attorneys once coerced Galnick into changing “a really cool Lake Valley logo because they said they owned the rights to ‘stylized waves.’” Boulder native Rick Reilly loosely based the characters in Missing Links on a group of Lake Valley regulars known affectionately as “the Goons.”

In 2000, Galnick, the club’s fifth owner, made Lake Valley a private club with an award-winning clubhouse featuring the acclaimed, open-to-the-public Persimmon Grill. While upgrades continue, the club retains its downhome character, offering a modest initiation, low monthly dues, no food or beverage minimum, Golf  Bikes, and, amusingly, an annual member-guest called the Snake Quest.

To celebrate the milestone anniversary, 50-themed events populate the club’s calendar, including incentives to get 50 new members by December 31. The big affair comes July 12, when the club throws a party featuring a nine-hole alternate-shot scramble with six-person teams in Sixties-era attire playing persimmons and blades. Teams can reduce their score by correctly answering Sixties-era trivia questions. Expect the manhattans, martinis and good times to flow.

303-444-2114; lakevalley.com