A Sunny Golf Vacation In New Mexico

Home to the Navajo and the Pueblo people, sought after (and had!) first by the Spanish and then the Mexicans, New Mexico is truly the Land of Enchantment. With 310 days of sunlight a year, New Mexico is also a golf lover’s paradise. With courses all over the state, golf holiday makers quickly find themselves up-close and personal with all the terrain that this historic region is famous for - breathtaking mountains, forests, and deserts surround world-class links.
 
New Mexico is called the Land of Enchantment for another reason– its rich cultural heritage, legacy of arts & architecture, churches and Basilica and of course for Notah Begay III. There is so much golf to be played and so many interesting places to visit that you can take the whole family on your golf vacation and everyone would be happy. You could play golf from Las Cruces to Santa Fe, Truth or Consequences to Los Alamos, Taos to Apache Mesa and White Sands and the non-golfers can trek at the Carlsblad Caverns National Park or just soak in the spoils of the Old Town Albuquerque. In short, this is one golf holiday for everyone to remember.

Other attractions aside, this is a golf vacation and you’d want to play it on courses that bring out the best in you. Rest assured that somewhere in New Mexico there’s a course with the challenge and the terrain best suited to you. Route your golf travel to Albuquerque, the densest golfing area in New Mexico and hit the greens at Paa-Ko Ridge Golf Club. A 27-hole facility, Paa-Ko is a Ken Dye design and a treat for the eyes. At $57 per player on weekdays ($71 on weekends) it is a treat for the wallet too.

Other Albuquerque courses that should be placed high up on your golf package are the 18-hole University of Mexico Golf Course ($39-$45), Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed Pueblo de Cochiti Golf Club once ranked as one of The Top 75 Affordable Courses by Golf Digest and the site of the 2003 CPC Tournament, Twin Warriors Golf Club. In the Northern region try the Piñon Hills ($45 - $50), Black Mesa Golf Club ($59 - $64) and Angel Fire Resort Golf Course ($65 - $80).

Turn your golf travel route south and play courses like Sierra Del Rio, the very affordable 18-hole public course Silver City ($16 - $21) and the Truth or Consequences Municipal for a mere $8.50 on weekdays and $12 on weekends. But a New Mexico golf tour would be incomplete without a round at The Inn Of The Mountain Gods which is not only a fine course to play on but also comes with an interesting piece of history.

Although most golf in New Mexico today is concentrated in the Albuquerque-Santa Fe corridor, it started out somewhere else. Tribal-owned golf evolved from a vision by Wendell Chino, leader of the Mescalero Apaches for 43 years in the Ruidoso area. He hired golf architect Ted Robinson Sr., to design a resort course in 1976 nestled by the Inn of the Mountain Gods at an elevation of 7,200 feet in the cool pines bordering the Lincoln National Forest. The result was the celebrated course as we know it today and it put New Mexico on the national golf radar for good. With more than 80 golf courses, New Mexico today is a very popular inclusion in most golf packages.