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Instruction
Road Report: Spokane, Washington
It seems like every golf course with terrain of any repute has a so-called Cardiac Hill that slope walkers of a certain age dread trudging up typically near the end of the round. Indian Canyon Golf Course (pictured above) doesn't have one of them. It has 18. The jewel of Spokane's municipal golf system has been challenging the glutes, quads and Achilles tendons of amateurs (and professionals) since the 1930s. Hyperbole aside, the 479-yard opening hole descends the face of the eponymous canyon in the course name--it's a 240-foot vertical drop. But then you spend the next four and a half hours hoofing up and down hills until you eventually get back to where you started. It reads 6,255 yards from the back tees, but it seems much longer. Designed by H. Chandler Egan, Indian Canyon has been the site of three U.S. Amateur Public Links championships and has been rated one of the top public courses in the United States by Golf Digest. Even better, it's home to the PGA of America's 2014 National Teacher of the Year, Kathy Gildersleeve-Jensen, and costs only $29 to play.