I played the Highlands course at Mississippi National quite a few times growing up. It is one of the quirkiest courses I’ve seen in Minnesota. Lots of elevation change, in use of a tree removal program and not the most architecturally sound layout. Couple holes I remember:
The 9th is a 656 yard par 5 with 100 foot drop from tee to fairway, a roughly 20 yard wde fairway, and it doglegs at about 400 yards. The green is elevated and if you miss right (wihich is easy to do as you’re usually approaching from 200+) you bounce off the cart path into a drainage pond.
The 15th is over a 90 degree dogleg with trees too tall to cut. You basically hit a 6 iron off the tee and then turn around and have a wedge back to the green.
The 17th hole is a 171 yard par 3 from the back tees, played off of artifical mats since it’s too shady for any grass to grow, with a 150 foot drop to the green. I’ve seen it played successfully with only a putter multiple times.
Live in Minnetonka and am going to try out the players card at Rush Creek this year. Normally played the Minneapolis Park courses with a few buddies but sick of paying over $50+ for bad tracks.
@rpengels Did you end up getting the Players Card? I live near Rush Creek and was considering getting one as I’m new to the area and looking for a group to play with.
Grew up in the cities playing Edinburgh and Northfork for High School.
Played college golf at Concordia Moorhead. Got to play a lot of rounds at Oxbow, Fargo Country Club, Moorhead Country Club, The Meadows, and Village Green
Just moved back to Thief Rivers Falls, but we have a cabin near Ottertail where we go every weekend. Play a lot of rounds at Thumper Pond and Perham Lakeside
Just finding this feed. I’m based in Mpls and usually playing anywhere within 45 min drive, especially in the PCC program. But I do have the Rush Creek patron card this season (close to work) and if they keep it the same in the future with two free, unrestricted rounds, it pays for itself after four rounds.
South Minneapolis here. I’m a PCC member so Southern Hills and River Oaks are my favorite courses. Just played Royals on Friday, the greens are a lot of fun but the course needs a season or two to mature.
I’ve also heard that their yardages at Royal are completely out of whack and there’s no point in playing if you don’t have a range finder. My source is questionable so I’d like to hear another opinion.
I don’t, haha. I had a GPS thing I clipped onto my bag but I seem to have lost it between my last round of '17 and this spring. But even so, that didn’t work on courses that had some renovations within the last few years. I could probably just buy one but I’m too stubborn so it’ll have to be a birthday/Christmas gift.
Anyway, my friend said his buddy hit two 400 yard drives and flew the greens by 15 yards on some holes based on the yardages on the card/150 stick. My friend is kind of a dumbass, and I’m assuming his buddy is of similar ilk, hence the question posed to a more sane group of people.
Play in Willmar @ Eagle Creek Golf Club. Played at St.Cloud State University after a short stint in Scottsdale, AZ (3 years there). Just made my way back in to competitive golf a few years back and love the courses we have in MN.
Hey what’s up everyone. Hugo, MN here, but in the Brainerd lakes area most weekends. Anyone make it up here regularly? Would also be game for evening 9 in the east or north metro?
I bought a range pass for the Royal but haven’t actually played the course yet. I almost hate to put the word out but the practice facility there is excellent. Brand new range and balls, 6 hole pitch and putt, huge practice green, and a short game area with two bunkers and rough & fairway pitching options that is littered with a couple buckets worth of range balls. I’ve been too busy to get out there since before the 4th, but everytime I was there in June I basically had the place to myself. Would say the practice facility rivals most private courses.
I’ve only played one very quick twilight round there, but I didn’t notice anything off with the yardages.
I had a range finder, and was in a hurry so I wasn’t going out of my way to compare yardages, but based on this thread I did make a point to compare what the rangefinder was saying to a couple of nearby sprinkler heads and they all seemed to be within range of what I would have expected the middle of the green to be in comparison to what I was seeing when shooting the flag.
I would say the course does need some growing in, I think that’s probably a fair statement. Its a touch on the expensive side I think for the shape its in, in my opinion. Or maybe I was just annoyed at paying full freight for a 5:30 tee time on a random Tuesday. I was able to get a full 18 in playing by myself with a cart, but I had to move pretty quick at a 3-hour pace to accomplish that and get done with enough daylight. Still think the practice facilities are great, and will definitely continue to use those.
Ok, fair enough. Like I mentioned in the original comment, my source is questionable (guy is the clown of the office) so I took it with a grain of salt. I couldn’t imagine they would make that big of a mistake because it seems pretty basic. But I have heard from a handful of people it could probably use some time to mature a little bit.
I would say I was also using the Grint app, and that was pretty much worthless, or at least difficult to decipher, as the underlying satellite image was of the course during construction so it was hard to trust the app and I basically turned it off after the first couple of holes.
I’ve played them both, but am a pretty crap golfer so not sure my opinion matters for too much. That said, as a crap golfer I’d say that Deacons is much more playable. I’ve always found the Classic to be unnecessarily penal in design and generally regret my decision to play there about a third of the way through each round. Deacons I’d definitely like to play again.
You playing anywhere else up there or staying at one of the resorts? I’ll be in the area over the weekend at the family cabin which is just north of Deacons on Crosslake
I imagine you’ve played Crosswoods? A friend of mine has a cabin near Crosslake and so I’ve played that course over a dozen times. I love the challenge of that course despite how crazy short it is.