City Park’s Facelift

City Park Golf Course's new clubhouse aspires to attract golf and non-golf events year-round.

PLAN OF ACTION: The new clubhouse aspires to attract golf and non-golf events.

city park clubhouse rendering

By Jon Rizzi


THE PETITIONS, public discussions and legal challenges regarding Denver’s controversial reworking of City Park Golf Course have all but ended. The Tom Bendelow-designed course closed November 1. Now the redesign—prompted by the need for new stormwater detention areas to reduce neighborhood flooding—can begin.

With Hale Irwin serving as a consultant, Todd Schoeder of Broomfield’s iCon Golf Studio laid out a new course, the design of which should put to rest any design objections to bulldozing the 105-year-old layout.

Using aerial photographs of the original course taken in 1933, Schoeder saw little resemblance between it and the 2017 version. “Over time, the routing was changed and bunkers removed to improve pace of play,” he explains. So Schoeder came up with a new “sporty” layout with larger greens and tees, and eight holes that follow the same corridors as the original Bendelow design. “I also incorporated many of the same elements Bendelow did,” he explains, “but with more variety and direction changes.”

The length of the course will be 6,623 yards instead of the most recent 6,708, but, Schoeder says, “it will play longer; instead of a par 72 it will be a par 70, with three par 5s, five par 3s and 10 par 4s.”

city park bird's eye view

Schoeder’s routing will feature returning nines, with the eastern part of the site consisting of the first seven holes and, unlike now, a 300-yard range that will allow practice with every club. The 11 remaining holes, as well as the four-hole First Tee facility, will cover the western part of the course, where holes 11-16 will also function as stormwater detention. A 1.08-acre reservoir will come into play on holes 13 and 15, with a snaking channel also factoring into holes 13-16 as it winds towards the 17th tee box—at the corner of York and 26th, where the clubhouse had existed since 2002.

“The integration of the storm water and wetlands channel that flows through will make for a much more interesting golf course than the one we had,” Director of Golf for the City of Denver Scott Rethlake says. “It’ll be a feature golfers will enjoy.”

Rethlake also believes people will love the new clubhouse. Currently sited at the lowest point of the property, the clubhouse will relocate to the highest—in the center of the course. A new road leading from 23rd Avenue will deliver golfers to the sleek Johnson Nathan Strong-designed structure with spectacular views of downtown and spaces designed chiefly to host golf tournaments but also to attract non-golfers and accommodate small events and meetings. denvergolf.com


This article appears in the Winter 2017 Issue of Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine, the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

Follow us on TwitterFacebook and Instagram.

GET COLORADO GOLF NEWS DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX