Scott Mulholland didn’t choose to be a painter of golf courses … well, not exactly. But, as anyone who makes their living in the creative arts will tell you – be they a painter, writer, film director, etc. – your best work comes when you paint (or write, or direct) what you know.

Raised in Ayr, Scotland, Mulholland picked up golf at an early age, playing at the junior ranks in Kilmarnock and caddying at Royal Troon ...]]>

Chambers Bay No. 15

Scott Mulholland didn’t choose to be a painter of golf courses … well, not exactly. But, as anyone who makes their living in the creative arts will tell you – be they a painter, writer, film director, etc. – your best work comes when you paint (or write, or direct) what you know.

Raised in Ayr, Scotland, Mulholland picked up golf at an early age, playing at the junior ranks in Kilmarnock and caddying at Royal Troon and other famed courses. After emigrating to Tacoma with his family in the 1980s, Mulholland kept up the game at Stadium High School and Tacoma Community College, and spent several years on the sales and marketing side of the golf industry.

When he wasn’t golfing, Mulholland was often indulging his other hobby – art, particularly drawing and photography. Painting, he soon discovered, allowed him to combine those passions, photographing source material then sketching it onto a canvas before applying the paint. It wasn’t until 2008, however, when Mulholland was taking pictures during a round at Chambers Bay, that his two hobbies finally merged.

Mulholland decided to recreate one of the photos – of Chambers’ iconic No. 15 green and its Lone Fir – as a watercolor, and posted the image of the finished work on his website. Chambers Bay architect Jay Blasi came across the painting online and contacted Mulholland about purchasing it – and just like that, the career that Mulholland had seemingly and unknowingly been building towards for over 30 years was born.

“If you look at my history, it makes complete sense that this has become my focus,” he says. “It combines two of my greatest passions.”

In the years since, Mulholland has painted Allenmore Golf Course in Tacoma, Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines and Trump National, and has agreements to paint Semiahmoo, Newcastle, The Home Course, Bandon Dunes and Couer d’Alene Resort. His art has won best-in-show in a number of juried competitions, and in 2010 readers of South Sound magazine named Mulholland the “Best Local Artist.”

These days, Mulholland plays once a week at Allenmore (where he is a member), visits courses he’s contracted with to take reference photos for his work, and teaches art therapy classes to seniors and students.

“It’s hard to imagine something that would be a better match for me,” he says.

To see more of Mulholland’s work, visit any Puetz Golf location, or go online to scottmulholland.net.

Every summer, the golf range at Fort Lewis’ Eagles Pride Course is filled with hundreds of military children participating in golf camps.

Every golfer needs a good place to practice. Here are a few of our other favorite places to fine-tune our swing in between summer road trips:

Puetz Golf • Seattle11762 Aurora Ave N • (206) 362-2272Covered stalls with custom-fitting on-site

Interbay Golf ...]]>

Eagles Pride Golf Course Range at Fort Lewis (Photo by Rob Perry)

Every summer, the golf range at Fort Lewis’ Eagles Pride Course is filled with hundreds of military children participating in golf camps.

As the kids work on their swings, mothers with cameras or cell phones stand several feet away taking pictures. Those pictures then will be sent with pride to their fathers serving in the war-torn regions of Afghanistan or Iraq.

That’s what you call a morale-builder.

“It makes you think for a second, ‘What I’m doing is not very important — or is very important,’’’ said Eagles’ golf professional Eric Bowen, who has run the camps for the past two years. “It allows families to communicate like that.”

Anyone can use the 270-yard-long, screened-in driving field for a decent price – just $6 for a 51-ball bucket. There are at least 50 tee positions where you can hit off of natural grass or, during inclement weather, there are 10 covered hitting stations. The range was converted decades ago from a long par-5 (it’s now a par-4).

Bowen also has a covered instructional area with the latest in teaching equipment such as video machines and the Megsa training system, which helps the golfer understand the proper arc to the swing.

At a time when Lynnwood’s Kaddyshack range has closed and the proposed West Seattle Golf Course range is a no-go because of neighborhood concerns, the Eagles Pride range is a valued community resource.

Although the range is for use by the general public, the first priority is for military families.

“That’s our focus, our No. 1 goal,’’ Bowen said.

He added that for some soldiers, learning to play golf could become a necessity. They may be advised by their commanders to learn a lifetime sport or they may need to play the game to make better business contacts.

“If you’re in the military for 20 years, you may retire at age 39 or 40. They have another career ahead of them,’’ Bowen said. “People are looking for an avenue into the game. We’re dealing with some pretty competitive people and they bring that competitive attitude to the range.’’

Many in the military come from rural or poor backgrounds that provide little or no exposure to the game growing up. The range may be the first time they ever pick up a club.

