Early in the week a friend hit me up and asked if I wanted to meet him in Kentucky for some golf. Of course it didn’t take much convincing for a PTO extended weekend and we were off to play four rounds on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! My friend got into Lexington, KY midday on Friday for the first of our rounds at the University Club of Kentucky. We played both the UK courses, Houston Oaks and stopped in Eastern Kentucky for our final round on the way home on Sunday. But, more on those courses in the upcoming posts!

I decided to roll to Richmond, KY on Thursday night and squeeze in an extra round before we met up. All in all it took about 6.5 hours to get to Richmond, which is about a half hour south of Lexington. I’ve been to Lexington one other time and played half of the decent-looking public courses on that trip. This time around I wanted to check out the other half!

Back in 2013 I played Boone’s Trace National Golf Club, which is also in Richmond. Technically, it was the Bull at Boone’s Trace back then! However, I didn’t venture across I-75 to play Gibson Bay on that trip. Gibson Bay is a course that I’ve been curious about ever since so I decided to make it my Friday morning play. It worked out perfectly too because there were plenty of limited tee times at the courses we played on this trip. I booked one of the openings at 8:00am and what was odd is that the next available time wasn’t until after 5:00pm. As I found out, Gibson Bay had an afternoon tournament.

Things were fairly busy on a Friday morning with everyone wanting to squeeze in a morning round ahead of the tournament, apparently. It was mostly twosomes out playing and the proshop sent me out as a single. Eventually, everyone got caught up behind a foursome and it took about 3 hours and 45 minutes to play. I still met my friend later on with plenty of time to spare, however I wasn’t able to squeeze in Gibson Bay’s par-3 course. That looked pretty fun from what I could see!

As I had hoped, the regulation course at Gibson Bay turned out to be pretty good itself! The course is located in the Lake Reba Recreation Complex, where there are all sorts of non-golfing activities to do. There are fields of all types located in the complex – I’m sure the place is packed on a weekend! What I’m not clear on is if the course is city or county owned, and if it is I couldn’t easily find that information.

One of the things you’ll likely notice during your round at Gibson Bay is the top-notch land upon which the course lies! The homes stop where the recreation complex starts and the course is set back into the property, away from the homes. The course is routed around two fingers of Lake Reba, which can (but shouldn’t) come into play. Trees dot the course to provide definition and to keep someone honest with the driver. I’m not a golf course architect, but I’d think anyone in that business would be excited if they got the call to build a course on this type of property! There are different degree slopes, flat spots and creeks that feed into the lake – all of which were used to add interest to the round.

As it turns out, Michael Hurdzan is the lucky architect who got to route the course at Gibson Bay! Hurdzan has done a lot of work, especially with Dana Fry, and I’m not sure why I don’t see his name more often. For whatever reason his name seems to hide behind some of the other well-known designers these days. Hurdzan designed Gibson Bay in the early 1990’s.

On the soft-looking course I opted the blue tees which are 71.2/126/6561. Even from the 7,141 yard tips, the slope has a modest rating of 132 so Gibson Bay shouldn’t beat you up too bad! Except for the par-3 17th, there isn’t much disaster to be had at Gibson Bay. Even though the fairways and greens are smaller, there is plenty of grass on the holes to let you find stray shots. Worst case scenario, you likely can still advance the ball 100 yards towards your target. What could make Gibson Bay tough for the crooked player is if the rough is grown up! Thankfully, the rough wasn’t too bad when I played and I was able to cleanly contact some long irons from it. No matter the growing conditions, playing from the fairways will help when trying to access the small sections of greens where pins can hide!

While there are plenty of quality golf holes at Gibson Bay (like the stretch from #11 through #14), the par-3 17th is the standout hole. It is 156 yards from the blue tees and features a horizontal, hourglass-shaped green with water short and left. Because of the angle from the tee and a bunker guarding the green, I felt as if I needed to go directly at the flag which was perched precariously on the left side of the green! I made a lucky bogey, but in hindsight I should have tried to take a more conservative line. It is a fun hole that makes you try to pair the line and distance perfectly to get it close. If you go pin hunting on the left side and don’t pull it off, then the result could mar a good round!

The conditions at Gibson Bay were very nice when you consider the $30 green fee! The course has taken on a lot of water recently so things had a shaggy feel early in the round. The crew was out mowing while I was playing, so you’ll see some good looking fairway stripes in my back nine pictures. The fairways weren’t full in all spots, but they were very playable – I just had to allow for a few yards of release when playing from them. The greens were smooth and quickened up as the day went along. You end up getting a lot of bang for your buck at Gibson Bay!

I enjoyed my round at Gibson Bay and suspect most golfers will as well! The course has a lot going for it as it is fairly pleasant to play with a handful of interesting shots. I don’t think it is one you can argue is too easy either, because of some long holes and small greens that sit at odd angles. If you are looking for a stop along I-75 to golf in this area, then Gibson Bay is worth a look.

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