On May 7, 2001, construction began on Rustic Canyon Golf Course, an 18-hole affordable public layout in Moorpark, California designed by Gil Hanse with his associate Jim Wagner and Geoff Shackelford. Set at the base of Happy Camp Canyon near the 118 Freeway and Moorpark College, the sandy, gently rolling site is bisected by an environmentally sensitive habitat area filled with sage scrub, rare cactus, oak trees and other native plants.

After nearly three years of planning, routing and construction, Rustic Canyon opened on April 25, 2002.

The course is one of a kind. Hand woven into the terrain and as unique a round of golf you will find anywhere in Southern California. It’s always kept in fantastic shape despite the massive amount of play and the customer service is superb.

It’s not everyday a new course enters a market to create such a stir. Yet it’s been approximately two years since its opening and it’s still the talk of the town. If you haven’t experienced Rustic Canyon Golf Course, make a point to. You won’t regret it. One more thing, bring your “A” game and a keen eye for reading greens. This course is a tremendous test of golf.

Rustic Canyon, located in a hiker's paradise called Happy Camp Canyon Regional Park, is a Moorpark gem that the purists of golf architecture drool over. It measures 6,906 from the back tees at par of 72 and hosted qualifying this spring for the Southern California Amateur Championship, to be played later this summer at Torrey Pines South.

Strategically intense is how lead architect Hanse described this instant classic. "It gives players various options and has plenty of width. The better player, who is really trying to score low, will see a much tighter course because he wants to be in the correct fairway position to have a good angle to the hole."

Rustic Canyon is characterized by huge tightly mown areas encircling the greens. "This gives the average player more opportunity to score because he can putt, chip or play bump-and-run shots from off the green. It also creates indecision for the better players," Hanse said.

The front nine plays fairly flat and is very walkable. Then the back nine climbs into the hillside and its canyons. There's a major-league forced carry from the back tees on No. 14, a 480-yard, downhill par-4. A lot of wannabe single-digit types will leave this hole with a six.

The course hosted 36,000 rounds in its first year, but national publicity could increase that to more than 60,000 rounds in its second year of operation. Call way in advance for tee times, it's popular and affordable, but very busy.