Course Description

Soldier Hollow Golf Course at Wasatch Mountain State Park is a 36 hole layout that opened in July of 2004. The course is the work of Gene Bates, who has designed other courses in Utah such as Green Spring, Riverbend and Old Mill. Situated on 460 acres, of which 250 is maintainable turf, Soldier Hollow is up and running just two years after ground was first broken.

The two 18-hole courses at Soldier Hollow were designed with different clientele in mind, although most golfers can play either. They are named "Gold" and "Silver" to reflect the Olympic Heritage of the site. The Silver is the tamer of the two, slightly shorter with wider fairways. The Gold is the proclaimed "Championship" course with narrower, more undulating fairways, tee shots requiring longer carry and trickier greens.

Both courses have five tees on each hole, with approximately an 1,800-yard difference from the back tees to the front tees on each of the courses. Between the two 18s, there are 150 bunkers, including more fairway bunkers than your average course.

Each of the four nines loops back near the clubhouse, so it's easy to get in a quick nine in the late afternoon when the course isn't as busy.

Soldier Hollow is well marked with large distance markers on the tee boxes, 150-yard poles in the fairways and distances on the sprinkler heads.

The Silver Course to the East is a parkland/meadowland style with large expanses of native grassland separating the holes. When you get up to the highest point of the Gold course, up on the 14th and 15th holes, you get a great view of the Silver course below with a patchwork of bunkers and cart paths amid the green of the fairways, greens and tees.

The Silver Course begins with a couple of downhill holes from elevated tees and three of the next five holes are par-3s, Nos. 3, 5 and 7.

Each of the nines has three par-3s, three par-4s and three par-5s, which is more interesting than the conventional two par-3s, two par-5s and five par-4s configuration.

The Gold Course is situated to the West, farther up the mountainside with most of the holes carved out of the scrub oak and trees on the steeper slope. The Gold course is a typical mountain or foothills course with significant elevation change throughout the course and dramatic elevation changes within each hole. The vegetation on the course mirrors the surrounding native area vegetation, scrub oaks and native mountain valley grasses. Some golfers may not find it much harder from the middle and front tees, but it's definitely more difficult from the black tees, which stretch to 7,598 yards, one of the longest layouts in the state.

Although the fairways are a bit narrower, the first six holes of the Gold Course are similar to the Silver. On the Gold Course you better hit the ball straight, because the native grasses are just itching to grab errant shots.