[Richard Choi]

This is a long, long par 4 that plays a bit easier that its yardage indicates.

The bunker on the left is not really reachable with your drive, but it does mess with your head and a good deal of drives will head over to the bunker on the right (which is not as visible from the tee), which you can carry with a good poke.



Although the tee shot looks intimidating, if you happen to slice wide to the right, there is fairway and rough to catch your errant shot and leave you with a better than expected second shot.



If you end up on the left side, you have to be a bit more careful with your distance as there is a green side bunker to the long right and short left.



The green is very receptive to a long approach as it should for a long par 4. There is enough movement to keep things interesting, but if you can get on the green in two, you should have a decent chance of making your putt.



TD mentioned that someone told him that if no one told him who designed the course, he would have guessed that it was designed by TD. I call BS on that as if TD was designing this course, there is no doubt in my mind that he would have placed the green on this hole 30 yards further back where he would have created one of his classic skyline green on the top of the ridge (where the tee box for the 16th hole is located).

[Richard Choi]

Flyover: http://www.bestapproachflyovers.com/GMB_gamblesands/flyovers/hole16.mp4

This is my favorite par three at Gamble Sands. And it is no surprise as it has perhaps the wildest green at GS.

The view from the tee isn't too different from the other par threes at the property. There is sand wash to the left that really does not come into play and the mound to the right that hides half the green from the tee.



You can see here why the sand on the left does not come into play. There is plenty of room to land short of the green on the left side.



What makes this par three so interesting is that it is basically two completely different holes combined into one. The left half of the green is open an inviting with a large front bunker that dominates the play.

The right half of the green is a punchbowl green that is completely blind from the tee where distance control is key to getting it close to the hole.



Hitting the wrong half of the green on your tee shot will be a problem as there is about 4 feet difference in elevation between the halves.

[Richard Choi]

Flyover: http://www.bestapproachflyovers.com/GMB_gamblesands/flyovers/hole17.mp4

This ia solid mid-range par 4 with a blind tee shot. The ideal tee shot line is over the bunker on the right which will give you the best view to the green.



But hitting over a bunker this large is no joke.



If you get intimidated by the bunker and pull your shot to the left, you will have to deal with the fairway bunker that complete obscures the green.



From the right side, the green is very, very accessible.



You do not want to miss your approach to the right as the 17th green accompanies one of the deepest green side bunker at Gamble Sands. There is PLENTY of room to the left to miss, so there is no excuse to leave your shots in the bunker here.

[Brent Carlson]

Rich,

You're doing such a great job with the photo tour I don't have much to add.  Your thoughts essentially mirror mine.

Looking at these photos remind me just how good Gamble Sands is.  The only course I'd rather play in Washington is hosting the US Open next year.  Gamble is a lot of fun.

[Carl Nichols]

Richard-
Did you have a hard time remembering all of the individual holes?  While this looks like a course I would really love, a lot of the holes seem (or at least look) very similar to one another.

[Richard Choi]

Carl, that's why I take so many photos!!!

I will say, except for several dramatic holes, they do blend together. It does help to have the river below to orient yourself and serve as a guide.

Par threes, in particular, are hard to tell apart from one another.

[Tom Kelly]

Richard-
Did you have a hard time remembering all of the individual holes?  While this looks like a course I would really love, a lot of the holes seem (or at least look) very similar to one another.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. It looks great but alot of repetition.

[Matthew Essig]

Carl, that's why I take so many photos!!!

I will say, except for several dramatic holes, they do blend together. It does help to have the river below to orient yourself and serve as a guide.

Par threes, in particular, are hard to tell apart from one another.

I remember every hole, including the par 3's, but for the par 4 15th. It wasn't anything special and easily escapes my mind.

[Morgan Clawson]

Love how those steps melt into the bunker.  Looks like it's been there for decades.

[Sean Leary]

I was there again this week. It was a bit cooler and we had a bit of wind and I liked it even more. They had topdressed the greens so they were rolling quite a bit faster, which is good.

Two of the three people I played with shot their career low. So far I have played it with 8 people and 5 have shot their career low in their first round there!   

I agree with Rich on 15. Very surprised that the green wasn't pushed back.

16 seems a bit out of place for me for some reason. The green and green site look very different than the other 17 greens. My least favorite hole.

[Tom_Doak]

Two of the three people I played with shot their career low. So far I have played it with 8 people and 5 have shot their career low in their first round there! 

I have never heard a figure like that about any course, much less a course that people are touting as a great course.