“We have the opportunity to instruct people,’’ Bowen added, “and give them an understanding how to play this game.’’ — Bob Sherwin

Hole No. 18 • Par 5 • 465 Yards (Whites) 532 Yards (Blues)

The Setup: We have to listen to our readers, and since this hole won the Cascade Golfer Readers Choice Awards for “Best Risk vs. Reward Hole”, we can’t go on without giving No. 18 at Trophy Lake its due. At 465 from the whites and ...]]>

Trophy Lake No. 18

Trophy Lake Golf & Casting

Hole No. 18 • Par 5 • 465 Yards (Whites) 532 Yards (Blues)

The Setup: We have to listen to our readers, and since this hole won the Cascade Golfer Readers Choice Awards for “Best Risk vs. Reward Hole”, we can’t go on without giving No. 18 at Trophy Lake its due. At 465 from the whites and 532 from the blues, the tees you choose can have a dramatic influence on how you play this hole. There is little debate, however, as to what awaits your approach shot, regardless of the yardage you are left with. Hit it straight and hit it true, or get out the snorkel and wet suit and start wading your way through the beautiful rainbow trout that put the “casting” in this track’s name.

The Risk: The tee shot offers a generous fairway to hit, but anything right can create a challenging sidehill lie with the golf ball well above your feet. In that case, hopefully you excelled in tee ball. If you find yourself with a flat surface and a yardage to your liking, now is the time to determine whether you have the cards and “cojones” in the bag to get the job done. Anything short is toast, and a spray right will be wet as well. If you happen to go left (but not too far left) and find the last of Trophy’s endless deep bunkers, consider yourself lucky. But, be glad if you get up and out on your first crack.

The Reward: Imagine going to the 18th tee needing a birdie to win your club championship, break your low round or even close out a $5 Nassau off your best golfing buddy. Your approach here is the Northwest’s ultimate test of brain vs. brawn. Lay up with your tail between your legs like David Simms or be a hero and go for it, a-la Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy. You will be the toast of your foursome at the Dry Fly Cafe afterwards. No matter how bad the first 17 were, 18 (and maybe even the 19th) can help you forget all about it.

Final Call: If you are a rebel and enjoy looking for trouble, you came to the right place. Water and sand? Sounds like a nice trip to Maui, but it’s no place for your ball to land. If your yardage gives you 220 or less to the hole, then that stack of chips in the middle of the table is hard to ignore. But, no matter how hot the girl (or guy) is that is telling you to “Go for it, Roy. Just knock it on,” this time we are listening to our caddie. Besides, we don’t play this game to impress the opposite sex, and we certainly don’t play it to make “the greatest 12 of all time.”

I may choose to reach for a ...]]> Nobody understood the beauty of summer like Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks. With a smile that infected all of those around him, and a childlike love for the game of baseball, Banks was best known for how he would walk out of the Cubs’ locker room, look around at the sun brightening the ivy-covered walls of Wrigley Field and utter his famous catchphrase, “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame … Let’s play two.”

I may choose to reach for a golf club instead of a baseball bat, but I think of Banks often on a warm summer morning, when I throw the clubs in the trunk and head out to take advantage of the 17 hours of sunlight and perfect 75-90 degree temperatures that we in the Northwest are lucky enough to call a “normal” summer day.

With literally hundreds of unbelievable courses in Washington state, you’ll never get to all of them if you try to play them one at a time. That’s why this summer we’re taking Mr. Cub’s advice and pairing together some of our favorite courses to make a series of the kind of incredible day trips you can only experience in the Northwest.

We’ve gone north to Skagit County, west to the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas, south to Auburn and east to Yakima, Chelan and the Columbia River plateaus. In each case, we’ve tried to pair courses that not only are in relatively close proximity, but also offer something different from one another – pairing a player-friendly course with a more challenging offering, a mountain course with a parkland course, or a target track with a big, brawny, let-it-rip experience.

We’ve also varied the list by greens fees and location, to make sure that there’s a mind-blowing 36 holes here that you can fit into almost any golfer’s time and financial constraints. Of course, there’s no need to limit yourself to the suggestions we make here – with an almost endless combination of outstanding tracks in our area that can be easily paired into a 36-hole experience, we encourage you to come up with your own favorite pairings, play them and post about your experience to CascadeGolfer.com.

To help you plan your day, we’ve listed the distance between the courses, and the total round trip from Seattle – including the golf. Every one of these 36-hole adventures is easily done as a day trip, and I’m proud to say that every single one is CG-tested, and CG-approved. That’s us … always out doing the dirty work. You’re welcome.

