Minneapolis Courses - Help Me Choose

Donovan84 · July 27, 2018

Does anyone ever play The Summit? I played it once years ago, and remember liking it.

I love the front nine at The Summit, and often just play it twice versus playing the back nine. They are like two completely different courses. Great value at the course, often good deals on golfnow.com

Donovan84 · July 27, 2018

Someone mentioned White Eagle, just across the river in Hudson. Here are some pics I took yesterday: http://www.golfwrx.c...0#entry17642642

Very pretty golf course.

Same golf architect that did The Legends in Prior Lake.

nogopehrs · July 28, 2018

Meadows, Baker, Chaska, Troy Burne. Have also heard good things of the Royal (?) course designed by Arnie and Anika.

finleysg · July 28, 2018

Someone mentioned White Eagle, just across the river in Hudson. Here are some pics I took yesterday: http://www.golfwrx.c...0#entry17642642

Very pretty golf course.

Same golf architect that did The Legends in Prior Lake.

Willinger's too, which is still one of their best, imo. The company building these courses (Enebak Construction) has a pretty impressive resume as well.

BirdieRoll · July 29, 2018

I lived in the Twin Cities for about 5 years and the golf there was fantastic. I haven't been back in about 9 years, but will be there for a week to golf in July. I would love some opinions from the locals on which courses I should prioritize and deprioritize based on how the courses are now.

Here are the courses I'm definitely playing: Chaska Town Course, Legends, Troy Burne, Stroneridge. I'm also playing Fox Hollow in St. Michael and Wild Marsh in Buffalo. They aren't elite courses, but I lived out there and played those courses all the time and want to go back for sentimental reasons. I also think Wild Marsh is s hugely under-appreciated course. I love that place.

I will also play TPC unless someone tells me it's not that great. I have a connect there and can play for a cart fee. But I never played when I lived there.

That leaves me 3 other openings. Other courses I'm considering are: Edinburgh, Baker National, Rush Creek, The Wilds, The Links at Northfork. I'm also debating taking one day and making the drive to Hayward to play Big Fish. I love that course. We could even get up super early one day and drive up to Giant's Ridge to play the Quarry and Legends.

Any insight would be appreciated. If I'm missing one you think I should play, let me know which.

Curious to know which courses you ended up playing.

Baker is in good shape and I played Wild Marsh this weekend for the first time. Not a lot of courses are a slope 136 at just over 6,000 yards from the Blues. Tough course with trouble lurking everywhere but very enjoyable. I'd play there often if it was closer to home.

MWM400 · July 30, 2018

I lived in the Twin Cities for about 5 years and the golf there was fantastic. I haven't been back in about 9 years, but will be there for a week to golf in July. I would love some opinions from the locals on which courses I should prioritize and deprioritize based on how the courses are now.

Here are the courses I'm definitely playing: Chaska Town Course, Legends, Troy Burne, Stroneridge. I'm also playing Fox Hollow in St. Michael and Wild Marsh in Buffalo. They aren't elite courses, but I lived out there and played those courses all the time and want to go back for sentimental reasons. I also think Wild Marsh is s hugely under-appreciated course. I love that place.

I will also play TPC unless someone tells me it's not that great. I have a connect there and can play for a cart fee. But I never played when I lived there.

That leaves me 3 other openings. Other courses I'm considering are: Edinburgh, Baker National, Rush Creek, The Wilds, The Links at Northfork. I'm also debating taking one day and making the drive to Hayward to play Big Fish. I love that course. We could even get up super early one day and drive up to Giant's Ridge to play the Quarry and Legends.

Any insight would be appreciated. If I'm missing one you think I should play, let me know which.

Curious to know which courses you ended up playing.

Baker is in good shape and I played Wild Marsh this weekend for the first time. Not a lot of courses are a slope 136 at just over 6,000 yards from the Blues. Tough course with trouble lurking everywhere but very enjoyable. I'd play there often if it was closer to home.

We played:

Legends (great course, but not very hard)

Chaska (see post about gnats. couldn't be more disappointed, but the course is as great as it's always been)

Fox Hollow (i lived in St. Michael so played this course all the time. It's in better shape than it ever was when I lived there)

Wild Marsh (as you said, not an easy course. This is one of my favorites, but I could never get anyone out there to play)

Troy Burne (our favorite of all the courses)

StoneRidge (I'd forgotten how hard the back was there)

TPC (this course is so easy I think -30 could win it next year when the PGA TOUR event starts there).

Wish we could have played Baker and Northfork. We debated playing Willingers and Royal, but ran out of time, and after 3 days of 36, we decided to go 18 the last 2 days. I'm not 25 anymore, unfortunately.

I miss the golf there. I live in Jacksonville now and the golf here just isn't in the same class as there, IMO, even though we can play the whole year.

rebby · July 31, 2018

TPC (this course is so easy I think -30 could win it next year when the PGA TOUR event starts there).

$7M in upgrades to the course kick off next week. It'll be a totally different track.

pmccallum86 · July 31, 2018

TPC (this course is so easy I think -30 could win it next year when the PGA TOUR event starts there).

$7M in upgrades to the course kick off next week. It'll be a totally different track.

What are they planning on doing? Will the course be closed during the upgrades?

rebby · July 31, 2018

TPC (this course is so easy I think -30 could win it next year when the PGA TOUR event starts there).

