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CREEKSIDE
Golf Club
PAR 4 417 YARDS
Salem, OR
503.363.4653
www.golfcreekside.com
The pastoral pleasure of Oregon's Willamette Valley serves as an
appropriate and beautiful backdrop for Creekside Golf Club in
Salem. Designed in the early 1990s by the state's most popular
golfer, Peter Jacobsen, Creekside is a serious golf course:
It's been host to the Oregon Open, the Oregon Amateur, and
the 2011 and 2012 NAIA National Championships as well as
qualifying for the U.S. Senior Open. The fifth hole, a 417-yard par
4 from the back tees, is the most beautiful hole on the course and
is sure to be the most photographed.
A wide fairway bunkered strategically on both sides makes
a good drive essential because anything less means a layup
short of Battle Creek, which bisects the fairway and then swings
precariously around the right edge of the green. Indeed, there
are five fairway bunkers on the fifth, three to the left side and
two to the right. The tee shot presents a point of no return. Find
a bunker and you can't get over the creek; lay up short of the
fairway bunkers and you can't get there either. To make matters
more challenging, there is a bunker to the left side of a green that
stealthily slopes away.
The challenge at Creekside often comes down to an ability to
read and putt the greens—once you get to them, of course.
Even though it is a parkland golf course in a luscious setting,
Creekside shows Jacobsen's love for links-style golf and has
touches of both the ground and aerial games.
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Photograph by Ean Perkins