On those long summer evenings, nothing beats celebrating a great round by heading out on the clubhouse deck to enjoy a cold beverage – or two – while adding up your birdies as the sun slips behind the mountains to the west. If you’re like us, and you consider a full round of golf to be 19 holes, not 18, here are a few of the courses where you’ll want to make sure to plan some extra ...]]>

Chambers Bay Deck

On those long summer evenings, nothing beats celebrating a great round by heading out on the clubhouse deck to enjoy a cold beverage – or two – while adding up your birdies as the sun slips behind the mountains to the west. If you’re like us, and you consider a full round of golf to be 19 holes, not 18, here are a few of the courses where you’ll want to make sure to plan some extra time after your round to enjoy a cold one on the patio this summer.

SEATTLE

West Seattle • West Seattle

Most of Seattle’s clubs don’t have the advantage of expansive views that those outside the area enjoy. Not so at West Seattle, where downtown vistas are complemented by thousands of colorful flowers surrounding their outdoor patio, and scrumptious eats from the Fox Den Grille.

EASTSIDE

Newcastle • The Golf Club at Newcastle

Do we write about Newcastle’s clubhouse a lot? You bet we do. With an old English-style bar and the only deck in the area offering a 180-degree view from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Baker, there’s no better spot in the region to meet for drinks in the summertime — whether you’re playing that day, or not.

NORTH

Mount Vernon • Eaglemont Golf Club

Eaglemont’s new clubhouse won’t open until July. When it does, though, its views and amenities will rival any in Western Washington. High on a bluff above the downhill 13th hole — soon to be Eaglemont’s new No. 1 — the clubhouse offers sweeping views of the Cascades and farmland valleys below and gives the highly rated public track the “destination course” feeling it deserves.

PENINSULA

Port Orchard • McCormick Woods

Whenever we tie McCormick Woods into a day of playing 36 on the peninsula — a favorite summer pastime — we always make sure it’s our last round of the day. That’s so that we can kick it afterwards on one of the nicest decks in the area, and enjoy quite possibly the best clubhouse food to be had in the Puget Sound region.

TACOMA

University Place • Chambers Bay

How many other clubhouse patios in the world give you the chance to not only see an entire U.S. Open-caliber track laid out below your feet, but also bald eagles, sea lions and orca pods? Uh, we’re going to go ahead and say, “None.” Be there when the sun’s rays dip behind the Olympics to see the course ablaze in a gold-orange glow, and you’ll swear you’re in Scotland.

DESTINATION

Chelan • Bear Mountain Ranch

It’s summertime, so we have to include at least one destination track, right? Really, we just wanted an excuse to include our favorite deck – at one of our favorite courses – in the state. On a mountainside high above Lake Chelan, with views of the course, lake and Cascade Mountains, it’s the perfect spot to sip a glass of wine from one of the dozens of local vineyards.

I’ve come to Roslyn, Wash., to visit a brand new golf course and winery opening at the nearby Suncadia Resort, but I can’t pull myself away from the city cemetery.

It’s the names that jump out at you first — Tomac, Muratti, Dragecevic, Mattila, ...]]>

Swiftwater Cellars and Rope Rider's No. 9 green, directly above the old No. 9 coal mine.

Kittitas County’s famous coal mines are getting a second life this summer in a new golf course and winery at Suncadia Resort

I’ve come to Roslyn, Wash., to visit a brand new golf course and winery opening at the nearby Suncadia Resort, but I can’t pull myself away from the city cemetery.

It’s the names that jump out at you first — Tomac, Muratti, Dragecevic, Mattila, Peccignino, Crosetti. These were immigrant families, drawn to Roslyn from the major east coast ports in the first half of the 20th century by the promise of a decent job and a good wage in the Tumble Creek coal mines. For 80 years, the mines employed thousands of workers, who rode the ropes deep into the Cascade Mountain slopes and endured cramped conditions, stifling heat and poisonous sulfuric gases to extract the “black diamonds” for transport to Puget Sound and other points west.

The city cemetery, with acres of old, weathered headstones dedicated to the Slovaks, Italians, Croatians and thousands of others who gave their lives to the mines, is at once tragic and inspirational — a hard illustration of the crushing difficulty of life in the mines, and yet a powerful reminder of the promise and opportunity that sparked the great western migration of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the sacrifices men were willing to make in pursuit of the American dream.

Today’s residents of Roslyn are largely the children and grandchildren of those first settlers, trying as best they can to hold on to their history in the face of inevitable change. The once-bustling downtown – featured in the 1990s series “Northern Exposure” –  is quiet on a Friday afternoon, “closed” signs hanging in the windows of all but a few of the cafes, handmade clothing shops and other small businesses that occupy the century-old, two-story wood buildings at the town center.

World War II took much of the town’s population; the closing of the mines in the early 1960s took almost all of the rest. The couple hundred homes on the surrounding slopes are mostly empty this time of day, their 1,017 residents drawn — like their ancestors — to other places in search of work. This is a town that deserves some good news.

