I played Winchester on 07/21/12 from the Black tees at 73.7/136/6819 for the first time and in a couple words, wow what a course! One of the benefits of the rough economy the last few years is that some of the private courses are allowing public play and that is exactly what Winchester has done. The course is a community course, but because it was built for those folks with a bunch of money the homes are set back from the course and the big trees hide the homes. Plus, the lots are so big that the homes are not a bother. The course is a couple exits east of Auburn about 5 minutes off of I-80 so it is very easy to get to from Sacramento and would make the perfect golf stop on the way to Truckee or Reno. The course sits at ~2500 feet in the Sierra Nevada foothills and has spectacular views of the surrounding area. This is a Robert Jones Sr/Jr design and a quick scan on a search engine shows that I have played a couple of their courses and enjoyed their work before, but this place seemed overly penal. More on that in a moment though. The course featured just about everything I love about Northern California golf. There was plenty of elevation change, elevated tees, great views, mentally involved holes, and separated holes that felt in a world of their own. The maintenance was good with good lies in the fairways, surprisingly quick greens (especially on downhill putts), and very few brown patches of grass. Because this is now public I suppose they have had to cut costs on maintenance compared to recent years and it was possible to end up in a thin lie and the tees were very thin. I did not think the greens rolled as true as their speed would indicate but it might have just been me though. The course featured large and elevated sloping greens with many blind and semi-blind shots from both the tees and the fairways. Commonly I had to modify my stance in the fairway for a side hill or uphill/downhill lie which made hitting crisp shots a challenge. Playing the first 4 holes would give an idea of the course. Hole #1 is par 4 with a blind tee shot to a downhill slot and then uphill to the green and #3 is a par 4 with a semi blind tee shot from an elevated tee box where bunkers pinched on the right so I had to fire at the blind part of the fairway to avoid them. Hole #4 was a par 5 that almost required a 4 or 5 iron off the tee because it was so uncomfortable to look at from the box. It was this type of thing all day long and it wore me out, I do not like blind shots and approaches where I cannot see the bottom of the flag. It was very uncomfortable to play, especially the first time. The signature hole, #16 is a long par 3 where any miss short or right is in the water, a good challenge. Overall I liked it here and would certainly have saved 5+ strokes if I had played it before. I played on Saturday afternoon and since no one was out I got around in 3.5 hours. I found it a great value for $50.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):