Sierra del Rio Golf Course

The Sierra del Rio Golf course lies in the village of Elephant Butte, which is located in Sierra County in the US state of New Mexico. It is embedded in an open desert landscape on the more than 250-hectare-large premises of the Turtleback Mountain Resort near the Rio Grande. Located only three minutes away from the town center of Elephant Butte, the Sierra del Rio Golf Course of New Mexico’s largest city Albuquerque is comfortably reachable in 133 minutes via the interstate 25 S. The course was opened in 1974 as an 18-hole course with par 72 under the name Oasis Golf Course and designed by the famous golf course architect Richard M. Phelps. In 2007, the 6,703-meter-long course received its current name and is characterized by short, narrow fairways, lined by trees, manicured, tricky greens, 89 bunkers and four lakes. The latter appear at the holes 2, 10, 11 and 17 without being important for the game. There are numerous altitude differences on the Sierra del Rio Golf Course that give each game of golf on the course a special twist. Furthermore, there are five different hitting boxes on the fairways, so that the golf players can easily use the tee that is right for them. For Golf Digest the championship course is among the top 10 courses in New Mexico.