It was a rare overcast Colorado day when I made my way from my spacious suite inside the Omni Interlocken Hotel to the Interlocken Golf Club, hot coffee in hand. I was staying at the four-star resort in Broomfield, half an hour outside of downtown Denver, before heading to an event in the city.
Standing on the damp grass of the driving range, searching the clouds for any view of the Rockies, I felt nervous—I was about to have my first professional golf lesson in years.
Now I’m a casual golfer at best, but it wasn’t always that way. I grew up playing golf competitively, and by the time I captained my high school golf team had probably received a couple dozen lessons from half as many different coaches and golf pros, most of whom had been men. Some lessons had helped me hone my putting stroke, fix my grip and get my chip shots and lobs down. Others had confused me so thoroughly that I went from hitting a fade to grounding the ball off the tee and struggling to make my way down the fairway. In my experience, golf advice could be hit or miss…pun intended.
The Best Golf Lesson Ever
That day at Interlocken Golf Club, my golf instructor was Alicia Bakken, winner of the 2024 Colorado Avid Golfer Best Instructor for Women. The small-statured woman with a pink-dyed pixie cut approached with quiet confidence that stood out in contrast to many of the more in-your-face approaches of some of the pros I’d worked with in the past.
The two of us quickly bonded over our love for golf, and when Alicia told me that her husband had proposed to her on the bridge at St Andrews, I felt even more at ease.
That ease increased, when, rather than take my swing and try to morph it into something else, Alicia helped me work in harmony with some of my quirks, like the little sway I’ve always had in my backswing. At this point, my competitive golf days are behind me, so she told me it’s fine to just hit better—rather than perfect—shots. I felt instantly relieved. Alicia wasn’t surprised to hear that this was the first time that a golf coach had worked with my swing instead of against it. She told me that’s what differentiates her as a golf instructor: making the sport more accessible and comfortable for golfers of all kinds and backgrounds.
Rather than overwhelm me with so many swing thoughts my head was racing, Alicia gave me a few quick pointers and a couple concrete swing thoughts to get my head and trail shoulder closer to the ball. Under her watchful eye, I was hitting six irons that leapt off the club, when I’ve always struggled with hitting thinner long iron shots. She had me slow down my tempo to 70%, fixing the bad habit of swinging quickly that I’d picked up when playing with the boys on a co-ed team.
Confident in these adjustments, I was ready to play.
Golfing in the Rocky Mountains
A friendly starter set me up with a cart and pointed me in the direction of the first tee. When I told him I was coming from the city of Fort Collins about an hour north, he told me to expect all putts to break towards my home. Grateful, I filed that information away in my brain.
It was a misty morning, around 9am, and I had the whole course to myself. I stood in the first tee, looking out at the hole lined with thick grass that sported tufts of red and gray and listening to airplanes carve their way through the sky on the way to land in Denver. Even though I was alone, without the usual pressure of teeing off in front of other people, I still struggled off the first tee of the Vista Course, and my ball landed in the thick, wet rough.
The Vista course gets its name from holes three and four, and even though rain clouds hung heavy in the sky and blocked the views of the Front Range, looking out at what I could see of the Denver skyline one way and the little bits of the Rockies that appeared through the clouds, I could still sense the mountains’ presence.
As I continued on, still completely alone, I fell into a beautiful rhythm. My drives were shaky and I struggled to get a feel for the greens with the added dampness of the misty morning, but I hit crisper, more lofty iron shots than ever before in my life. The clouds hung low and dark, but (as is typical of Colorado) the rain never came.
After battling the treacherous rough on the Vista Course, I’d played The Sunshine Course for the back nine, navigating its funky blind spots without coming across more than one other golfer the entire time. By the 18th hole—the 9th hole of the Sunshine Course—I had wet pant legs and fewer golf balls in my possession than I’d started with, but I was content. Somehow, I pulled my game together enough to end with a par, sending my drive down the wide fairway, avoiding the many bunkers that flanked the green and sinking a long putt that was the perfect note to end on.
Omni Interlocken Hotel and Golf Club Details
Omni Interlocken is a family-friendly resort in Bloomfield, Colorado. It’s tucked into its own complex off the highway, and has on-site restaurants, bars, cafes, resort pools, a full-service spa, a 27-hole golf course and modern, spacious, well-appointed rooms. It’s an ideal location for a relaxing mountain getaway, whether you want to stay and play on-site or use the hotel as a quiet home base for visiting Denver and the Rocky Mountains. Room rates typically fall around $200/night.
Interlocken Golf Club is home to three nine-hole courses: Eldorado, Sunshine and Vista, all of which are par-36. Alicia is one of two golf pros who gives lessons there regularly. The courses are well-maintained, with fast greens and lots of hills and elevation changes that would make for a challenging walk.
The golf club offers memberships but is also open to the public year-round. Greens fees range from $85 during the winter to $145 during peak season, with $20 off for hotel guests and discounted rates for junior golfers under 17.
Check out Zanny Merullo’s other golf travel stories and reviews on Fairway to Green.
