Painted Mountain Golf Resort in Mesa was designed by Frank Boxberger and opened in 1969. If you’ve never heard of Boxberger, you’re not alone. I had to do a little digging, but apparently he also designed Eaton Country Club in Eaton, Colorado and the nine-hold Sunland Village Golf Course also in Mesa.
Painted Mountain touts itself as a walker-friendly golf course, and it is, mainly because it’s so flat. Slope Ratings range anywhere from 55 to 155, with the average being 113, and the Slope Rating of Painted Mountain from the Blue (back) Tees is just 108. From there, the course plays 6,021 yards to a Par of 70 and a course rating of 66.1. Here are some of the highlights of the round:
Holes Worth Writing Home About
Painted Mountain is coming off of overseeding, and the new perrenial ryegrass looks great. The opening hole is a beautiful green ribbon that sweeps from left to right, and there’s a lake running down the right side of the fairway. At 605 yards, it’s one of three Par 5s on the outward nine, and because the teeing ground points you towards a bunker at the end of the fairway, the hole is just begging you to blast it over the water.
I think one of the things that makes this hole so tough is the fact that there’s no driving range. Hole No. 1 will be the first time you’ve been able to swing the driver all day, and you may not know where it’s going yet. That’s an uneasy feeling. While there is a huge putting green next to the clubhouse where you can warm-up your short game, the lack of a driving range is a serious flaw. Perhaps it’s because real estate is at such a premium within this golf community. There are homes squeezing every fairway, and you can see how the neighborhood has really grown up around the course. That said, there’s no reason to show-up more than 30 minutes before your tee time if you’re just going to chip and putt.
The first two holes, a long Par 5 followed by a long Par 3, are the two hardest holes on the course, but the back nine is where it really gets interesting. There’s only one Par 5, and there are back-to-back Par 4s at 13 and 14, back-t0-back Par 3s at 15 and 16, and then back-to-back Par 4s to close out the inward half. That’s a cool stretch of holes that you hardly ever see. The Par 4s are relatively short at 375, 332, 398, and 395, but the last two holes don’t play nearly that long because there are no tee boxes to accommodate those distances. The Par 3s play 178 and 167 yards.
Interesting story. While waiting to tee off on several holes on the back nine, we heard birds chirping in the palm trees above. We didn’t recognize the sound of the birds, and when we looked up, there were several green parakeets starting down at us. Apparently, flocks of the birds make their homes in these palms.
Painted Mountain isn’t a tough course, but it is a fun layout. Because it’s so short and so flat, about its only defense is its small green complexes. If you know where it’s going, you can post a score out here.
Quiet Please…
When we pulled into the parking lot, the course was in the middle of changing out its golf cart fleet. In fact, they were still in the process of loading their old carts onto a massive cart carrier. Long story short… we got to ride around in brand new, gas-powered Yamaha golf carts, and boy did they fly!
The carts also featured an innovation I had never seen before: multiple USB ports in the passenger glove compartment to charge a cell phone or power some speakers. There’s nothing like a new fleet of golf carts to boost the morale at a golf course. Hats off to Painted Mountain.
Fore!
Because I’m working on some pretty significant swing changes at the moment, I didn’t hit a lot of great shots, and I found myself dropping an extra ball or two on several holes. But on the Par 4 4th hole, I stuffed a wedge from about 70 yards out to within tap-in distance for an easy birdie.
While We’re Young
We teed off around 1:00p and were racing back to the parking lot to escape a rainstorm about three and-a-half hours later. The pace of play (and the speed of the new golf carts) was fantastic. No complaints here.