I'm interested to see it because of this feature.  Plus I need to post a decent score again someday; Crystal Downs has been beating me up! 

[Sean Leary]

Two of the three people I played with shot their career low. So far I have played it with 8 people and 5 have shot their career low in their first round there! 

I have never heard a figure like that about any course, much less a course that people are touting as a great course.

I'm interested to see it because of this feature.  Plus I need to post a decent score again someday; Crystal Downs has been beating me up! 

For what it is worth, all 8 loved the course. Some architecture geeks, some casual players. I have not played it with anybody scratch yet, and am interested to hear what they think. I do think that a good player has the ability to shoot an easy 65 out there.

Great conditions, cool visuals, 6 half par holes (to the birdie side). There is one quasi- difficult approach shot on the entire course. Imagine your Stone Eagle, but easier, wider and with flatter greens and less trouble around them if you will. Best analogy I can come up with off the top of my head.

[Daryl David]

Two of the three people I played with shot their career low. So far I have played it with 8 people and 5 have shot their career low in their first round there! 

I have never heard a figure like that about any course, much less a course that people are touting as a great course.

I'm interested to see it because of this feature.  Plus I need to post a decent score again someday; Crystal Downs has been beating me up! 

For what it is worth, all 8 loved the course. Some architecture geeks, some casual players. I have not played it with anybody scratch yet, and am interested to hear what they think. I do think that a good player has the ability to shoot an easy 65 out there.

Great conditions, cool visuals, 6 half par holes (to the birdie side). There is one quasi- difficult approach shot on the entire course. Imagine your Stone Eagle, but easier, wider and with flatter greens and less trouble around them if you will. Best analogy I can come up with off the top of my head.

Sean, I would amend your Stone Eagle comparison to say much much easier, double wide and with pancake flat greens that have absolutely no trouble around them.  Risk reward strategy is nonexistent. The contrast between SE and GS is startling. 

I am conflicted by Gamble as I know many feel that one of the ills of golf is that it is too hard. Shooting your all time low is fun and golf needs fun. Perhaps this course is just ahead of its time and there will be more like it in the future. Not sure I am that thrilled if that is true.  I don't like crazy hard courses but I like having to make decisions during the round that involve risk and challenge.  That doesn't describe GS.

[Richard Choi]

Sorry about the delay in posting the final hole, been busy playing Destiny...

Flyover: http://www.bestapproachflyovers.com/GMB_gamblesands/flyovers/hole18.mp4

This is a hole where playing from the proper tee makes all the difference. In the morning, we played from the 500 yards and the speed slot landing zone was in play and it made the hole pretty exhilirating. Playing from 566 yards where the speed slot was out of reach, made this more of a ho-hum affair.

From the tee the HUGE fairway bunker on the right dominates the view (and mysteriously pulls your tee shots towards it!!!). But the right side is WIDE open and the speed slot is there to leave you with a mid-iron approach as a second shot.



As long as you can avoid this bunker, this is an easy birdie hole. If you hit into it...



...it is not that bad (based on your lie) as the green is wide open to you. The left side approach, where most people will be hitting from will have to deal with the front bunker and the back side bunker that guards the green.



The front side bunker really should not come into play as it is place about 20 yards in front of the green, but the visual intimidation is there.



The 18th green is connected to the practice green so the surface is vast. Just hitting the green does not mean you will have an easy birdie or a par.

[Richard Choi]

That concludes the photo tour, I hope you enjoyed it.

You can probably tell, I enjoyed this course a lot. The routing is probably as good as I have seen anywhere with natural, flowing holes that meld into the surroundings and almost no unnecessary walk between green and the next tee box.

Many of the tee shots are epic in both vista and in play. It encourages you to hit bold shots and does not overly penalize you for failing to pull it off. It is just a great place to spend a weekend day.

I found the greens in general a bit lacking in drama. I completely understand the desire for Kidd to tone things down as Tetherow greens are just ridiculous (and I LOVE RIDICULOUS GREENS!). But I just wish instead of throwing the kitchen sink (and the dining room table, and the rifridgerator, and...) at the green or going the completely opposite direction, if he would have stuck to just one dominatn feature per green and built the hole around it, I think it could have made the course from really good to perhaps great.

As is, I would put it in the same tier (for the state of Washington) with Wine Valley which share the same DNA with Gamble Sands, below Chambers Bay and above courses like Olympic, Aldarra and Sahalee.

