It”s getting more and more obvious that summer is soon coming to a close. Labor Day weekend is on the horizon. Schools in the area are starting up. Kids are heading off to college. Golf”s four majors have concluded, and while I haven”t yet caught FedEx Cup playoff fever, and doubt if I ever will, I am looking forward to the Presidents Cup coming to San Francisco”s Harding Park in early October.
This summer, I took a weekly road trip with my two teenaged children, Nick and Liz. Once each week some combination of the three of us would tee it up somewhere out of county and experience a new and different golf course in an effort to expand our golfing horizons.
We played two prize golf courses in the NCGA members program, namely Green Hills near the San Francisco airport and Diablo in the East Bay hills above Danville. Vintage 1920s layouts, both courses exude tradition. We played Wildhorse in Davis alongside former Lower Lake football coach Bill Cox. Nick and I played an NCGA alternate-shot tourney at Poppy Ridge in Livermore. We spent a disappointing afternoon at Southridge in the Sutter Buttes. Southridge is suffering from a lack of tender loving care and a total lack of sufficient watering.
We teed it up at the exclusive Contra Costa Country Club on a Wednesday and the following week I looped for Nick at Contra Costa in U.S. Amateur Qualifying. I learned it”s easier to caddie for 36 holes in one day than it is to play competitive golf on one”s own for 18 holes. We returned to the East Bay hills and played Tilden Park in Berkeley. Most recently we played at Plumas Lake in Marysville, a former top-100 public golf course that remains a fine test of golf.
Yet when I look back on my summer of collecting golf courses, one course jumps out at me for being uniquely memorable as well as a site that I need to return to and play once again. I”m speaking of the Yocha-De-He Golf Club located in the Capay Valley alongside Highway 16 at the Cache Creek Casino and Resort. Open for approximately four years, Yocha-De-He was designed by Brad Bell, a Sacramento-area golf course architect who spent some time on the PGA Tour in the 1980s.
Just about an hour”s drive from most parts of Lake County, I am strongly of the opinion that Yocha-De-He is the best public-access course within a 100-mile radius. It is a rock-solid test of golf, it has a most courteous staff under the direction of head golf professional Bradley Johnson, and the whole golfing operation exudes class.
One of the first things you note upon your arrival at the course is that it is a contiguous layout with not a house in sight. There is an extensive driving range, several massive practice putting greens, and a practice area for wedge play. When you get to the first tee, you receive a comprehensive yardage book as well as all the tees and ball markers you”ll ever need.
The course has four sets of multiple tees and can be played at 5,900 yards for ladies and seniors all the way up to 7,300 yards for long-ball knockers. A highly regarded course in golfing circles, Yocha-De-He served as a site for the U.S. Amateur Qualifying in late July. The championship tees play to a par of 72, a course rating of 74.9, and a slope of 136. Being colorblind, I thought I was playing the course from 6,450 yards but wound up working hard as I experienced the course from 6,900 yards.
Yocha-De-He features state-of-the-art motorized carts that have an all too cool GPS feature showing an aerial view of each hole as you arrive at the tee. I half expected Ian Baker-Finch or Nick Faldo to do a voiceover, explaining in a clipped accent how to play each and every hole.
The layout at Yocha-De-He features distinctly memorable holes. If you asked me after having played the course one time to name the signature hole, I”d be unable to give you a concrete answer. There could easily be four or five signature holes. The 12th hole is a meat-and-potatoes par-4 that is both scenic and strategic with a massive grass bunker protecting the attack angle to the green. The par-3 13th is a memorable par-3. I played it from the chump tees, only 234 yards, and ripped a driver to the heart of the green. It has a Spyglass/Pine Valley flavor to it with radical bunkering down the right side. The par-4 15th hole has a double fairway, with the right half playing longer but safer, while the left fairway requires that one must cross the water for both shots.
Visually, the 17th hole is the most impressive of the lot. A 565-yard par-5 with water running down the entire right side, it plays to a peninsula green for that all-important third shot. It is a fun hole that requires a grinder”s mentality. Like many of the holes at Yocha-De-He, their beauty awes you but you also need to be very concerned by its feast-or-famine possibilities.
I have to admit that there were times during my round when I felt like I was at a golf course in the Carolinas or Florida. After stiffing an iron shot to the uphill par-3 seventh hole, I found my ball had rolled off the back of the green and come to rest in a Pinehurst-like collection area. The rough at Yocha-De-He isn”t all that long, but it is very much like a brillo pad, able to twist and turn your iron shot as you force the ball from the lie.
Walking off the final green that early August afternoon, I returned to my bag only to find that one of the staff members had already cleaned my clubs. It was an impressive end to a great day on the links. While I fully intend to return to Yocha-De-He sometime this autumn to play it again, I do have the best compliment I can offer a golf course after I”ve played it for a first time. Simply put, my 18-hole round at Yocha-De-He went too fast. I needed more time to soak it all in, but my round was over before I knew it. I highly recommend this “local” course. You”ll find it to be a memorable golfing experience. Tee times can be arranged to play Yocha-De-He by contacting the pro shop at 530-796-4653 or via the Internet at www.cachecreek.com
