Copper Rock Golf Course

Copper Rock is the toughest public golf in Washington County by the numbers. From the Copper
tees it stretches past 7,200 yards and rates 75.8 with a slope of 146, and that slope is the highest
of any course in the St. George area. It opened for public play in February 2020, which makes it the
region's most recent daily-fee addition.

The design

Dale Beddo of G3 Golf Group designed and built it, with Gordon Zitting as developer. The routing is a
game of two halves. The front nine works through a broad grassy valley on relatively gentle ground;
the back nine climbs into hillier, more broken terrain and the elevation changes become the defining
feature. Beddo's shaping vocabulary is pushed-up bunkers and fescue-covered moguls rather than water,
so the course looks softer than it scores. The greens are large and smooth, and the trouble is
usually a matter of being on the wrong tier or the wrong side of a slope.

Holes worth knowing

Two features are genuinely unusual. The fifth has a green roughly 210 feet long, which means the
difference between a front and back pin is several clubs and the hole plays as a different par
depending on the day. The ninth and eighteenth share a double green, an old-world touch that is rare
in the American desert. The signature is the 17th, called SkyDive - a short hole of about 134 yards
played from the high point of the property, with the widest views on the course behind the green.

Tournament golf

Copper Rock hosts the Copper Rock Championship on the LPGA's Epson Tour, the developmental circuit
that feeds the LPGA Tour, held each spring. A course does not get a recurring professional date
without agronomy and conditioning to match, and that is a useful thing for a visiting golfer to know
about a course that has only been open since 2020.

Who it suits

This is a course to play from the correct tees. The gap between the Copper tees at 75.8/146 and the
Gold tees is large, and the back nine punishes a tired swing. Golfers who want the region's stiffest
public examination will find it here; golfers looking for a relaxed scenic round have better options
elsewhere in the valley.

The setting

Hurricane sits on the bench above the Virgin River between St. George and Zion, and the course looks
out over that corridor. Quail Creek State Park and its
deep blue reservoir are minutes away, and the drive to Zion's south entrance is a short one.

Living here

The course anchors the Copper Rock community in Hurricane.
If you are fitting the round into a short trip, our
48 hours in St. George itinerary covers how far east it is worth
driving for golf.