After work on Wednesday my friend and I headed over to Colwood Golf Center for an evening round. Colwood was the first of four short courses that we played while I was in town.

As things stand now Colwood is a 9-hole par-3 course – plus there is a nice practice area. Back in 2015 the course re-opened with this configuration after originally playing as an 18-hole course. I never played the original course but looking at the satellite images, the current design seems to fit the property well.

On the surface it appears those changes were a good move as it was quite busy! The range was filled, the putting green was full of golfers and one group after another headed out before our 7pm tee off.

Colwood plays 1,223 yards from the blue tees with most of the holes in that mid/short iron range. The shortest hole is 85 yards while the longest is 197 yards. I hit seven different clubs thanks to the variety of pin locations on the large greens.

The big greens at Colwood are probably its most interesting feature. I’m not sure if the greens were saved from the original design or what, but I’m not used to firing at such big targets on a par-3 course. It still didn’t help my game much, sadly! The greens also have lots of waviness to them and are in odd shapes. For example, the 8th green has an hourglass shape to it.

I thought the 85 yard 3rd was the coolest hole at Colwood. The green sits over a hazard and angles to the right, around a bunker. The reeds in the water partially blocked my view of the green so I was just guessing where to hit it. Come to find out there is out of bounds over the green, so a well-controlled short iron is needed.

The cost was $16 and the conditions were fine. The ground was soft and the greens were a bit slow and spongy, but full. The tees were grass and I always found a good place to put a tee in the ground.

Colwood is a fine par-3 course and while I enjoyed my time here, I didn’t find anything interesting enough to keep me (a serious golfer) consistently coming back.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):