Alto Lakes Golf and Country Club: Kokopelli Course

The Kokopelli Course at Alto Lakes Golf and Country Club in Alto, New Mexico is the club's executive-length layout, built in 1998. Playing to a par of 63 at approximately 3,814 yards, it is the shortest of the three 18-hole courses at a mountain-golf property that sits above 7,000 feet of elevation in the Sierra Blanca foothills north of Ruidoso.

Alto Lakes Golf and Country Club is a mountain-golf community in Alto, New Mexico, a small village in the Sierra Blanca foothills north of Ruidoso in south-central New Mexico. The property sits at an elevation of approximately 7,000 feet, within ponderosa-pine country near the Lincoln National Forest, and has grown over roughly six decades into one of the more substantial private golf facilities in the state. The club was established in the late 1960s — sources place the founding in either 1967 or 1968 — with the opening of its original 18-hole championship course, designed by Milton Coggins and later known simply as the Alto Course. That course, routed over rolling bluegrass fairways to bentgrass greens, became the anchor of the Alto Lakes community and is still in daily play today.

As the community expanded, the club added two additional 18-hole courses, giving members access to three distinct 18-hole layouts. The Kokopelli Course, built in 1998, was conceived as an executive-length addition to the facility. With a par of 63 and a total length of approximately 3,814 yards, Kokopelli fits the classic executive template — a mix of par threes and shorter par fours that can be played in a morning round and that extends the club's golf options to members and guests who want something shorter than the full-length courses. The third 18-hole course at the property, the Outlaw Course, was added later and is associated with architect John LaFoy's 2011-era work at the club.

Together, the Alto, Kokopelli, and Outlaw courses give Alto Lakes one of the larger private 54-hole golf footprints in New Mexico. The mountain setting is a defining feature of every round at Alto Lakes. The high-elevation climate cools summer play, contributes distance to tee shots, and supports cool-season turf that is uncommon in much of the rest of New Mexico. The Kokopelli layout in particular plays through the same pine and meadow terrain that characterizes the full-length courses, but at a scale that lets a member play nine or eighteen holes on a tighter schedule.

It has served since 1998 as the shortest and most approachable of the three Alto Lakes courses.