Colin Gants – PGA Head Professional

(2008)

Our beloved West Seattle Golf Course has received its share of attention lately.  The course we call home is no longer our little local secret.  A common description you have all heard in the past is that West Seattle GC is “A Great Course for a Muni”.  Not anymore…….Deservedly so, its beauty, layout, course condition and reputation has forced us to omit the modifier and simply classify it as “A Great Course!”

Within the last 7 years word started spreading like wildfire and we saw West Seattle Golf Course featured by numerous golf media.

Golf Magazine was the first to give the course national attention by featuring West Seattle GC as, “One of the Country’s Best Urban Municipals”.  This article firmly placed West Seattle on a national pedestal and the exposure to follow finally confirmed what we had been saying all along.

Rich Beem, 2002 PGA Champion, played most of his golf at West Seattle during the winter before going on tour.  After winning the major, The Seattle Times asked him about his days at West Seattle GC and he said, “West Seattle’s back nine is one of the most beautiful back nine’s you’ll find anywhere.”

Cascade Golfer rated West Seattle GC as the #2 Puget Sound Golf Course under $50 and spent most of the article raving about the bunker renovation project.  Here they write, “Filled with beautiful white sand, the 24 bunkers give the course a classic and sophisticated look. And the course has never looked better.”

A book written in 2004, Best Places to Golf devoted two pages to West Seattle GC and included, “The golf venue located closest to downtown Seattle may just be one of the world’s best munis!”  That in itself is a powerful statement but they go on to say, “ Built on the side of a hill and winding amid steep ravines and towering firs overlooking downtown’s modern skyline, West Seattle is a dramatic track with not a bad hole on the course.”

Cascade Golfer also included West Seattle’s Par 3 Third Hole in their article titled, “Favorite Par 3’s in the State.”

In 2006, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine voted West Seattle’s 12th Hole as Seattle’s Most Challenging Hole.  It was a fun, two page article describing the authors love and hate for the hole.

Golf Digest recently wrote, “Old trees decorate this long and difficult layout with plenty of variety.  You won’t find a flat lie on the course especially the very scenic back nine.”  Golf Digest also thought so much of the course that they included a beautiful photograph of West Seattle in their ‘Metro Golf’ story.  Not to reveal too much, but just this morning I spent 30 minutes on the phone with the editors of Golf Digest and West Seattle will again be featured in a future issue.  But the topic of the article may surprise you.  Stay tuned.

The Puget Sound Business Journal featured an article by David Wood titled, “West Seattle Golf Course is Golf with no Pretensions”.  Here you read, “With its cozy white clapboard clubhouse holding the high ground, there isn’t a pretentious bone in its 67 year old body.”  Later, describing the layout, “you’d better have your golf shoes laced up tight if you plan on playing from the back tees.  You find very few golfers bragging about taming West Seattle.  If you correctly navigate the minefield of the evil par-5 fourth and play the brutish par-4 eighth to a draw, you’re in the game at the turn.  However, playing the backside can be as difficult as being Britney Spears’ publicist.”  He goes on to dispel a rumor, “There is a school of thought in the local golf world disparaging the final five holes because they lay side-by-side like sardines in a tin.  This is poppycock!  Egan juiced every bit of golf possible out of that hillside and the holes are excellent.”  He sums up his feelings about West Seattle with, “Oh, I love it so!”

I attribute much of this attention to not only a wonderful layout by famed architect, H. Chandler Egan, but incredible day in and day out course condition.  This dramatic turnaround in our playing condition was orchestrated by West Seattle’s Superintendent, John Price and his staff.  Thank you for presenting the facility the way it deserves to be seen.  It makes us all proud to call West Seattle GC our home.