The Valley Course at Coyote Creek Golf Club opened in June 2001 as the second of two Jack Nicklaus-designed layouts on the Castle & Cooke-owned property straddling the southern San Jose and Morgan Hill border. The land has a longer golf history than the current club suggests: it was previously occupied by Riverside Golf Course, a daily-fee track dating to the mid-1950s, which Nicklaus completely renovated while adding seven new holes to create the modern facility. The Tournament Course opened first in September 1999, followed by the Valley Course about two years later.

On the course

Routed entirely within the southern Santa Clara Valley floor, the Valley Course plays flatter and more forgiving than its sister track, with little elevation change across the property. The par-72 layout stretches to 7,066 yards from the back tees and plays as short as 5,187 yards from the forward set, with four tee boxes on every hole. A series of four lakes and two waterfalls shapes the routing, and the parkland-style course is more sheltered by trees than the Tournament Course, offering some relief from the wind that funnels through the valley.

Who it suits

The signature hole is the par-3 seventh, a 220-yard all-carry tee shot over a lake to a green guarded by bunkers on the right and a collection area on the left. Like most Nicklaus designs, the greens are multi-tiered and well protected by bunkering, rewarding accurate iron play over raw power. The facility includes a 350-yard all-grass driving range, chipping greens, a practice bunker, and a putting green. The Valley Course suits intermediate and advanced players who want a Nicklaus design at a public rate, and the broader club hosted the Champions Tour's Siebel Classic in 2001 and 2002 over a composite routing of both courses.

Architect: Jack Nicklaus · Opened: 2001