Kentucky Golf and Bourbon Trip

[InnacuratelyLong]

Looking at the possibility of making a trip to central Kentucky in 2021 for a bachelor trip and didn't know if anyone had any suggestions on what areas to focus on for golf within close proximity to bourbon distilleries?

[GoCards]

If you are going to be in central Kentucky, there are quite a few distilleries near Lexington. A few good public / semi-public courses near there are Kearney Hill, Cherry Blossom, and Griffin Gate.

[smashdn]

UK Club? Big Blue still in good shape?

 

Lexington and Bardstown areas.

[InnacuratelyLong]

I think I have it narrowed down to 4 courses: University Club, Kearney Hill, Griffin Gate, and Cherry Blossom. Not sure we will end up playing all four but these seem the nicer options in the area. Also, we'll probably end up renting a house north of town due to the courses all being that direction.

[CactusGolf]

Moved to Lexington about a year ago. We live maybe...5 minutes from Griffin Gate. Were going to join this year as a member, but they aren't opening the pools it sounds like. I play there about every other week and it is in great shape right now. Playing there on Saturday.

 

If you're in this area, I'd go with Griffin Gate and Kearney Hills. Kearney is a sleeper Pete Dye course. Holds a lot of city tournaments and used to old a Senior Tour event. Always in good shape.

 

We do a lot of the bourbon distilleries here too. Depends on how far you want to drive. There are some smaller craft distilleries in town like: Town Branch (Alltech), Barrel House, James E. Pepper. Woodford Reserve isn't that far away (Versailles) and the same with Four Roses.

 

There are 5 breweries in Lexington downtown within 5 minutes of each other too: Country Boy Brewing (my personal favorite), Wise Bird (cider), Ethereal Brewing, Fusion Brewing, and the Elk tavern. Fusion offers tours ($5 will get you a tour and a beer with the owner) on Fridays and Saturdays.

 

If you want to drive a bit, check out Bardstown: Bardstown Bourbon Company and do their "Honey Barrel Thieving Tour". There's Lux Row and Willet within 10 minutes of each other as well. Skip Barton 1792 distillery for a tour. They aren't worth the time. Heaven Hill is nice, but you have to do their expanded tasting, not the basic one. They don't tour on site, it is just a tasting.

 

If you wanted to drive out a little bit to Lebanon, there's Limestone Branch distillery. They're a fun one since it is craft and the master disiller (Stephen Beam) is usually on site and will talk with you for a while.

 

A lot of the distilleries haven't opened back up yet (Maker's for sure isn't open) and there are a decent amount of restrictions that is limiting the types of tours that can occur. I don't think that Four Roses is open yet.

 

Send me a PM if you have any questions about restaurants/bars in the area too. Plenty of nice restaurants in the area and a bunch of really great bourbon bars.

 

[CactusGolf]

Haven't played there this year so interested to hear. Wildcat is a dump of a course. Fun layout, but they never keep it maintained well. Service in the pro shop is...lackluster.

 

UK and Griffin have Player's Cards for discounted tee times. UK was the one I didn't renew this year and I haven't missed it.

 

Haven't played Cherry Blossom this year, but played it twice last year and wasn't impressed. The condition wasn't as nice as say, Kearney. Gibson Bay is a fun track if you don't mind driving to Richmond.

[golfgoob]

Picadome is a neat old school course. Played it several years ago so don't know current conditions.

[smashdn]

Lebanon you say? I used to have to make a run to Simm's when I was going to the LWC.

[SoILgolfer]

I played Cherry Blossom and Kearney Hill in September. Both layouts were nice, but Cherry Blossom wasn’t in that great of condition. Also played Boone’s Trace National in Richmond. It was the best of the 3 we played in my opinion. Griffin Gate looked great, but couldn’t make it work for our schedule.

 

[bobgeorge]

I played Kearney Hill yesterday. Due to lack of rain it is cart path only to try to keep the fariways in good shape. There are a lot of brown spots.

Cherry Blossom is in better shape this year than last year.

[CactusGolf]

That's good to hear about Cherry Blossom. I thought it was terrible last year. We live about 5 minutes from Kearney and I definitely believe it about the brown spots. Our lawn is looking crunchy right now.

[jjthomp2]

seems as though the thread has covered the golf. I'd like to add some input on the bourbon. Four Roses and Woodford would be the two i'd recommend for you all (if they're open). I think Woodford's property is the prettiest of all the tours you can take! If you're going to Btown do Willett for sure

[CactusGolf]

Woodford, Four Roses, and Makers are suspended indefinitely. Willet was open, but for tastings only.

 

Beshear has yet another announcement today, which I'm sure he'll end up closing us up again.

[smashdn]

If possible spend time at Keeneland race track if it is meeting. That place is more like the "sport of kings" you would imagine it to be than Churchill Downs. It is a great place to spend a day if you have the time.

[Guest]

Played Wildcat a couple of weeks ago and it was fine. For the most part it seemed to be kept up well with some brown spots and a couple of greens were a little rough. I'll try to play Big Blue sometime soon.

Town Branch distillery in Lexington is one of the better tours because it covers multiple kinds of drinks. First part of the tour is through their brewery where they have a lot of nice beers to try, then they take you through the distillery and end with a bourbon and rum tasting. You have wooden coins to limit you on how much you're allowed to taste but they don't really enforce it that much.

Others recommended Four Roses, but Wild Turkey is basically down the road from them and they had an enjoyable tour as well. There are group buses you can reserve that will just drive you around to multiple distilleries in a day if you want to make a full day of just distillery tours.

[CactusGolf]

Played Big Blue yesterday and it was in fantastic shape. Greens were perfect and pace of play was great.

 

Town Branch is a fun one because you get to try a bunch of the Alltech beers (Bourbon Barrel Ale/Kolsch, Vanilla Cream Ale, etc.) and the liquors (Town Branch, Lyons, Rum, and Bluegrass Sunrise).

[icegator337]

We're doing the same type of trip this november, but will be staying in Louisville.  We'll only have time for one round.  What course would anyone recommend in the Louisville area?

[Hilltopper413]

On 9/14/2020 at 6:05 PM, icegator337 said:

We're doing the same type of trip this november, but will be staying in Louisville.  We'll only have time for one round.  What course would anyone recommend in the Louisville area?

If you have private club connections go that route.  Lots of great privates in Louisville.  If not, go across the bridge to Southern Indiana.  Louisville public golf leaves a lot to be desired, but just across the river any of

the following are great tracks:  Chariot Run, Covered Bridge, Champions Point, Old Capitol.  Chariot is the best of the bunch by far, but is the furthest away from

downtown.