it's at the westin that i understood the difference between a "real golf course" and a resort golf course. a resort golf course has lots of space around it. it has one hole right next to the other so that if you miss your drive way right or left then you're still in an adjacent fairway and you can still have a perfectly legit shot at the green even though you missed your fairway by 80 yards.
westin kierland is definely a resort golf course. the distances aren't intimidating. and the great thing is that many of the holes have hills on the sides of the fairway which is sorta like bowling with bumpers where the gutters should be. makes it nice when you miss your drive by 30 yards left and it bounces off the hill and your ball rolls back to the center. we only were able to get in 9 holes before sunset and i shot a 4 over par which would put me at 8 over for the round and maybe be a 6-handicap overall. NOT. i really did shoot 4 over through 9 but i'm definitely not a 6-handicap. anyway, the course is in great shape, and the services are killer. they even have refridgerated carts! how do they do that, you say? they have ice boxes on the carts and blowers to blow cold air on you as you drive around. it's actually pretty nice even though we played around sunset so we didn't need them too much. good resort and good course and good facilities. knock off only one star for being way too easy.