The Course at Wente Vineyards worth the price of admission
- May 12, 2014
By John Berry
Golf Columnist
Without trying to sound like I'm just about ready to be put out to pasture, I have reached a point in my golf game where I have very few goals, very few things left to accomplish. I've been playing competitive golf for the past 48 years and I feel all right about the state of my game. Right now I've digressed to the point where my game is pretty similar to what it looked like when I was a 14-year-old. The ball doesn't fly as far as it used to and that single-digit handicap is inching closer to double digits.
Yet I'm OK with all this. Looking back through the years, I've had my fair share of local wins and successes. I used to dabble on amateur golf's national and international stages, and while I was little more than an also-ran, I did happen to be an also-ran to the likes of Tiger Woods in the Western Amateur and Darren Clarke in the Irish Amateur. Now I'm at a point where I like to play golf but I'm equally interested in running golf tourneys and coaching kids.
My only real golfing quest nowadays is to collect golf courses. I look forward to playing new venues of note. In the near future, I'll be teeing it up at the Cal State East Bay Athletic Department's benefit tournament alongside my son and two daughters. It's being held at Stonebrae in the Hayward hills. The site for the Web.com Tour's Stonebrae Classic in early August, it is a private club designed by David McLay Kidd (Bandon Dunes). Later this summer I venture to the Midwest and have a round of golf line up at Midlothian Country Club. It was the site of Walter Hagen's U.S. Open win some 100 years ago. I've been really looking forward to visiting Midlothian for some time now. While back in the Central Time Zone, I'll also pop in on former Rob Roy PGA professional Bob MacDonald and tee it up at his course, Crystal Lake, in the north Chicago suburbs.
Last Sunday I was able to cross another golf course of note off my wish list, namely The Course at Wente Vineyards. Wente is located in the East Bay hills just south and east of Livermore. It has been around for approximately 15 years and was designed by two-time British Open champion Greg Norman. It used to be the site of the Web.com Tour before the opening of Stonebrae. My son Nick had given me a round of golf at Wente for my birthday and last Sunday was the date for me to open my present.
Right off the bat, Wente is not a golf course for those on a limited budget. Our Sunday afternoon round cost us $110 each and rates are even higher during prime time. It's always hard to determine the worth of an upscale golf course, but I can easily state that The Course at Wente Vineyards is well worth the entertainment dollar. It's also a cart course, kind of like Hidden Valley Lake on steroids. There are three succinct regions to the golf course and I'm sure that one of the reasons the Web.com Tour relocated is that the Wente course is a tough walk.
The opening six holes are located in an isolated mountain valley. The setting is gorgeous and serene. The holes are meat-and-potatoes tough and yet the mountainous views are simply breathtaking. Without a doubt, the opening six holes were my favorite part of the course, including a tough par-5, a classic par-3, and a mixture of long and short par-4s.
The journey to the seventh tee is a long one and includes driving over a ridge and finding oneself in another golfing valley. The closing four holes are visible in this second valley alongside the seventh, eighth and ninths holes. The course starts to toughen up at this point, as the seventh is a 205-yard par-3, the eighth hole is a back-breaking 602-yard par-5, while the par-4 ninth hole plays at 470 yards (496 from the pro tees).
The ninth green is nowhere near the clubhouse and there is a small snack shack at the turn. Once motorizing past the mid-round grill, you will observe a street sign that states, "The Lombard Street of the Course at Wente Vineyards." The 10th tee appears to be on a mountain plateau some 250 feet above the ninth green. The cart path to the 10th tee features eight switchbacks, hence the Lombard Street comparison. It's a journey for only the heartiest of mountain goats. Upon arriving at the 10th tee, you can see five holes laid out atop the plateau. They are a neat mixture of short and long par-4s, a dogleg par-5, and a duo of well-designed par-3s.
Once you putt out on the par-3 14th hole, you return to the valley floor for the final holes. They're not as scenic as the holes in the front-six valley or the mountain plateau, yet they are well designed and tough. The last three holes are all par-4s, playing to 433, 445 and 457 yards. With the par-5 15th hole playing to 547 yards, it felt like my final four holes were all par-5s.
The Course at Wente Vineyards is a most beautiful walk/ride in the park, but it is not for the faint of heart. Most of the driving holes are wide open. There are very few fairway bunkers and trees don't come much into play. However, the greens have multiple undulations and they are protected by a myriad of bunkers.
I found a few of the bunkers at Wente and the sand was the most blinding white sand this side of Doral. It was also as close to perfect sand as you can get. I was successful with a pair of short bunker shots and when I had a 120-foot bunker shot, I was able to nip it successfully to about eight feet. It was really nice to play from such wonderfully maintained bunkers.
I didn't exactly follow the USGA's protocol for "Playing it Forward" as Nick and I teed it up from the 6,900-yard golf tees. The end of the round wore out my trusty 3-wood. However, we both played pretty well, Nick shooting 78 while I carded a hard-working 86.
As I earlier stated, Wente is not for the faint of heart, but if you do have game and are up for a great golfing challenge, then I can highly recommend The Course at Wente Vineyards. It's pricey, it exudes opulence and charm, and it is a first-rate test of golf. From my personal perspective, it was a most memorable day of golf with my son.