Experience the Dream 18

Group of golf faithful evaluates The Bee's best 18 holes in the Valley.

Published online on Sunday, Aug. 12, 2007

With apologies to Stanley Kubrick and Hal the computer, we're tempted to call our recent trek "2007: A Golf Odyssey."

A Fresno Bee van hauled 10 golfers more than 400 miles in three days to play 18 holes from Chowchilla to Springville. It was exhilarating and exhausting.

Golf is a game of leisure, played at a steady pace that allows for thought and enjoyment of the surroundings. Our trek was frenetic, allowing for jangled nerves and jumbled swing thoughts.

Out of the van, into a cart, drive to the hole, play through, jump back in the van and drive 30 minutes. Then do it again. Six times in a day.

It was all done in the spirit of research -- to scope out The Bee's Dream 18 golf course that includes holes from Pheasant Run in the north to River Island in the south, from Sherwood Forest in the east to Kings Country Club in the west.

And a lot of bogeys in between.

"How often do you get to do something like this?" said Riverside teaching pro Mike Firpo after a tour of six Fresno courses. "If the score meant something, this would be really hard."

The odyssey began with a splash -- literally -- as a couple of balls found the water that surrounds the No. 18 green at Pheasant Run Golf Club in Chowchilla.

It ended with a near miss -- Vicki Mathiesen's putt on No. 6 at San Joaquin Country Club, which would have been her third birdie in a row.

Those were the bookends to a lot of good, decent and downright horrible golf shots as our players set out to assess the Valley's best

18 holes as identified by The Bee, its readers and several local pros and longtime players.

Regional delights

More than being a dream course, we believe our 18 embraces the region in which we live. We are the California heartland, honest and hard-working. Our virtues are a different breed than Hollywood glitz or San Francisco sophistication.

And our golf courses likewise are mostly devoid of pretense or trickery. No Trump-built waterfalls. No carries over ocean chasms. No greens perched on mountain crags.

These are not necessarily the toughest holes in the Valley -- although each offers its own challenge -- but were chosen with several criteria:

Geographical diversity. Cities, towns, farmland, hills and rivers are our landscape.

Challenge. There has to be an element of, as coaches like to call it, "pucker power."

Aesthetics. Some of our swings might be ugly, but these holes won't be.

Reputation. These are the holes you tell your friends about, that you come back to play again and again.

They are listed in no particular order of priority other than geographically. Our front nine features courses from the North Valley, with the back nine venturing into the South Valley. Fresno courses are included in both nines.

We hope our Dream 18 spurs your imagination, gets you off the sofa and out onto the course. We have included "18 holes you can play" -- a list of holes at courses open to the public.

A few memorable moments from our three-day road trip:

The North tour

After a beautiful tee shot, Hilary Ross stood in the No. 18 fairway at Pheasant Run in Chowchilla just 150 yards from center of the island green. It's a par 5, so she could lay up. But, in a perfect "Tin Cup" moment, Ross attempted to reach the green in two and ... splash.

For inspiration, Seth DePiano brought along the trophy from his amateur foursome that calls itself The Tour. The shiny bit of metal might have provided some karma when he sank a putt from off the green at Pheasant Run, but no trophy could help DePiano avoid a couple of bunkers at Madera Country Club.