Gladstan golf course adds 'favorite' label

Gladstan Golf Course in Payson got a significant face-lift this year.

These days it's tough for a city-owned course to make such enhancements because the way real estate prices are, politicians can gobble up such land for a quick buck and leave a course ravaged down to a putt-putt carnival facility.

Look no further than what's up at Provo's East Bay for the second time, and you'll understand how city economics can cannibalize a course. ... That didn't happen here on the foothills of Mount Nebo where deer and elk regularly feed along the fairways and housing tracts have steadily crept higher and higher.

In the past 24 months, Payson has sold off two of Gladstan's goofiest golf holes and used the money to build two picturesque canyon holes. They've rerouted and tweaked other holes. No easy task.

But it worked.

At the ribbon cutting for the new 575-yard par-5 No. 14, Payson Mayor Burtis Bills recited a long history of golf in Payson before proclaiming the new Gladstan one of the best golf courses in Utah.

From a beauty standpoint, he is correct.

From a challenge standpoint, he is also correct.

From a "favorites" list of municipal courses, it would fall in the Top 10 of somebody's list, certainly mine.

Somewhere behind leaders Hobble Creek, Coral Canyon and Wasatch State Park's Lake Course.

There are easier courses. There are longer layouts. But there are fewer courses around that offer such diversity.

Thanks to some excellent greens and today's new holes, Jack Lamento's fantasy come true is absolutely that good.

In an attempt to describe the step forward for this municipal layout, head professional Tracy Zobell found himself speechless last week when facing dignitaries, including the City Council and Mayor Bills.

You see, Gladstan opened in 1988 and replaced an older course in the flatlands. Lamento, the then head golf professional and only the third guy to hold that title in Payson history, dreamed that one day an additional two holes up the canyon would replace two weak holes on the front nine (holes 7 and 8). Then Payson could brag about being a true championship course.