My friend and I found ourselves at Shoal Creek Golf Course for our afternoon round. This was our Missouri stop and I booked a round here initially thinking that we were headed north after the round on our way out of town. Ultimately our trip changed and we went east, but I decided to keep our tee time at Shoal Creek.

I could never put my finger on anything specific, but from what I read it seemed that Shoal Creek was liked by many golfers. Depending on which publication you read, Shoal Creek can even sneak into the top 10 public courses in the state. Well, after playing here, you can add me to the list of people who was impressed with the golf course.

For the twilight green fee of about $40, the price was the first thing I enjoyed about the course. There were other good things too – for example, the course isn’t jam packed with homes and like Ironhorse (where played this morning), Shoal Creek has a really good back nine. The layout is forgiving and the par-3’s on the back nine are memorable.

Shoal Creek is a par-71 so make sure to factor that into your decision when picking which tees to play from. We played the blue tees (70.6/127/6363) which was a reasonable test considering my crappy golf game these days. However, the tips stretch to over 7,000 yards which would dial up the difficulty.

The course was designed by Steve Wolford – an architect I haven’t heard much about – and opened in 2001. There is a mix of parkland and prairie style holes with gentle elevation changes. Compared to Ironhorse, Shoal Creek is definitely the more walkable of the two courses. The driving areas are large and there is a lot space off the fairways. Except for a handful of holes the lost ball trouble is minimal. I think the trickiest part about playing here is trying to figure out the greens.

The front nine isn’t too spectacular although it helps build up the excitement for the back nine. The 9th – a 490 yard par-5 – is probably the best hole on the front. It doglegs right and the tee shot plays slightly downhill with the fairway falling out of sight from the tee. I found the fairway and tried to go for the green in two, but my second shot got caught by a tree short of the green.

The back nine was my favorite nine with the short 12th and the fun 17th. The 12th is a 321 yard par-4 with options off the tee. A creek cuts across short of the green so most golfers will probably want to layup. The fairway narrows though so it just depends how full of a shot you’d like into the green. The 17th, a 157 yard par-3, is the signature hole. It plays slightly downhill and over that same creek. The green angles from front left to back right with a sharp drop off into the hazard.

For the price the conditions were acceptable. Unfortunately, the fairways were struggling with maybe half of them having some damage from the winter. The rough was lush and thick, even though it wasn’t all that deep. The greens were smooth and fast.

Shoal Creek is my kind of course, relaxing to play with some exciting holes mixed in throughout the round. I’m don’t consider myself a golf course snob, but as it stands right now I’d recommend holding off on a round here until you hear reports that the fairways are more consistent. If the fairways were in better shape then I’d be putting this one on my hidden gem list – the layout is excellent.

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