This was stop number four on my road trip east and I ended up playing here on 09/03/12 from the blue tees at 72.5/137/6601. I loved every minute on the course even though I put up a high score. The Preserve is currently rated as one of the top public courses in Minnesota by Golf.com and lived up to the ranking. The first thing that I noticed was how lush and green the course looked and played, it was one of the “greener” courses that I have played in quite some time. The setting is perfect for golf with the course basically carved out of the Minnesota wilderness. No homes lined the course and because of all the trees, the holes were separated pretty well from each other. The course featured all lot of things that I like including some elevation change, good conditioning, a good mix of short and long holes, and a drivable par 4. I did not think the course would be that hard considering the short yardage, but because it had dense vegetation and woods off the rough line a wayward shot could result in a lost ball very easily. The course had a target golf feel to it where accuracy was the most important, but because the layout was so aesthetically pleasing the harsh penalty for missing a shot did not bother me. The course had a couple strong par 4’s including #5 which was a dog leg right around one marsh and then an approach over a 2^nd marsh while #11 had a tee shot to a valley and a blind approach. Overall I thought the course was very straight forward to play, tough, but not too many tricks except for the tee shot on #5. The maintenance was spectacular considering the $49 twilight rate that I paid and the rough, because it was thick, was challenging to play from. The greens were firm and fast and had a lot of slope to them, so the course was a good test of all aspects of my game. Hole #10 was my favorite because when standing on the tee, I had a panoramic view of the 18^th green to the left, the 10^th in front of me, the 1^st to the right, and the 9^th green to the right of that. I liked the par 3’s here as three of the four had elevated tees and the 8^th was another picturesque hole. A couple complaints would be that sometimes the course sloped into trouble and that the 11^th green was too severe for a long iron or hybrid, that green looked like it would best receive a short iron. This was a steal for $49 to ride on a holiday.

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