This hidden golf gem is stunning and memorable (and kind of scary)

My bosses added a subtitle to our new, cool list of America’s best golf courses for $100 or less: Where memorability meets affordability.

When I first read that it struck me as one thing that’s easy to define and another that isn’t. Affordability can be summed up in a greens fee, after all. But memorability? How do you define that?

But after a moment I realized that I had things completely backwards. Affordability is the more nebulous concept; what you can afford is a personal calculation of money, time, worth, opportunity, preference, personality. Memorability, by contrast, is easily demonstrated: What do you remember?

I remember pulling through the front gates of Black Mesa Golf Club — a member of our acclaimed list — on a cool, clear New Mexico afternoon in early 2010. I was in the midst of a year-long odyssey around the United States, living in my car and exploring the country through its golf courses with the loose quest of playing a round in every state. I’d entered New Mexico in mid-January and already I’d made two grave miscalculations: First, I’d expected it to be warmer. Second, I thought I could handle a particularly spicy burrito from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant near the southern border. Two errors of temperature, one in either direction. But Black Mesa, still a relatively new golf course, highly recommended from various online musings I’d read the week prior while sniping WiFi on my laptop from the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express. (This was the pre-smartphone era, at least for me; creativity was required.) Things were looking up.

At the time Black Mesa‘s price was different than the $84 it tops out at now. Lower, to be specific. In the offseason it was lower still. And in the afternoon in the offseason it was even lower than that. I didn’t have much in the way of money, so affordability was top of mind. Black Mesa passed that test, even for a broke teenager — I paid twenty-something bucks and was on my way.

I remember what I wore that day because I matched the golf course, though not on purpose. I’d slipped a creme-colored sweater from the plastic container in the trunk of my station wagon. Worn with khakis (impressively baggy khakis, I might add, as I just dug through my photos and have a few from that day) and set against the dormant fairways got the odd impression that I was playing in sepia tone.

I remember that I played alone. This can be a risky endeavor because if anything is amiss — you’re playing poorly, you’re on a boring course, you’re worried about something, you’re worried about someone, you’re thinking about work, you’re experiencing regret — there’s nothing to distract you from you. But in the right setting and in the right mindset, there’s something immersive about diving solo into a round of golf. All you.

I remember the drama of the course itself; I’d played in a variety of different landscapes by this point but nothing quite like this mountain-desert combo. There were significant elevation changes, pinging from ridgelines down into valleys. Elevated tee boxes offered views of the landscape, greens sat tucked up against sandstone walls, fairways wound between arroyos and rock formations. It was terrific. It was engaging. It was remarkably fun golf.

I remember that the parking lot was nearly empty when I’d arrived and just one truck remained as I made the turn. That belonged to the pro shop attendant, who was there waiting for me; he suggested that I might want to call it a day. I didn’t want to keep him waiting, but I was having a blast. Because I didn’t have a cart it seemed easy enough for him to leave and me to keep playing, so I encouraged him to take off. He agreed, with one request: I close the gate on my way out. Fair deal.

I remember the light and temperature both began to drop as I wound my way through the back nine. I remember hitting a ball off line and seeing paw prints in the dirt and wondering what they might belong to. I remember the “beware of rattlesnakes” signs suddenly occupying more of my brain space. And I remember the holes feeling increasingly isolated from one another, which had a disorienting effect; at one point I wondered which direction the clubhouse actually was.

Travel

Perhaps that’s why I remember this so vividly, because I was playing well and playing quickly and also moving in a state of hyper-vigilance, scanning the ridges for mountain lions as I walked towards my ball. I remember the sensation that an empty golf course is a very, very big place. I remember feeling sort of scared but also undeniably alive.

And then I remember getting suddenly startled after I’d hit my second shot on the 16th. By my memory that’s a dramatic uphill par-5, and I’d just hit 3-wood when a red truck roared over the hill; apparently I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten nervous about me being out there alone. The pro shop attendant had returned. He insisted I hop in and so I did and we wound our way back to the clubhouse.

I remember asking what had unnerved him, if it was the rattlesnakes or what. And I remember he said something instead about feral dogs. Those, he said, could be nasty.

I haven’t been back since. And so I’m certainly not claiming to be any sort of Black Mesa aficianado; just a guy who played a round there in 2010 and left with several feelings that endure. Few solo rounds of golf have been so memorable. And now I’m eager to go back and see how the reality matches up to the memory. After all, I’ve only played 15-and-a-half holes…

Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com. You can also find his book, 18 in America, here.

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