Esprit de core: Apple-shaped green gives Yakima Golf course an identity
YAKIMA — The sun was starting to set as I stood on the tee of the state's most recognizable golf hole last week with a camera instead of a 7-iron.
I was photographing a father and son. It was a Kodak moment and a wonderful golf memory.
Nate Smith of Yakima was going to leave the next day for his third year at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was playing the back nine at Apple Tree Golf Course with his father, Scott, and their friend, Dave Shuel.
Father and son (who are no relation to this reporter) put arms around each other as I put the famous apple-shaped island 17th green into the background.
It was a special night for father and son on the signature hole of the 10-year-old Yakima course that has earned a four-star rating from Golf Digest.
I never had played the course with the famous apple hole and was eager to do it. Sunny Yakima is less than 2-1/2 hours away, and the town's "Palm Springs of Washington" slogan is an enticement to anyone on the soggy side of the Cascades.
The apple green was the brainchild of John Borton, who shares majority interest in the course and real-estate venture with his cousin Bill. There are three minority owners.
"The apple green was a fun concept and it turned out well," Borton said, citing how it has appeared in national and regional golf publications and in golf conversations.
The apple idea was a natural because the cousins are fruit barons, farming more than 4,000 acres of apples, pears and cherries. They were ranked the sixth largest independent growers in the nation last year by one industry publication.
The apple green has given an identity to this course just as the Space Needle did for the Seattle World's Fair in 1962.
Another apple symbol is the design of a large bunker filled with red volcanic particles on the side of the hill before the huge shared green of the ninth and 18th holes. The large lake on the ninth hole has an apple shape and so does the green on No. 10.
The famous apple green on No. 17 is on a 12,000-square-foot island reached by a bridge. (By comparison, a standard basketball court is 4,700 square feet.)
On this night, the hole required a 140-yard downhill shot from the white tees and wasn't difficult because there was no wind.
Shuel birdied the hole with a 33-foot putt and I missed my birdie putt from 18 feet. Father and son had a double-bogey and bogey, respectively.
We let an impatient twosome behind us on this busy night hit their tee shots with us. One shot landed on the foundation ledge and gracefully bounced 20 feet into the air before splashing into the lake. This fellow's next shot landed on the green. They drove their golf cart down to the green, recovered their balls without putting, then raced off toward the front nine, where holes were vacant.
"You might be OK," a mechanic said cautiously when I left the garage.
My chances for a good score had vanished much earlier in the round on the ninth hole when I did a "Tin Cup" imitation and hit three tee shots into the lake rather than play intelligently and hit a low-risk shot.
The back nine has the glamour hole — No. 17 — but the front nine winds through orchards and farmland and is more memorable. However, three new ponds help toughen three of the six front-nine holes on the north side of the rural street that runs outside the clubhouse.
The course is part of a planned real-estate development that hasn't taken off, and the first home didn't appear until the 14th hole. A condominium development is in back of the 16th green.
John Borton said the residential project was "a political football between the county and the city" for nearly a decade over now-resolved utility issues.
Borton is talking about expanding the complex first to 27 then 36 holes within a few years and having about 1,000 homes plus condominiums as part of the development.
Of more interest to Puget Sound golfers is his interest "to really turn Apple Tree into a destination resort similar to Sunriver, or Black Butte in Eastern Oregon."
He wants to put in a lodge hotel for business meetings and have swimming and tennis facilities.
Talk is easy. But Borton is a can-do guy who got dirty using heavy machinery from orchard operations to help build the golf course. He said he redesigned a lot of holes to his liking, relying on his golf architect more for technical expertise in such areas as construction of greens.
The upscale course isn't without blemishes. There were burned spots on some greens, and the explanation was that there had been an irrigation canal washout miles away that had deprived the course of water for a few critical days. The second hole is an uphill par-3 that can slow the pace of play. Some courses lack a short par-3 but Apple Tree lacks a long one. Two teeing areas were in bad shape, one because it had been replanted after a recent pond project and the other because it was in perpetual shade.
Still, the pluses far outweigh the minuses. The course is scenic and fair, holes No. 9 and No. 18 are excellent risk-reward par-5s with water, the par-4s have good variety, the terrain is varied, and the turreted clubhouse is attractive and has a reputation for good food.
An outing to Apple Tree isn't cheap, especially for outsiders. Yakima Valley residents get a real break in greens fees. They pay $28 (plus tax) on weekdays for 18 holes; nonresidents pay $39. On weekends, the rates are $40 and $55.
The course has been doing more than 35,000 rounds a year, Borton said. Former President George Bush once played it, and Apple Tree was the site of the 1995 Washington State Men's Amateur.
The course is 6,892 yards from the tips, 6,311 yards from white tees and 5,428 yards from the forward tees. The course rating from the whites is 70.7 (what an expert would shoot) and the slope rating is 124 (113 is a standard course).
For a course named after a fruit, it's delicious.
Craig Smith: 206-464-8279 or csmith@seattletimes.com.