Dunham Hills Golf & Country Club

Great course that will challenge you every hole. You have to think. It’s not flat, it’s not easy.

Pitch and put gone wrong. Play to miss as good shots aren’t rewarded. Fair conditions. Hit and hope, blind shots, poor hole identification. If you like 20 foot sweeping putts on scalped greens, this place is for you. Low value for the money.

Dunham Hills is an old school course. Parallel fairways for the most part, lots of elevation changes (the name does it justice!), and greens and tee boxes close together.
While I’ve walked the course before, it probably the hardest walk I’ve ever done. The hills are just going to get to you. From the blues, it’s not long, but very challenging. Seems to be the rating and slope are a little low, maybe it’s time for a re-​rating?!?
The greens at Dunham are a love/​hate relationship. They’re very difficult greens, but they’re always in great shape. There’s no blaming the green’s keeper for your three putts, unless they put the pin in an unfair position. Greens are mostly tiered and very severe. You need to be under the hole to score at Dunham.
All parts of your game need to be in shape to play here. If you’re even just a little wild off the tee, you’re going to have trouble scoring, as punch outs will be common!
My main complaint about the course is that the trees are a bit overgrown on some holes. They need to get a chainsaw out and do some tree trimming.
For example, on #10 is a long dogleg left with hazard through the fairway at the dogleg maybe 225 out. The problem is that from the back tees, you either need to cut the corner, or hit a 40 yard hook to avoid the hazard. But the trees on the left side of the tee box are so overgrown that there’s no way to cut the corner. I find it ridiculous that you’d need to layup on a 430 yard hole, the hole just wasn’t designed this way.
Same goes for hole 2, 3, and 4. So what ends up happening on those holes is that players criss-​cross into opposite fairways, and the first 4 – 5 holes have a very slow pace because everyone is in everyone elses way. After that, pace picks up.
My favorite holes on the course are the back to back par 5’s on the back 9, holes 12 and 13. I love playing holes cut through big trees. However, you then get to hole #14. Really a poor design. 430 yards from the blue tees, you’re forced to hit a shot less than 235, as the water pokes its way into the fairway. Sure, you could try to hit driver into the 15 yard wide fairway where it pinches in, but you have OB to the right, and water to the left. Nobody with any sense of course management is going to try to do this.
Again, I think forced layups on long par 4s are garbage. They need to back fill about 30 yards of the pond to make this hole fair.
Dunham Hills usually has some good deals going, and it’s a great old school course. Terrific greens, but difficult, and if the course did some maintenance to the trees it would really improve the pace of play and overall playability of the course.