Two miles up the road, at the Suncadia Resort, it’s once again the names that jump out at you. Not the names of any people, but those on the street signs — Tumble Creek Drive, Larkspur Loop, Coal Mine Way. Built directly on top of the old mines, the resort pays homage to the land’s heritage at every turn. In addition to the street names, buildings throughout the property showcase photographs and artifacts from the mining period, while much of the old infrastructure — including closed-up mine shaft entrances and foundations for many of the original buildings — has been preserved, complete with permanent markers highlighting the property’s history.

JELD-Wen Enterprises bought the land that would become Suncadia from the Plum Creek Timber Company in 1996, and in partnership with Lowe Enterprises immediately began planning a major resort, Washington’s answer to the company’s already successful Sunriver Resort in Oregon.

The next decade marked the real estate equivalent of the coal boom of the previous century — as the value of the land skyrocketed, plans for the resort expanded to include a spa, lodge, inn, self-contained village of shops and restaurants, plus three championship golf courses, a fully-stocked trout lake and miles of hiking and biking trails. It would all be paid for by the sale of over 3,000 homesites, condominiums and cabins — the values of which were undergoing the most dramatic rise in American history.

Prospector, the first of the resort’s two planned public courses, opened in 2004 with an Arnold Palmer design and the promise of attracting thousands of tourists and vacation residents per year, visitors who would no doubt pour their money into the local communities of Roslyn and Cle Elum just as the thousands of visiting miners had in the previous century. A private development with higher-end homes and its own exclusive Tom Doak golf course, Tumble Creek, opened shortly thereafter.

Still in its beginning stages of development, Suncadia was giving the local communities their largest boom in 50 years, and was already among the largest employers in Kittitas County, second only to Central Washington University. People in Roslyn and Cle Elum were working again, tourists were bringing in money, and possibilities for future development were limited only by the size of the real estate bubble.

Oh yeah, the real estate bubble.

Driving up to the all-new Swiftwater Cellars winery at Suncadia Resort, which opened last September and will house the pro shop, restaurant and clubhouse for the resort’s brand-new Rope Rider course being opened this summer, you could almost imagine that you’ve gone back in time to those halcyon days.

The golf course, begun in 2005, was largely abandoned when the real estate market crashed, leaving hundreds of Suncadia homes unoccupied and limiting the resort’s investment in a third course to the minimum needed to keep the property viable for future development. Paralleling the main road that leads from the highway to the Prospector Golf Course and lodging, Rope Rider’s 11th hole sat like a monument to the recession for more than three years, slowly being overrun by weeds and wildlife and serving as a constant reminder of the boom days of yore and the resort’s grand ambition.

As the producers of golf magazines, golf shows, tournaments and other golf-related enterprises, we’re used to seeing a lot of “interesting” products that make a lot of promises. Clubs that come unhinged when your swing isn’t on-plane, tees that somehow make you more accurate and consistent (Tees. Seriously. How desperate do people think we are?) — you name it, we’ve seen it. Needless to say, we tend to look less to funky gadgets for swing improvement, and ...]]>

The Orange Whip

As the producers of golf magazines, golf shows, tournaments and other golf-related enterprises, we’re used to seeing a lot of “interesting” products that make a lot of promises. Clubs that come unhinged when your swing isn’t on-plane, tees that somehow make you more accurate and consistent (Tees. Seriously. How desperate do people think we are?) — you name it, we’ve seen it. Needless to say, we tend to look less to funky gadgets for swing improvement, and more to the best practices of the game’s top players.

So imagine our surprise when we walked through February’s Portland Golf Show and saw video of Vijay Singh, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar and Justin Rose – a three-time major winner and three of the top-25 players in the world — swinging what, to our eyes, looked like a rubber orange on the end of a small, flexible shaft.

The Orange Whip, as it’s called, is in fact one of those rare swing trainers that is making its way out of the dog-eat-dog world of trade shows and into the bags of the best players in the game.

Designed by PGA professional Jim Hackenberg to help players develop the muscle memory for the proper swing motion, the Orange Whip is quickly becoming popular with weekend warriors and PGA Tour pros alike. It’s already available at all four Puetz stores in Washington, where it retails for under $110.

Comprised of a flexible shaft with counter-weights at each end, the Whip helps golfers develop the proper balance and tempo in their swing. The weighted ball at the end of the shaft lags behind on the downswing, forcing golfers to wait for the weight to swing back before driving — or whipping, in this case – through the impact zone. That little pause, Hackenberg says, prevents golfers from throwing their arms out too early and “casting” on the downswing, one of the most common swing faults.

In addition to training and reinforcing proper swing tempo, the Orange Whip is marketed as a fitness tool, helping to increase torso flexibility, core strength and a low-impact stretch. Given its relatively small size, it makes an excellent indoor training tool on cold or rainy days, and is USGA-legal to carry in your bag without counting against the 14-club rule (though, you may not swing it, only use it to stretch).

In the immortal words of Devo, “Whip it good” indeed.