Arroyos, hillsides chockablock in ative oaks, riparian corridors,
the daily ebb and turn of breezes
that in near-coastal climes come
from and go to the shore across the
span of seasons and even days—
playing through Maderas it is easy
to appreciate the challenges. And in
the right hands, challenge creates
opportunity.
Maderas’ two nines loop in opposite directions, climbing and descending two canyons laced with
seasonal waterways, with never
more than two holes running out
in succession in the same direction
or configuration. Solid throughout,
the course finishes with a Louvre-caliber quintet, with long and
short par 3s playing downhill to
greens nestled oak-side; an uber-challenging 450-yard par 4 featuring a pinching, peninsular fairway;
and bracketing par 5s, one leaping
straight uphill, the other sweeping
through a big, blind dogleg from a
mountainside perch over a jumble
of native San Diego County.
Pascuzzo, who at the time was
still partnering with Robert Muir
Graves, gives credit to Johnny Miller for conceiving the three-hole start
to the killer closing stretch.
“We went through a bunch of different routings on that project,” he
says. “In fact, Tom Fazio was there
before us working on a layout. The
project had been ongoing for years.
Early on, the owner asked to bring
Johnny onboard. Fourteen through
16 were his biggest contributions.
He redesigned them right there in
the field. The finishing stretch is
really memorable and just a lot of
one of the things thAt
mAkes mAderAs so
speciAl is thAt the site
is reAlly in A bo Wl, it’s in
this enclosed vAlley. it
feels like you’ve reAlly
gotten AWAy out in the
middle of no Where.
fun. Who doesn’t like to play down-
hill golf holes?”
The course also benefits from
an away-from-it-all location, even
though it is only a few miles from
Interstate 15. That attribute is not
lost on Pascuzzo: “One of the things
that makes Maderas so special is
that the site is really in a bowl, it’s
in this enclosed valley. It feels like
you’ve really gotten away out in the
middle of nowhere.”
Maderas is indicative of the dom-
inant style of San Diego County
golf, a play of oak and crumple.
The course is paired in manner
with The Grand Del Mar, a sprawl-
ing course that Tom Fazio traced
across nearly 400 acres of ridge and
canyon a few miles closer to the
coast. For all the folds in the land,
The Grand Del Mar has a spacious
