"The rolling, wooded terrain and dramatic elevation changes reward accurate iron play over raw distance."

Aldarra sits on land with real Seattle pedigree: developed as Walldale Farm in 1915 by shipbuilder J.F. Duthie, it was bought in 1942 by William E. Boeing Sr., who renamed it Aldarra Farms and ran it as a celebrated Angus cattle operation for decades. In 1997 five local golf enthusiasts — among them former Sonics star Jack Sikma — bought the property from the Boeing family to build a pure, golf-only private club with no housing. Tom Fazio, in his only Washington design, broke ground in April 1999, capping the fairways with nearly a foot of sand for drainage — a technique that became a benchmark in wet-climate construction — and the course opened on May 4, 2001. It has since earned national rankings from Golf Digest and Golfweek, with views out to Mount Si and the Cascades.

Purists who love the golf-only, no-real-estate ideal — firm sand-capped fairways, immaculate conditioning, and Cascade Mountain backdrops without a single house in view.

Published accounts celebrate the setting more than any single hole: the stretches playing toward Mount Si and the Snoqualmie Valley are the course's signature, framed by Fazio's shaping across the old farm contours.

Fazio courses are famously playable from the right tees, but this is an invitation-only private club, so a newer golfer's realistic path here is as a member's guest.

The Boeing family farm heritage survives in the name: Boeing called both his Seattle residence and this farm 'Aldarra'.

A rare chance to play Washington's only Tom Fazio design — in real life it is invitation-only, so the simulator is most people's only way onto it.

Strictly private; membership is by invitation only and guests must be member-sponsored, with limits on how often a guest may visit.