Ten miles down-valley from Vail, on hundreds of acres of old ranch land climbing Bellyache Ridge, Vail Resorts set out at the turn of the millennium to build the finest golf in the Rockies. They hired the two biggest names available — Tom Fazio and Greg Norman — and gave each his own mountainside. Fazio's course opened first, in 2002, and immediately set the standard for what mountain golf could be.

Fazio's routing is a journey through two worlds. The opening holes roam open, sage-covered hillsides with hundred-mile views — Castle Peak on the horizon, Vail's legendary Back Bowls across the valley — before the course climbs into dense aspen groves, where fairways tunnel through white trunks that turn molten gold each fall. His team treated the land with unusual care, relocating more than 23,000 native plants into nurseries during construction and replanting them throughout the course.

The club's arrangement is part of its charm: members and resort guests alternate daily between the Fazio and Norman courses, each side with its own clubhouse, so every day one course belongs entirely to visitors. It means a traveling golfer — a guest of the Vail-area lodges — can have a genuine private-club day in one of the most beautiful golf settings in America.

At well over 7,000 feet of elevation, the air is thin, the ball flies, and the light does something at dusk that gives the club its name. Ask anyone who has played it in late September, when the aspens are turning: Red Sky is the round Colorado golfers measure the others against.

Museum-quality Red Sky Golf Club (Fazio Course) map art, traced from real course data — every bunker, green, and aspen-lined fairway above the Vail Valley. Four designs, six sizes, or personalized with your round photo.

Course data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL)