A Historic Golf Course in Estes Park

A lodge in Estes Park.

We don’t associate many Colorado golf courses with history, but the one in Estes Park has a lot of history behind it. It’s probably the oldest course in Colorado.

The mountain valley known as Estes Park was first settled in 1863 by Joel Estes, a pioneer from Kentucky. The area was then a wilderness full of wild game and unmatched scenery.

Its reputation as a hunter’s paradise attracted an Irish nobleman, the Earl of Dunraven, who came there in 1872. He acquired much of the land in the valley and made the area his private hunting preserve for several years.

Dunraven built a lodge and several other structures to make the valley a playground for his wealthy European friends.

In 1875, he built a 9-hole golf course very near where the present 18-hole course is located. An early Denver Post article said of Dunraven:

“He had the first golf course in Colorado constructed in 1875. It is still in use, though it has been enlarged and greatly improved. At that time, golf was considered a ‘sissy’ game in this part of the country, and the very idea of putting a golf course in the mountains was enough to make the natives cackle in derision.”

Dunraven sold his Estes Park land holdings in 1906 to local investors, including F.O. Stanley, who built the Stanley Hotel in Estes.

The clubhouse, completed in 1909, still stands as a reminder of the course’s early days. The Estes Park Golf and Country Club was incorporated in 1917, and the first round on the new 18-hole course was played July 4, 1918. Today, golfers still play in the shadow of Longs Peak and the surrounding Rocky Mountains.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, tourism and golf slowed considerably in Estes. The city decided to use part of the golf course for an airstrip in an attempt to bring in more tourists.

But that didn’t work. The north-south runway was dangerous because of strong mountain winds. After several plane crashes, the airstrip was closed in the 1940s.

The city took over operations of the golf course in the 1950s and made many changes. But the first hole is still a long 440-yard killer running the same direction as the old airstrip.

Over the decades, the course has continued to evolve, but its mountain setting remains much as it was when Dunraven first envisioned Estes Park as a destination for wealthy visitors. What began as a novelty for visiting sportsmen eventually became part of the community’s identity and a piece of Colorado golf history.

Today, golfers can walk or ride the same general landscape where players swung clubs more than a century ago. The scenery may be more developed, and the equipment considerably better, but the challenge of mountain golf hasn’t changed much.

And the winds roaring down from 14,000-foot mountains can wreck golf shots just as quickly as they once wrecked airplanes.