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SUDDEN VALLEY
Golf Course
PAR 4 421 YARDS
Bellingham, WA
360.734.6435
www.suddenvalleygolfcourse.com
Many changes have taken place at Sudden Valley Golf Course, but little has been
done to the rapture that is the fifth hole. From the tee, a giant cherry tree on the left
side of the fairway blocks not only errant tee shots, but views of the 12-mile-long Lake
Whatcom. Get around the tree—it takes a 270-yard poke from the back tees—and the
lake and the Cascade foothills behind it come stunningly into view.
Aesthetics aside, the 421-yard par 4 is Sudden Valley's number-one handicap hole.
While it is temping to draw the ball around the tree and toward the hole with a driver, a
more prudent play is hitting a 3-metal slightly right of the big tree to keep the tee shot
from skipping into the tall fescue along the right edge of the fairway. The wind off the
lake, always blowing harder at the hole than it is from where your tee shot landed, can
wreak havoc with the second shot, and the green is among the largest on the course.
Sudden Valley was an early creation of Ted Robinson, and like all his designs, trees
didn't simply frame holes but often defined them. The course was celebrated enough
early on that it held the 1981 Washington State Open and Amateur, events won
respectively by revered players Rick Acton and John Bodenhamer. No one ever talks
about Sudden Valley without mentioning the differences between the two nines: one
sweeping out to the lake, the other trail-blazing its way up and down a mountainside.
Both, while different, are truly spectacular.
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Photograph by Jim Smithson
