Sky Mountain Golf Course

Sky Mountain is the course that most reliably surprises visitors. It is a municipal course
owned and operated by the City of Hurricane, it opened in 1994 to a Jeff Hardin design, and it occupies
a site that a private developer would have built a resort on.

The setting is the design

The course sits on an elevated bench with the red sandstone of the Hurricane Cliffs on one side and
black volcanic terrain on the other, looking east toward the high country around Zion National Park.
Hardin's routing uses the bench edge deliberately, and the elevation means most tee shots are played
with the valley laid out below. Very little of the drama is manufactured; the land supplied it.

The golf

At 6,306 yards from the Blue tees the course is not long, and it rates 71.1 with a slope of 130. That
combination - modest length, moderate slope, extreme scenery - is why it works for such a wide range
of players. The wind on the bench is the main variable, and it is more consistent here than at the
valley courses. Greens are receptive and the corridors are fair.

Who it suits

Sky Mountain is the round to schedule when the group has mixed abilities and everyone wants
photographs. Because it is city-owned, it prices like a municipal course while presenting like a
destination one, and that gap is the single best-known piece of local golf knowledge in the county.
It is also the natural golf stop on a trip that includes
Zion National Park, because Hurricane sits directly on the road
between St. George and Zion's south entrance and the detour costs almost nothing.

Playing it well

Two things catch first-time players. The elevation changes mean stated yardages are frequently wrong
for the shot in hand, and downhill holes on the bench edge play substantially shorter than the card
suggests. And the wind tends to build through the day here more predictably than in the valley, so an
early tee time is not merely a heat strategy - it is a scoring strategy. The greens hold well, which
means an aggressive line into a back pin is usually the right play in the morning and the wrong one
in the afternoon.

The setting, in geological terms

The Hurricane Fault runs along this bench and is the reason for the abrupt escarpment east of town -
the cliffs are a fault scarp, not an erosional feature. The black rock on the property is basalt from
comparatively recent volcanic activity along the same fault zone. That collision of red sedimentary
rock and black volcanic rock in one view is the signature of the Hurricane area and it is on display
from most of the course.

Living here

The course gives its name to the Sky Mountain community in
Hurricane. For a trip that pairs golf with the parks, see our
golf and parks weekend itinerary.