Update on what is going on with me recently

Well recently I have continued to be busy with school as always and have not got any golf related activities in.  In better news though my brother purchased a membership at Butternut Hills Golf Course and has been driving from the Twin Cities there a lot to go golfing.  This is good yet still discouraging me as if his skill level is way higher than mine it will not be fun, because we are way to competitive.  I have so many other things on my plate that golf is still on the back burner for me and I apologize for that, but there isn't much I can do about it till I get other things taken care of.  I hope when this Summers comes I'll have some spare time and cash to get some golfing in.

Butternut Hills Golf Course: Review, pictures, and my golf including using the mighty 1 iron

Course Review:
Three days ago my brother and I golfed at Butternut Hills Golf Course.  We went for their twilight rate which is $12 for unlimited golf walking after 5 pm.  My brother splurged and also rented a cart which I jumped on.  The course is in amazing shape especially for the price.  When we got on the course it was busy.  Busy enough where we had to start on the back 9 first, but still got be able to play without making a reservation first.  The course seems very short with many par 4's less than 350 yards.  The water hazzards for the course never really are in the way if you can hit the ball straight.  You can tell this course is designed to be more fun for the amature golfer, which is good.  You want to have fun while you golf and this course is one to do it on.  The course is kept up very well.  It is easily on par (no pun intended) with more expensive courses.  The thing that makes this course different than more expensive courses is how laid back it is.  You can tell everyone out there is there to enjoy themselves.  Even the employees encourage you to have fun out there.  The greens seem odd to me though.  Very few of them have any break to them even though it seems that they all should.  This makes the course much easier and more fun to play.  Again a good thing.  The only problem you might find on the course is a few people have way to much of a good time.  They are not much of a problem though and something you should expect paying a price this low.  This is my favorite every day course to play and I suggest it to anyone in the area.  Here are some pictures.

The 10th tee

The clubhouse which has a full bar and food

The 18th green

Some golfers

Every herd of a greenside cemetary?

The par 3 15th hole

Looking off the tee of the 6th hole

looking towards the tee of the 6th hole

The par 3 8th hole

My brother right after teeing off on the second hole

Looking at the second hole from the green

My Golf:
My golf was still not at the level it was last summer, but it is slightly improving. This time I was able to do about as well as my brother, which last time he was beating me at golf like no other.  If I didn't pay attention to my swing I would finish on my back foot and slice a lot.  I still have a slice 70 percent of the time on my fairway metals, but it is improving, and I hope I will be able to fix it.  We golfed until it got dark which ended up being about 26 holes which is quite a workout especially since we were fishing for 3 hours before that.  I made 3 pars and 4 greens in regulation.  I found that very satisfying and showing that I am improving in my longer shots.  There could be another reason why I got those gir's though, and that is coming up next.

The Almighty 1 Iron:
I decided to do something fun and different.  A few months ago now I purchased a Tommy Armour 1 iron on Ebay for only a few bucks.  This purchase happened after I spent countless hours just looking up as much golf information as I could online and came across some stories of the 1 iron.  In case no one knows anyone about the 1 iron just like I did before I did some heavy searching; it is a club that used to be very popular, but died off at the end of the 90's as easier to hit clubs were invented such as the hybrid.  The 1 iron is considered the hardest golf club to hit.  John Daly even have a 0 iron for a while.  There seems to be a very small dedicated group of people who refuse to let the 1 iron go.  They quote reasons such as: "why drive a driver 280 yards in the rough when you can drive 240 in the fairway with the 1 iron," "it is the perfect club if you need a low boring shot that goes far."  I discovered these all to be true for me.  The drive tended to be low straight and boring.  The ball would also roll for a very long ways after hitting the ground.  This surprised me quite a bit.  When the ball would hit short of where I wanted I would get disappointed then watch the ball roll uphill to exactly where I wanted it to go.  Also as I found online the ball tends to go straight.  A lot straighter than with a driver or fairway metal.  The one problem is the club is really really hard to hit.  I've been practicing with it for a while and finally got good enough where I could hit it well 70 percent of the time.  I did not hit my driver the whole time on the course I would just hit the 1 iron and was satisfied with all the shots.  I was able to be much more accurate with my shots and put where I want the second and third shots were much easier.  I know why this club died though.  With it's difficulty to hit compared to other clubs which go the same distance I know why it died.  I wish it didn't though I would love to try out some 1 irons with new technology.  I really think the 1 iron helped my golf game greatly.  I am sure I will be using it a decent amount until I get a new driver and can hit it straight.

