Monarch Dunes
California’s Best Par-Three Course : The Challenge at Monarch Dunes
Bob Fagan
If you haven’t previously been exactly enthralled to play a par-three course, this one could change your mind. It certainly did mine. Typically, par-three courses have been architectural afterthoughts featuring mundane challenges and substandard conditioning. The Challenge Course at the Monarch Dunes Golf Club in Nipomo, close to the Central California coast, is anything but. You will discover an entertainingly challenging, beautifully manicured par-three delight that compares to any in America.
Oddly enough, the best American par-three courses have been situated at such staunchly private clubs such as: Pine Valley, Augusta National, the Olympic Club, Sherwood Country Club, Colleton River, Sutton Bay, and a few others that precious few people even know about, yet alone get to play. In the nineties, the Treetops Resort in Northern Michigan built Threetops, an amazing public-access par-three layout with vast elevation changes in a pristine forest setting. Well, Monarch Dunes is California’s answer and, if there is a better one-shotter layout in California, it has escaped my attention. What’s more there are twelve delightful holes!
