Hells Gate State Park

Pros: • Has a practice basket. • Maps are available at the Lewis and Clark Discovery Center inside the park. Navigation was easy. • Holes 5, 6, 7, 9, 14, and 18 require a carefully placed te ... show more ›

Pros:
• Has a practice basket.
• Maps are available at the Lewis and Clark Discovery Center inside the park. Navigation was easy.
• Holes 5, 6, 7, 9, 14, and 18 require a carefully placed tee shot to line up your putt/approach.
• Several baskets are well guarded by trees and bushes making for challenging approaches.

Cons
• Tee pads are deep loose gravel with poor footing (I teed beside the pad on many holes to stay out of this).
• No alternate pins.
• Grounds were mowed, but not watered or otherwise maintained. The cheat grass was quite thick and annoying and the ground was dry and dusty.
• Only 2 holes were >300’

Summary:

This course is not as nice Sunset Park across town. However, it does have some interesting holes. It would be much nicer if it was watered on regular basis. The Snake River does come into play on holes 1 and 2. If you throw a bad drive (RHBH) that fades out to soon, you might hit the river on either hole (especially on #2). I had to stop twice to pick cheat grass out of my socks in July. I really hate cheat grass so this was a big negative for me. If the park staff could be convinced to mow the fairways a little shorter it would help a bunch.( I went back in December and it was much nicer. The weeds and cheatgrass were gone and I enjoyed the course much more. I bumped my rating 2 notches.)

Note: This course now has a "Back 9" that uses alternate tees to the 9 baskets. This improves the course quite a bit. There is a nice variety of shots on holes 10-18. #12 is challenging with a tunnel tee shot that favors a flick or turnover BH shot. The basket is buried in some brush/tree branches. The upshot has to be well placed. #17 has some "pucker factor" because the basket sits a few feet from the shore of the Snake River. It's a short hole, so you've got to be careful not to overshoot your drive. I've bumped my rating up a notch for the additional 9 holes.