My 1 iron and if you look in the distance you will see where I put the ball on the 197 uphill par 3.

Anyway that is my long 3 into one blog post about my day of golfing I hope you enjoyed it.

10 Best Golf States: Golfdigest.com

So This week Golf Digest put out what they thought to be the 10 Best Golf States: Golfdigest.com. There was one surprise to me, and one that was not. Both Wisconsin and North Dakota were named. Wisconsin didn't surprise me. It has tons of courses that are 4 star rated or above by Golf Digest. In fact I found quite a few 4 star and above courses by where I stay during the Summer. Which I may have to try out since it looks like their prices are decent during off peak times. Also Wisconsin has tons of mid-level courses for someone that is looking to golf on the real cheap. Also there are even courses in Wisconsin that are pretty much fields behind a bar, if you want to go real cheap. Overall I completely agree with Golf Digest's pick there and think maybe they should have even put it up higher on the list.

The surprising choice was for me of course though was North Dakota. Coming here after being in Wisconsin all summer it seemed like they had hardly any courses compared to Wisconsin. Which even according to Golf Digest, North Dakota only has 6 four star and above golf courses. But, after reading their reasoning, and how the decisions were made I completely agree with their decision. North Dakota has less than 700,000 people in their population, and Golf Digest used 4 star and above courses over the state's population. Considering those things North Dakota should be in the top 10. I have a few other reasons as well. First, of all is price. North Dakotan's are cheap compared to many other states, also price of living here is cheap. These things combined keep the price down more than most on golf courses. Especially comparing prices vs states like Florida. Bardmoor Golf & Tennis Club a 4 and a half star course as rated by Golf Digest has a $90 green fee whereas The Links of North Dakota a course considered by many to be the best course in North Dakota only has a green fee of $60. Remember this course also has a 4 and a half star rating in Golf Digest just like The Bardmoor Golf & Tennis Club in Florida.

This comes to my suggestion of two budget golf vacations in North Dakota. The first one is golfing in Grand Forks. Grand Forks has 3 public golf courses you can golf at, one owned by the University of North Dakota and two owned by the city of Grand Forks. They also have one private course the Grand Forks Country Club, but I nor no one I know around here knows much about that. Grand Forks has one 4 star rating course by Golf Digest. That course is Kings Walk which is a Arnold Palmer signature course. It is the only 18 hole course I'm going to talk about for Grand Forks. The other two courses are Lincoln Park Golf Course which is owned by the city and Ray Richards Golf Course which is owned by the University of North Dakota. These two courses are fair, but when checking out green fees for them the price seems reasonable especially if you are making this a golf vacation. All the prices seem fair for the courses in Grand Forks, but what makes it a good cheap vacation is the cost of hotels and everything else you plan to do in Grand Forks is very reasonable to make your golf trip a budget one.

The second North Dakota city I suggest for your budget golf vacation is Bismark. Bismark has 4 courses that are 3 star or above rated by Golf Digest. One of the courses Hawktree Golf Club is 4 and a half stars rated. The price is a higher than Kings Walk, but it is also higher rated.  I am sure the lodging prices are the same as the rest of North Dakota, which is reasonably priced.

So in closing I completely agree with Golf Digest's pick of Wisconsin and North Dakota for top 10 golfing states. I also hope you consider my budget golf vacations.