Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Oxmoor Valley (Valley)

The Valley course at Oxmoor Valley starts off with a hole that plays greatly downhill, moves on to a stretch of holes that are dead flat, goes to a set of gently rolling holes, and ends with two significantly uphill holes. The course is more easily walked than it's Ridge neighbor due to being flatter, but some places still have significant distances from one hole to the next. Overall, this is a rather nice course and most certainly one to be enjoyed.

Holes to Note

Hole #1: Par 4, 440 yards

This hole plays significantly downhill off the tee and is certainly not a gentle handshake to begin the round. The safe play would be to take a fairway wood or perhaps a long iron and play towards the bunker on the right. The more aggressive player might attempt to take the tee shot over the bunkers on the left and give himself the shorter shot into the green.

The player who hits towards the right bunker will be left with a longer shot, obviously, but will be rewarded with a flat lie. The player who takes his shot over the left bunkers may get a flat lie, but may get quite a bad lie because the fairway beyond the bunkers is quite narrow with significant fall-offs on either side.

The green, like most at the facility, is rather nondescript, sadly.

Hole 11: Par 4, 361 yards
This hole gives the player a couple of options as well. The fairway is flanked with two bunkers (a feature this writer dislikes, for what it's worth). Playing towards the one on the left will leave the player with a flat lie, playing towards the one on the right might leave the player with an odd stance, and or course the player might try to hit driver over all the trouble and be left with a short shot to the green.

From the fairway, the green is significantly elevated, preventing the player from seeing the entire flagstick.

It occurs to this writer just now as he's writing that the terrain for this hole reminds him quite a bit of what he saw for the 2nd hole at Pine Valley. Which actually makes the quality of this hole seem rather poor...One has to wonder if Rulewich saw the similarity and somehow thought this hole was a nice homage to the 2nd at Pine Valley? In this writer's opinion, it's not. But that notwithstanding, the hole is not bad.

Hole 12: Par 5, 506 yards
This may be the most strategic hole on the course. The tee shot is a Cape style allowing the player to be as aggressive as his heart, mind and ego will allow.

While it would seem that the bunker on the left might be overkill, it's nothing to get worked up over. From the fairway, the player will have to navigate a minefield of bunkers to get to the green. If the player doesn't believe he can reach the green in two shots, he must decide whether to play short, long, or even with the set of fairway bunkers.

For the player who attempts to go for the green in two or is hitting his third shot from the lay-up area, he will be forced to contend with a large bunker fronting the green.

This is likely the best hole on the property and makes as good a use of natural features as this writer has seen in a Rulewich designed course.

Overall, this course is solid. While there aren't a great many special holes, they are all rather solid. The only real issues one might take with the routing come on the stretch of 12 through 17. Each of these holes have rather significant green to tee distances and while being decent holes, the routing takes away any flow the course may have had. Add in a few crossings of public streets and that goes away even more. Sad, really. Could have been much better. 4 of 10.