$7M in upgrades to the course kick off next week. It'll be a totally different track.

What are they planning on doing? Will the course be closed during the upgrades?

We were just told yesterday that the course will not be closed during construction but that holes and pars will be “modified” as things progress. They’re going to try to keep as much of the course open as they can as they go.

They’ve been pretty tight lipped about the specific changes but additional tees are an obvious one. If you look close you can see that some of these tees were planned on and partially constructed from the beginning. I’ve played a few holes from the locations that I expect to see new tees and it changes a few of them quite a bit (3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, just to name a few). A phrase that I’ve heard muttered several times is “major encroachment of fescue”. These generous Lehman inspired fairways are going to get a little more demanding. Other changes are still under wraps but things like bunker reconfiguration, water hazard changes, etc are all to be expected.

pmccallum86 · July 31, 2018

TPC (this course is so easy I think -30 could win it next year when the PGA TOUR event starts there).

$7M in upgrades to the course kick off next week. It'll be a totally different track.

What are they planning on doing? Will the course be closed during the upgrades?

We were just told yesterday that the course will not be closed during construction but that holes and pars will be "modified" as things progress. They're going to try to keep as much of the course open as they can as they go.

They've been pretty tight lipped about the specific changes but additional tees are an obvious one. If you look close you can see that some of these tees were planned on and partially constructed from the beginning. I've played a few holes from the locations that I expect to see new tees and it changes a few of them quite a bit (3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, just to name a few). A phrase that I've heard muttered several times is "major encroachment of fescue". These generous Lehman inspired fairways are going to get a little more demanding. Other changes are still under wraps but things like bunker reconfiguration, water hazard changes, etc are all to be expected.

Wow, that's a lot to get done in under a year!

rebby · July 31, 2018

TPC (this course is so easy I think -30 could win it next year when the PGA TOUR event starts there).

$7M in upgrades to the course kick off next week. It'll be a totally different track.

What are they planning on doing? Will the course be closed during the upgrades?

We were just told yesterday that the course will not be closed during construction but that holes and pars will be "modified" as things progress. They're going to try to keep as much of the course open as they can as they go.

They've been pretty tight lipped about the specific changes but additional tees are an obvious one. If you look close you can see that some of these tees were planned on and partially constructed from the beginning. I've played a few holes from the locations that I expect to see new tees and it changes a few of them quite a bit (3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, just to name a few). A phrase that I've heard muttered several times is "major encroachment of fescue". These generous Lehman inspired fairways are going to get a little more demanding. Other changes are still under wraps but things like bunker reconfiguration, water hazard changes, etc are all to be expected.

Wow, that's a lot to get done in under a year!

For sure. It’s certainly doable though. I have heard more ambitious desires for other holes (like 1 & 5) but it’s hard to say if they’ll happen or not. I keep hearing that the PGA Tour keeps playing w/the the finances so, at this point, only time will tell.

As far as TPC playing “easy”... I’m guessing that you played the blue tees? They’ve been moved forward for the past couple of weeks in preparation for the 3M so the course was likely playing in the neighborhood of 6300 - 6400 yards. From way up there the course doesn’t play real hard, especially if the wind isn’t blowing. For the most part, the major hazards off the tee aren’t in play and you end up hitting a lot of short irons and wedges in a number of holes (even if you lay back off the tee, fairways have been fast enough to facilitate that kind of game). Playing in the wind, from 7150 yards is a little different story. That said, Goydos won with a 54-hole total of -20 last year so the course is certainly gettable (Champions Tour usually plays from 6750 - 6900 yards) when set up for scoring (traditionally the course plays really easy on Saturday due to the “Greats of Golf” being out there). Part of it playing “easy” are due to the conditions though and this year is no expection. The course is in phenomenal shape (as always), greens are rolling true, it’s hard to get a bad lie (even in the rough) and they recently cut the fescue (so you can find an errant shot which is very unusual). Personally, I can’t wait to see how the course changes for next year. I don’t break 70 everytime I play so I can live with it as is but I am looking forward to another degree of difficulty, that’s for sure.

MWM400 · August 1, 2018

As far as TPC playing “easy”... I’m guessing that you played the blue tees? They’ve been moved forward for the past couple of weeks in preparation for the 3M so the course was likely playing in the neighborhood of 6300 - 6400 yards. From way up there the course doesn’t play real hard, especially if the wind isn’t blowing.

I don't recall which tees we played. We tried to stay under 6,500 yards in general, so whichever tees were closest to that we played. However, the tees were definitely way up. I think we figured they were under 6,000 yards for sure. But we played 36 and the second round we played them back one tee box. It was definitely more difficult, but I was looking around at the course, even from the tips, and kept wondering what they could do to make the course hard enough to challenge the TOUR players.

The fairways are so wide and there's not a great deal of trouble. The rough is somewhat thick, so that could help, but the TOUR rarely makes the rough very penal these days it seems. The greens had a lot of undulation in them, so I assumed that would be the biggest defense against TOUR players. If they make them fast and make the pins tougher to get to, that could have an impact. But it sounds like they're doing a lot more to the course.

But I really liked the course.

Donovan84 · September 18, 2018

My coworker just played The Jewel in Lake City and said it was in great shape and the fall rates in effect. They told him they are aerating greens in the spring, so, the greens should be fantastic for the rest of the season. Hope to get down there in the next two weeks.