Where to play golf visiting Seattle?

The obvious answer is to drive 45 minutes south of the Seattle-Tacoma Airport and play Chambers Bay, the delightful bit of Scotland on the shores of Puget Sound.

With views of the Sound and Olympic Mountains, and the mind-stretching invitation to host the 2015 U.S. Open, Chambers Bay is a natural.

But there is something almost more natural, like an hour drive from Seattle east and up and over the Cascade Range, to the Suncadia Resort where there are now two different golf courses.

Suncadia is not unlike SunRiver in central Oregon, located on the sunny slopes of the mountains and amongst pine, not fir, trees.

Except Suncadia is slightly more lush than the Central Oregon high desert, and a whole lot closer. The four-lane I-90 affords alarming access to the mountains and beyond.

Suncadia began with an Arnold Palmer-design called Prospector, a spectacular layout high on a ridge. Next came the private Tom Doak Tumble Creek course, and finally Rope Rider.

Finally, after all this talk about making golf courses more fun and faster to play, somebody did it.

Suncadia is a big deal, covering more than 6,000 acres and adjacent to a couple million acres of national forest. There is a splendid Inn overlooking the Prospector Course and a grand, lodge hotel overlooking the entire valley. In the winter, there is a skating rink and an indoor-outdoor pool.

There were only 15 courses - public and private - built in the U.S. last year and two of the very best - Rope Rider and Salish Cliffs - are near Seattle.

The two new courses are similar in many ways, both in gorgeous settings, both around $90 to play during the high season, both done by nationally-acclaimed architects.
But part of the lure of golf is its continuing conversation, whether it takes place in the shadow of winter or the afterglow of a summer round.

Which course do you like better? If you had one final round, which one would you play?

Surely Salish, designed by Gene Bates and at the base of the Olympic Mountains an hour or so west of Seattle, wins on amenities with GPS on its carts. It is the more difficult of the two tracks and, with 600 feet of elevation gain, wins the wow factor as well.

All of which offer me, as a golf traditionalist, little comfort. I don't like carts, I really don't like GPS, nor do I like being forced by the distance between greens and tees to ride when I really want to walk.

But, mainly, I prefer Rope Rider because it better suits my game, and those of most of us. Jim Hardy and Peter Jacobsen, the architects, didn't give lip service to making the course playable for most players.

The bunkering is not as stylish as that at Salish, and in many ways is almost illusionary, making the course look more difficult than it is.

In no way are the Rope Rider bunkers as much in play or as deep and difficult to escape as those on neighboring Prospector.

And, as one might suspect, rounds at Rope Rider take 30 minutes on average less than those at Prospector. The greens are more intuitive as well because the course blends into the surrounding terrain, rather than rise above and below it. In other words, they pushed less dirt to build Rope Rider than they did Prospector. Or, I suspect, Salish Cliffs.

This means scoring is easier. For the big boys, however, Rope Rider can be lengthen to more than 7,000 yards making it difficult just the same. Forced carries on two of the holes at Salish - No. 9 and No. 14 - don't exist on Rope Rider.

Rope Rider isn't without warts. There are a few longs walks between holes if walking, and you pay for a cart whether you use one or not.

But overall it's playable, walkable and even portioned into six-hole segments for abbreviated rounds. It has way forward tees for kids. The pro shop is in the new Swiftwater Cellars winery and the remnants of mining days past are everywhere, including the 120-foot high Tipple Hill.

It is simply a fun place to play golf.