This course is completely isolated from everything but bears, hornets, cougars, mosquitos, and Ron. You don't hear a sound that isn't natural during your entire round. This is the absolute opposite of North Park when it comes to background noise. The design and thought that went into this course is just phenomenal. I never had the pleasure to meet Steve Werner, but I feel like I knew him just a little bit after playing the course that his brother Ron built in his memory.

Ron did a great job here. Elevation comes into play with mostly uphill and downhill shots. Only a few of the holes are really flat at all. The natural baskets are an incredible touch. The tones that come from copper piping and native wood hitting each other like some sort of natural windchime are just... I don't have an adjective here. Going back to metal chains just sounds wrong the first time. That said, it's still nice to hit one regular basket (it was Steve's) and a keg a few times through your round.

Then there are the llamas. They didn't come into play during our round, but we still got to meet them. Using anything other than a llama to maintain a course this perfect and natural would just ruin the experience. And that's what Spirit Ridge is: An experience.

Cons? The course mostly follows a dirt road, so you don't find many tight lines. You can utilize tight lines, but for the most part you can play it safe and stay along the road.

You essentially play a 10 hole course twice with subtle tweaks to your drive. Although this is done better than any other course I've seen with this "play it twice" setup, a tiny bit more variation would be nice. There's a lot more land available for use once the brush and hornets are cleared out.

Some would call the shortness of the holes a con as well. It fit my range really well, and the frustration level of a course like SeaTac just wasn't here. If you have 500 foot holes through the woods it just isn't the same, let alone practical. I think the length just adds to the intimacy of the course... And here I am turning the cons into pros just like everyone else seems to do.

There just aren't any true cons here. Even the distance from everything is a pro as long as you have the time to drive up there.

I have never given a course a perfect score, but this is as close as I'll probably ever get. If Ron utilizes more of the property up here and takes you farther up and down the ridge it might get to a 5 star rating. It really is that good.