If you are any where near it, it is a must play. You will have a great time playing it. I will gladly bear the 4 hour drive to play it every year.

[Michael Essig]

Two of the three people I played with shot their career low. So far I have played it with 8 people and 5 have shot their career low in their first round there! 

I have never heard a figure like that about any course, much less a course that people are touting as a great course.

I'm interested to see it because of this feature.  Plus I need to post a decent score again someday; Crystal Downs has been beating me up! 

IMO, the low scoring was most influenced by the green surrounds.  There is little if any rough around the greens, so putting was the preferred option, and that makes getting up and down much, much easier.  I bet the scrambling percentages are off the charts for most players at GS.

The slow greens probably hurt me more than they helped me, because I left three or four short, and can't think of any avoidance of a three putt because of the slow greens.

So, with wide fairways and playable rough and sand traps, it was relatively easy to get greenside in regulation, and then with a putter in your hand, two putt for a par.

The combination of width and green surrounds makes it relatively easy to make a bogey, and it takes a pretty big mistake to make a double; not that I didn't card two on my way to a 75.

I didn't make any more birdies than I typically make to pull my score down, but I was able to make pars out of what would typically be a bogey when I missed the green: because I had a putter, and not a wedge from deep rough or a sand trap. 

Also, I don't know that I hit any more greens in regulation.

Even though other courses are tightly mown around the greens, the greens are often raised, so you have the option to putt, but the putt is difficult so it is hard to get it within 3'.  And any time an amateur has a wedge in his hand the outcome is dicey and getting it within 3' is far less common than with a putter.  In other words, getting up and down is difficult at most courses.

At GS, it wasn't difficult, because the greens laid level with the fairway.  That is not to say that there wasn't a lot of contour around the greens, but the angles were not sharp, so negotiating the shot - determining the break or where to land a wedge - was not difficult, even if you were 40 to 60 feet from the pin, let alone closer.  Also, because of the big contours, the ball tended to settle into a lower, flatter part of the land.  So it was a lot of up and down for par, versus up and not down for bogey.  In the end, IMO, the ability to scramble made the course easier and scoring better.

[Phil McDade]

Richard:

Thanks very much for posting this -- one of the better course profiles of recent vintage. I can't say I'll get there anytime soon -- for my purposes, this is probably more remote than any of the Nebraska Sand Hill courses -- but it's a treat to see this course captured so well with very good descriptions. Thanks!

[Sean Leary]

Two of the three people I played with shot their career low. So far I have played it with 8 people and 5 have shot their career low in their first round there! 

I have never heard a figure like that about any course, much less a course that people are touting as a great course.

I'm interested to see it because of this feature.  Plus I need to post a decent score again someday; Crystal Downs has been beating me up! 

For what it is worth, all 8 loved the course. Some architecture geeks, some casual players. I have not played it with anybody scratch yet, and am interested to hear what they think. I do think that a good player has the ability to shoot an easy 65 out there.

Great conditions, cool visuals, 6 half par holes (to the birdie side). There is one quasi- difficult approach shot on the entire course. Imagine your Stone Eagle, but easier, wider and with flatter greens and less trouble around them if you will. Best analogy I can come up with off the top of my head.

Sean, I would amend your Stone Eagle comparison to say much much easier, double wide and with pancake flat greens that have absolutely no trouble around them.  Risk reward strategy is nonexistent. The contrast between SE and GS is startling. 

I am conflicted by Gamble as I know many feel that one of the ills of golf is that it is too hard. Shooting your all time low is fun and golf needs fun. Perhaps this course is just ahead of its time and there will be more like it in the future. Not sure I am that thrilled if that is true.  I don't like crazy hard courses but I like having to make decisions during the round that involve risk and challenge.  That doesn't describe GS.

I don't totally disagree with you. And I like Stone Eagle more than GS.  My point is that you feel like you are playing someplace good when you are there. It looks like there is trouble out there but there really isn't. And as Michael said, there really no trouble around the greens, save for one side. There is usually one side of every green that you don't want to be, so just don't hit it there and it is a pretty simple up and down for the most part if you can get the speed of the greens right. I have 6 rounds there in some different conditions and hole placements, so I feel like I have a good sense of the course.

Richard,

I have a hard time comparing Gamble to the courses you mention. Totally different type of golf, with different conditions and different challenge level. The routing is outstanding. Its super fun. But for me, I would have like to have seen it been more strategic, both off the tee and around the green. I like some challenge and difficulty. If you are going to make it THAT wide, then create more challenge around the green. Make some of the bunkers in the fairway in play. Doesn't need to be silly greens, or impossible bunkers. But something. For me it's too easy and not strategic enough to be considered great.

