4 days, 81 holes of golf, 8 states and still having fun!

Another 5.5 hour drive from North Dakota through the entire state of Minnesota and into Wisconsin to get to Troy Burne Golf Club. As we drove up the entryway past an engraved welcome stone and amazingly manicured fairways and bunkers our eagerness to get out of the car was surpassed by our excitement at playing this course.

In efforts to mature and avoid childish meltdowns on the course, we spent the majority of the ride discussing how to maximize our enjoyment of the remainder of the trip. Simply put, we were determined to have fun! For me this just means growing up on the golf course and for Luc it also means transitioning from a competitive golf mindset with total focus on the next shot to enjoying the scenery and camaraderie. I attempted to use my Psychology degree and tried to convince Luc that he wouldn’t only enjoy it more but that it would also improve his scores. I’m not sure he bought it… (I am sure that for my skill-level it would work if I could only develop the mental strength to do it…). During the middle of the round I had a real test of my newfound maturity with a particularly terrible stretch of holes that somehow included 7 bunker shots from 4 different bunkers. Despite these 2 pitiful holes there was no swearing (at least audibly), and more importantly, no throwing of clubs…

I forgot to mention in Sunday’s post that Luc won our match, so once again dinner was on me. The result didn’t change at Troy Burne for day three but at least the match was much closer. Luc, in his infinite kindness, tried to bridge the subject of offering me more strokes to level the playing field without trying to offend. In my complete stubbornness, I’m refusing to take any more strokes. Luc is already giving me a stroke a hole, as he was the #1 seed on the college golf team at Pomona and at that point I had never even played a round of golf but more than a stroke a hole seems ridiculous. In addition to my stroke a hole, Luc also played from the way back tees called the tips and I play from the middle tees.

Among the many quality holes on this course two holes really stuck out. #2 is a difficult but fair par 4 that was visually stunning. Water runs along the left side of the hole and there are large bunkers littering the right rough. The hole is long, playing 7100 yards from the Lehman (back) tees. With about 40 yards remaining, the hole doglegs left with water jutting out to necessitate carry to reach the green in two (or in the case of my golf game, in three…)

#10 – Number ten was another fantastic and memorable hole. It features a sharp, 90+ degree left turn around water. There is also a large waste bunker separating the fairway from the water. I hit my drive really well but predictably, sliced it left and despite having an ample landing area, managed to put my tee shot into the bunker. This image above right shows where you don’t want to be on this hole.

Troy Burne was in fantastic shape and the greens were lightning fast, making the ball trickle forever, at times much to our chagrin. It was also an extremely windy day which made the already difficult course almost excruciatingly so. The course was pristine and every detail was well thought out. The creative layout even included a covered tunnel during the drive between two holes that coincided with a gurgling creek also running under the tunnel.

















We finished 18 holes at 6:00pm, looked at each other and decided we hadn’t played enough golf so played the front nine again. 4 days, 81 holes of golf, 8 states and still having fun!