A good friend of mine flew to Dallas and we kicked off an insane five days of golf starting on Saturday. My friend is trying to play at least one round of golf in all 50 states so our road trip took us from Dallas up into the Midwest, where he hadn’t golfed before.

In case you didn’t know, Dallas isn’t anywhere near Michigan on the map! Considering all the driving we needed to do I didn’t join for every round. However, I did manage to golf in six different states along the way. My crazy friend played two extra courses for a total of eight rounds in eight states.

Our first stop was in Kansas at Ironhorse Golf Club, which is about a half hour from Kansas City. Another friend and I did a road trip in 2013 and also stopped near Kansas City, playing Prairie Highlands Golf Course. As I continue to pursue my goal of golfing at 1,000 different courses I was looking to add another Kansas course to my collection. Ironhorse is usually ranked as one of the best public courses in the state so I was excited to give it a try. For those curious, Ironhorse was course No. 969 for me.

We had an early morning tee time on an unusually chilly day for late May. I don’t think the high temperature made it to 60 degrees. Brr! I thought we might get lucky with the pace of play given the not-so-great weather, but sadly the round took nearly five hours. Brutal. Needless to say, the slow round killed my mood at an otherwise pretty decent golf course.

Ironhorse is located in an upscale neighborhood and occupies a nice piece of property. I guess when I think of the landscape in Kansas, I think of flat prairie. Well that isn’t the case at Ironhorse and the rolling, tree-lined land is likely the best thing about the course. Every hole is separated from one another and very few homes surround the course. A creek cuts through the property with many of the holes playing close to the creek. The terrain slopes towards the creek which results in a good amount of elevation change, including multiple elevated tee shots.

The par-3’s on the back nine – the 12th and the 17th – show off the elevation change. From the blue tees the 12th is 153 yards and the 17th is 182 yards. Both holes drop about a club from tee to green and with the wind it was tricky to pick the right club. Overall, I thought the back nine was packed with good holes including the driveable par-4 11th and the long, tough par-4 18th.

We played from the blue tees which are 70.9/141/6300. Michael Hurdzan designed Ironhorse and considering that the course occupies land that isn’t easy developed, the routing is pretty solid. The high slope results from the target nature of the layout and while the course doesn’t fit my game it would be fun to play a few times a year if I lived in the area. I do think higher handicaps will struggle with all the forced carries and lost ball trouble, so keep that in mind if you are looking to play here.

Troon manages Ironhorse and they usually do a good job with the maintenance. We paid $80 on a weekend morning and the value seemed solid. The conditions were good, but some areas had an early-season feel. The fairways are zoysia and the ball sat up nicely. The greens had plenty of pitch marks but rolled pure and fast. Multiple tee boxes were closed for repairs, so hopefully as summer approaches everything will come together.

If you are in Kansas City I’d certainly recommend a round at Ironhorse as long as it isn’t too far from where you are staying. It turned out to be a worthy place for a round in Kansas. The only criticism I have is that more could have been done to enhance the playability.

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