Now that summer has finally arrived back in the Palouse Range, I thought I would resurrect this thread. I played this course yesterday in glorious 70 degree weather and had a great time. A few comments/thoughts:
First things first: Overall I think this course is a definite 6 to 6.5 on the Doak scale, but probably not a 7. No doubt Wine Valley is easily the better course, as I would rate it a 8 on the Doak scale. I think PR is more comparable to Circling Raven (which I would rate no more than a 6 as well) in terms of "how good it is". But that being said the courses do play differently. PR is a lot more about fast and firm and playing bouncy slopes and low running shots, where CR is more parkland with aerial/target golf shot values.
As I live in Spokane, to me its definitely worth the 75 mile drive to play it a couple of times per year. Yesterday was my 2nd playing of the course and it was interesting to see the contrast between playing it last year, in the late August summer when it was brown, and yesterday where everything is still green and lush due to the record wet spring.
The negatives/missed opportunities:1) The biggest disappointment is the shape and contouring of the greens. While the conditioning was excellent and they ran true at about a 9 on the stimp, they were almost completely devoid of internal contouring. Only the 13th and 18th greens had some interesting movement in them, and even then they were still relatively subdued. The biggest disconnect though is that the entire site is very rollypolly/hilly, yet the greens are very flat. Having some rolly polly greens to match seems like it would have been a better fit.
2) The 17th hole is a clunker and very out of character with the rest of the course. With the irrigation pond dominating the hole and a lackluster wide open fairway to drive to it is just not very interesting. A smaller case could also be made for the 1st hole, but it was at least still an interesting semi-blind drive and approach to a tough target of a green.
3) The gunch, while mowed back pretty well for the most part, can lead to lots of lost balls and cause slow play.
4) Maybe this is just personal, but the par 5 5th is an absolute beast of a hole. Its just too brutal for the high capper and really slows things down early on in the round. In my two playings, my best score is a triple bogey 8. If the carry to the second fairway wasn't quite as severe and it was a bigger target to hit to, it wouldn't be quite as bad.
5) Yes its a tough walk, but the cart fee is included in the green fee, so I rode....guilt free!
The positives1) Lots of strategy off the tees with angled fairways and bunkers/hazards that must be carried to get the reward. Holes that comes to mind, #2, #3, #7, #9, #10, #15, #18. Most of these are "bite off as much as you dare" in nature and really add interest to the course.
2) Even with the wet spring the approaches were still playing fast and firm and 20-30 yards of run in the fairway was doable. Some of the approaches into the green weren't as firm as last time, but still very much accomdated using kickboards and running low shots.
3) Call me a bunker slut, but I think both placement and look and feel of the bunkering is very well done.
4) An interesting set of par 3s where none of them played like each other. I played 6 iron, 5 wood, 6 iron, driver, and wedge on each of them.
4) Variety of the holes is also done well and few holes played similar to each other. Only 9 and 18 felt similar as they are both dog leg left, up the hill par 5s to end the 9s. It was no doubt a tough piece of land to start with and it seems was a pretty good effort to get the quality product that they did.
In conclusion, if you live in the area, or are visiting for an extended amount of time the course is well worth the effort to see. However if you only have 2-3 days in the area and you have access to everything like Gozzer, Idaho Club, Black Rock, etc...then I couldn't recommend bypassing those to play this one. And that's the only reason why it doesn't make a 7 in my book because its a must play if you are within 100 miles of it
ONLY if you don't have access to the better ones and/or don't want to drive the extra 100 miles to Wine Valley in Walla walla.