Fazio-designed Aldarra like no other course

So why write about a golf club so exclusive most of us will never play it?

Because it is the first Northwest design by Tom Fazio, entrusted this year with making significant changes to Augusta National.

Because it might be the best golf experience in the state, if not the best course.

Because you might have a member invite you to play some day.

Gayle Bush, a Seattle attorney, sent an e-mail roundly scolding me for writing that Tiger Woods should have given back his $2 million appearance fee at the Deutsche Bank Open in Germany so it could be added to the prize money, thus preserving the notion that pro golfers get paid only for what they do on the course.

I answered Bush. He fired back. Soon we were into an electronic discussion about our passions for golf. He asked me about Bandon Dunes. I told him what I thought.

Then, one day, he asked me to join him for a round at the Members Club at Aldarra, which had been open for two months but was just now, in early July, allowing guests on the course.

Sun broke through the clouds overhanging the hills surrounding the old Boeing Farm near Issaquah. A trailer was acting as a temporary clubhouse. Muffins were served in an abandoned barn. Bill Tindall, the pro, and Rick Neuheisel, a member, were playing in a threesome in front of us.

Aldarra isn't into a lot of things, like ball washers or waste baskets on the tees, or signs telling you what hole you're playing, 150-yard markers, cart paths that scar its fairways, or corporate outings, social committees, swimming pools, tennis courts, or publicity about itself or its members.

When it does have a clubhouse it will be small, 16,000 square feet compared with 44,000 square feet at the TPC Course at Snoqualmie Ridge.

Paying respects to the history of the property and the few buildings on site, the clubhouse will look like a barn from the outside. Inside, it will look of wood and leather. There is a locker room, a simple grill for a simple snack, and a library, without television or telephone, for reading, of all things.

The Members Club of Aldarra already has 365 members, each of whom paid $75,000 to join. They will stop selling memberships at 400.

This is a different kind of a place. Half the members are members somewhere else, many at Sahalee and Broadmoor. More than half of them are under 50. A goodly number are strong, single-digit handicap players.

All but eight members are men. The women members have the same course privileges the men have.

There aren't conventional family memberships. The spouse and kids can play for free 24 times a year, but always with a member. Guests are allowed only at certain times. There will be no outside tournaments. Aldarra isn't trying to outdo Sahalee for the next PGA around here.

"We wanted to see if we could put together a traditional golf club," said Gene Becker, one of the founders of the club. "We've done more than we thought was even possible."

It started 17 years ago when a group of Seattle golfers were on an outing to the isolated Tokatee course on the McKenzie River outside Eugene.

One of them was Becker; another was former Sonic star Jack Sikma. Chuck Ainslie and Tom Foley were there, too. Foley, like Becker, was a member at Sahalee. He had come from Ireland. He was a member of several clubs around the world, including Pine Valley in New Jersey, long regarded as the best course in the world.

Another member at Pine Valley is Fazio, who designed the Big Horn course used in Monday night's made-for-television match with Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, David Duval, and Karrie Webb.

Fazio had never done a course in the Northwest. Foley persuaded him to take a look at the tumbling 240 acres the Boeings had used as a cattle ranch and named after a favorite town in France.

The only home bordering the property was owned by Jay Buhner.

"It is such a special place and special environment for golf," said Fazio, who is ducking all interviews that have to do with what he is doing to Augusta National. He was happy to talk about Aldarra, however.

"The long-range views, the trees, the fact that each hole is so different. In time, those who know about golf will have to play Aldarra, and it will come to be regarded with the best courses in the country," he said.

The course isn't conventional. It is a par-71, with three par 3s on the front nine, including a short, 135-yard finishing hole. It has back-to-back par 5s on the backside.

The members talk about the course as being the first 14 holes. The final four comprise the "gantlet," as they term it, starting at No. 15 with what has to be the toughest par 3 in the Northwest, 220 yards through two massive firs to a green wrapped over and around a huge bunker.

The 16th hole demands a drive over a swamp, 17 is a short par 4 with a table-top green braced by tall, sod-faced bunkers. Eighteen is overwhelming for the average player, 425 yards with a carry over wetlands on the drive and again on the second shot.

It was obvious that Fazio didn't have to force the course to fit either the blueprint of a housing development, or please a membership that demanded something like everyone else had. He could have back-to-back par 5s, as they have at Cypress Point, and get away with it.

The layout stretches to more than 6,800 yards. The day I played there was just one set of tees, the way they set up Pine Valley. This day they were at almost 6,500 yards, plenty of golf course, at times too much golf course.

"We're looking at adding another set of tees," said Becker. There were other tee areas, they just weren't being used.

The course is delightful. A few holes are pure Northwest, like Sahalee, framed by towering trees. Others reminded me of Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon, gracefully finding their way through farmland and over wetlands.

How good is it?

"Special is the word I use," said Fazio. "I told the members when it was being built that they didn't know just how good it would be. Now, I think they understand."

Blaine Newnham can be reached at 206-464-2364 or bnewnham@seattletimes.com.