Final Jazzy Award of 2006 – Best Public Course – Black Mesa

With a full article to follow soon, Black Mesa GC in La Mesilla, NM takes home the Jazzy Award for Best Public Round of the Year. 

Design:  Seven Stars.  (All Ratings out of Seven)  The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows (did you know that?)  As Nancy Carpenter likes to say “if a person is perfect, then that’s their flaw.”  However you want to look at the one hypercritical flaw that “the fairway bunkering on twelve looks unnatural and cookie cutter,” the rest of the course is blue lightning from the dynamo.  !8 character filled, curvaceous greens?  Check.  (Heck, one green is the best skyline green I have yet seen and another is Mackenzian in the way it kidneys, yet doesn’t need a wedge form one edge to the other since green contours and spin properly filter the ball.)

A routing that runs in every direction, never repeats itself, fetures a great blind shot (at the opener no less) and tries to model itself after another world class course?  Check (The nods at Black Mesa are to the incredible Tobacco Road, for those of you scoring at home…) 

A good hearty joke on the patrons?  Sixteen (Called “Stairway to Seven”, but I call it more like “Stairway to Eleven”) fits Shackelford’s definition in his book Grounds for Golf of a good playful laugh at the expense of the patrons that also works as a great golf hole.

Natural Setting – Seven Stars.  Black knife edged mountains rumble around the plkateaus and valleys of scenic NW NM.  And to think, it costs FOUR TIMES AS MUCH to play in ordinary Oneida County farmland…

Conditioning – Six and one-half stars

Price:  $50

Value:  Seven Stars

Overall:  Seven stars.  New Mexico is kicking Arizona’s bee-hind for value…