Golf Courses: The Course At Wente Vineyards

About an hour's drive from Frogger headquarters is a vineyard called Wente Vineyards.  This 125 year old vineyard is the oldest continually operated family-owned vineyard in the United States.  Wente Vinyeards teamed up with champion golfer and course designer Greg Norman to build The Course which opened in 1998.  Let's take a look. Location Situated in the hills of Livermore, California, the course features drastic elevation changes and spectacular views of the green grass, the vineyards and the surrounding mountains. Accessing the course is easy from Oakland / San Francisco, about an hours drive southeast depending on traffic. Design Greg Norman designed "The Course" at Wente Vinyeards is a par-72 track which measures at 7,181 yards from the tips (Black tee).  Course rating is a difficult 75.0 with a very high slope of 145.  In plain English, this is a challenging course. The course features three distinct topographies, woodlands, rolling hills and vineyards.  The hills and lack of trees on many holes give the course a links flavor, but the elevation changes are far more dramatic than most links courses in the northern United Kingdom. Tee shots on par-4's and 5's can be intimidating due to the narrowness of the landing areas, elevation changes and shapes of the holes.  Large complex bunkers guard the fairways and greens.  Shots which do find the fairway are rewarded with reasonably flat lies. The vineyards line around half of the holes on the course. Greg Norman is very proud of his design work on this course, saying, “I can stand here as the head of my development company and honestly say this is my best effort.” Stats

Tee	Par	Yardage	Rating	Slope
Black	72	7,181	75.0	145
Gold	72	6,840	73.9	141
Blue	72	6,266	71.6	131
White	72	5,637	68.7	124
Red (ladies)	72	4,866	69.4	122

Signature Hole Tough choice on the signature hole.  The 18th is a very tough par-4 which has a dual fairway which is split by a creek in the middle.  Making par on this finishing hole is an accomplishment. The 228 yard par-3 7th hole is a great signature hole candidate as well.  The views from the tee box on this hole are expansive and intimidating, though the tee shot is elevated and one club less could bring the playing yardage down to between 210-220 yards. Contact Wente Vineyards 5050 Arroyo Road Livermore, CA 94550 Phone: 925.456.2400 www.wentevineyards.com