Cottonwood/Silo at West Woods Golf Club

West Woods Golf Club sits in Arvada, a suburb northwest of Denver, where the Great Plains begin their rise toward the Rocky Mountain foothills. The course was designed by Dick Phelps, a Colorado-based architect who built numerous layouts across the state during the latter decades of the twentieth century. Phelps typically worked within the constraints of Front Range terrain, routing courses that accommodate the region's elevation changes, native grasses, and exposure to wind and weather.

The Cottonwood/Silo designation indicates a composite routing drawn from different nines at the facility, a common arrangement at multi-course or 27-hole complexes where players experience varied terrain and hole sequences depending on the combination in play. The names suggest landscape features characteristic of Colorado's agricultural transition zones—cottonwood trees that follow drainages and water sources, and silos or other remnants of the area's farming past before suburban development.

Courses in this part of the Denver metro area generally play at elevations above 5,000 feet, where the ball travels farther in thinner air and players contend with afternoon winds and rapid weather shifts. The setting offers long views toward the mountains to the west and rolling or gently contoured ground shaped by prairie topography. West Woods serves the local golfing community in Arvada and the northwest suburbs, providing accessible daily-fee or semi-private play in a region where public golf options expanded significantly during the residential growth of the late twentieth century.