[Richard Choi]

Well, I didn't say it was great...

[Garland Bayley]

I know a woman that played Gamble Sands last week and first time around shot a score that was 8 shots below her index. Second round was 10 shots below her index. Naturally she thinks it is the greatest golf course on the planet. 😃

Slope from forward tees is 110. My brother plays a course with a slope of 110. Shoots wonderful scores. Then he wonders why he can't get within 10 strokes of me when we play together.

[Cory Brown]

I had the opportunity to play Gamble Sands last weekend and it was one of the best experiences I have had in Golf.  I'm not really sure I understand the "easy" comments.  The course is the epitome of risk/reward.  Standing on the tee it looks like you have a knife edge to land the ball on, but when you get to the fairway you realize how much room there really is.  Every hole does have a very safe route, but you will face a progressively more challenging approach based on how safe you play your tee shot.  Nearly every hole dares you to take a more challenging line than you should to gain the advantage on the next shot, but there are places you absolutely can't be just like any great links course.  If you play smart, hit all of the right shots and putt well, then this is indeed an easy course!

The greens are still pretty slow in their first season, I think once they've picked up some speed they will add more challenge to the course.  The turf was in very good shape, much more filled in than in Richard's pictures.  My best comparison to courses in Washington would be a combination of Chambers Bay and Wine Valley.  Tough to pick a favorite, but I really enjoyed Gamble Sands and would put it up against any course in the state based on my first play.

[William_G]

played there last week and it is FANTASTIC

I can see why DMK got the job at Sand Valley

the greens are just 10% smaller than Old Macdonald...they are huge

thanks again for all the pics Richard

[Daryl David]

I had the opportunity to play Gamble Sands last weekend and it was one of the best experiences I have had in Golf.  I'm not really sure I understand the "easy" comments.  The course is the epitome of risk/reward.  Standing on the tee it looks like you have a knife edge to land the ball on, but when you get to the fairway you realize how much room there really is.  Every hole does have a very safe route, but you will face a progressively more challenging approach based on how safe you play your tee shot.  Nearly every hole dares you to take a more challenging line than you should to gain the advantage on the next shot, but there are places you absolutely can't be just like any great links course.  If you play smart, hit all of the right shots and putt well, then this is indeed an easy course!

The greens are still pretty slow in their first season, I think once they've picked up some speed they will add more challenge to the course.  The turf was in very good shape, much more filled in than in Richard's pictures.  My best comparison to courses in Washington would be a combination of Chambers Bay and Wine Valley.  Tough to pick a favorite, but I really enjoyed Gamble Sands and would put it up against any course in the state based on my first play.

I am glad you enjoyed it.  I think most everyone has a good time when they play GS.  I just can't let the comment about GS being the epitome of risk/reward go unchallenged.  Especially when followed up by a comment about how after you get to the fairway you realize how wide it is.  That would lead one to believe after playing the course once, there really isn't much to solve.  For the risk/reward challenge to exist, one has to be required to evaluate options, make a decision and then execute.  That just does not describe GS.

For example, it is hard to trumpet the characteristics of risk/reward on a hole that has a 100 yard landing area free of hazards, almost no movement in the fairway (flat like a highway, not an uneven lie) and kick boards around 2 or 3 sides of the green that deflect the ball to the middle.  That describes a lot of the holes at GS.  Doesn't make it a bad course, doesn't even mean it is an easy course, but it does not describe a course that requires very much thinking.  To place Gamble Sands at the top of courses with great risk reward and strategy challenge, is a real insult to a ton of other tracks.  I don't think the designer would disagree with what I am saying as he has stated as much in interviews.  He has been very clear that he was not looking to challenge the golfer with lots of problems to solve on the course.  He wanted folks to be happy, shoot low scores and most importantly to have fun.  On those objectives he has hit a home run. 

[Richard Choi]

Fixed all the broken picture links!!!

[William_G]

Richard-
Did you have a hard time remembering all of the individual holes?  While this looks like a course I would really love, a lot of the holes seem (or at least look) very similar to one another.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. It looks great but alot of repetition.

the routing is essentially a classic out and back links style routing, so as you are actually playing, each hole is distinctly different

the absence of trees, rough, and other photogenic parkland features allow the course to float on the plateau of sand dunes high above the Columbia River yet within it's ancient gorge

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