Review - Troy Burne

Let's start this bad boy off with my personal favorite course, Troy Burne.  First of all, this is what I consider a "premium course".  When I say "premium course", besides the fact that I make the little gesture with my fingers, I mean that it's expensive.  On the plus side, their $75 twilight rate kicks in at 1pm on the weekend which is when I usually play.  On the negative, this will be by far my longest review because I get giddy every time I talk about this place.


Onto the course!  The first thing you're going to notice when you pull into the place is how awesome it looks.  The clubhouse is back from the main road a bit, so you get the pleasure of basically driving right through the front 9 to get there.  It's an awesome, if not intimidating sight - spectacularly green fairways and perfectly manicured dance floors, bunkers absolutely everywhere around said green bits, and long native grass on top of the many mounds surrounding every hole you pass.  It really gives you a 'Holy balls' reaction before you even get to the clubhouse to check in.

My reaction on the way to the clubhouse for the first time

After your standard issue check-in, you can go hit the very barebones driving range, putt on their standard issue putting green, and then drive out to the first teebox, a par 5 dogleg left that's only reachable for people who can compress the ball to look like a quarter that got run over by a train.  The thing I love about the whole process of getting to the first hole is the lack of BS like having a starter go over the 97 rules, initialing the receipt, and telling you how to play the first 12 holes.  In fact, there's no starter at all.  It's a very refreshing difference between this place and other "premium courses".

Anyway, one thing to notice about Troy Burne is the fact that the teeboxes have got to be flattened using a freaking level.  One of my huge pet peeves is having a sidehill lie on the teebox, and you don't even come close to getting that here.  These teeboxes are perfectly flat, manicured to perfection, and better than many greens I've putted on.  After you smash your drive right down the middle, you'll notice their fairways are literally better than most greens you've putted on.  That's not an exaggeration - these things are immaculate.  One thing I love is the beaver pelt you pull out of these things.  I swear, you can use them to make a perfectly manicured fairway hat if you had terrible etiquette and didn't replace them.  After laying up with your second shot, you hit your approach to the green.

Make sure your caddy fetches the turf you hurled 40 yds

Oh, the greens.  These are the best greens you'll ever play, period.  They're literally perfect.  I'm convinced they have a small old man go out every morning and pluck all the small pebbles, yellowing blades of grass, and grains of sand off of them before the first teetime.  These things will roll absolutely fast and true and if you have 40 putts, you have no one to blame but yourself.  With how fast they roll and how hard the fairways tend to be, you would absolutely never guess that they're incredibly receptive as well.  If I didn't know any better, I'd say Christ himself was Troy Burne's greens-keeper.

Now that I've sufficiently gushed about the condition the course is kept in, let's talk about the layout.  Something that should be completely outlawed from golf courses is the blind tee shot.  While Troy Burne doesn't completely eliminate that from its layout, it is a shot that is few and far-between.  For the vast majority of the round, you will be presented with an exceptionally fair challenge and MANY risk-reward types of shots.  Don't want to hit driver off the tee?  Fine.  You're going to have a mid-long iron into a very well-protected green.  Want to risk the driver?  That's cool too, but in exchange for a possible wedge approach or par 5-in-two, you're going to flirt with one of the 120 bunkers that litter the course.  Fact is, it's a shot-maker's paradise and if you're like me and spray the ball every now and then, if you can find your ball in the native grass, you can hack it out and still have a slim chance at par.

Notable holes:

• The Par 4 second is a scary tee shot, with water going all the way up the left side and bunkers guarding the landing area on the right.  The second shot to a huge, multi-terraced green is a lot of fun if you hit it pure
• The Par 4 7th is one of my favorite holes out there.  If you can hit your driver a long way, you can hit the green, but I ALWAYS seem to end up in the tiny pot bunker in front.  I swear, I couldn't hit that bastard one time out of 10 if I was aiming for it
• 10-11-12-13 is the best 4-hole stretch in the Twin Cities, period.  10 is a short-ish par 4 with a huge waste bunker flanked by a water hazard all the way up the left.  Out of bounds awaits long and right.  It's an easy tee shot with a large landing area if you hit a long iron or 3-wood, but you'll be left with a mid-iron to a green surrounded by a LOT of trouble
• 11 is a gorgeous par 3 and happens to be where one of my buddies got married.  Trees left, stream right, awesome backdrop.. it's really an easy hole if you can manage to only look at the green.  You can check out a picture of it in the faded out logo up top.
• 12 is an awesome risk-reward par 5 and possibly my favorite hole on the course.  A big drive that takes the downhill slope leaves a mid-iron to an ENORMOUS undulating green protected by water short, left, and long.  I've had at least 3 eagle putts on this hole and have yet to make better than par.
• 13 is a mid-length downhill par 3 with water up the left side.  Just another beautiful par 3.
• 17 is an oddity.  I usually despise par 4s and 5s where you can't hit the big dog.  But for some reason, I like this one.  A mid-long iron off the tee puts you about 120 yards out, just short of  a large pond that guards the right side of the very narrow fairway from 100 yards and in, including the green.  The second shot to a very narrow green is a tough one.  I suppose this hole is drivable, but you have to hit an incredible tee ball to pull that off and I simply don't have the cahones.

120.  120 of these.  You will be in at least 28 of them.

After you get done and the ballboys clean your clubs off, you can get back into your car which is surely flanked by a Bentley and a Maserati by now and drive back out through the front 9, thinking back upon the 8-iron that you stuck on 9 and the tee shot that you sprayed into the high grass on 5 as you pass them by.

This place is nothing short of a religious experience.