Three words: old man course. This place was built for old people. If you hit the ball dead straight, 200 yards with your driver, you'll decimate this place. If you can poke it out there 300 but you're even slightly errant, you're spending your day pitching into the fairway.
Keller is a muni track off of 36 and 61. It's the best of the 3 munis in the area, Manitou and Goodrich being the other two. This is a place that hosted the St Paul Open back in the day along with a handful of other PGA tournaments. It's painfully obvious that they're very tightly holding onto that, as it seems like absolutely nothing has been updated since the good ol' days of the 1930s. The carts are older than dirt, the scorecard design has got to be from the 50s, and the teebox signage is classy looking black/bronze metal and has nothing but yardage. I'm also pretty confident that the outhouse at my cabin is bigger than the clubhouse.
After you get done paying your $50 weekday rate + cart, it's off to locate the putting green (no small feat). Once you do, you'll go ahead and knock your first practice putt past the hole by about 15 feet. These greens are FAST. I'd played Troy Burne less than a week before I played this place and the greens at Keller were MUCH faster. Granted, they weren't quite as flawless and definitely not as true as the carpet at Burne, but damn, they must've been about 300 on the stimpmeter.
Anyway, on to the layout. Like I said before, this place is short. All the par 5s are easily reachable in 2, most of the par 4s are in the 350 range aside from the odd couple really long 4s, and the par 3s are manageable. You absolutely need to hit the ball straight though. I played with my old man and he's erratic with his driver. He had to chip out from under trees at least 7 or 8 times. However, if you can manage to hit the ball straight, it will run FOREVER in the fairway. I even pounded a few past 300. There are some doglegs and whatnot, but there are many drivers to be had. It's really just a straightaway course for the most part - not really any gimmicks, just good golf.
The course condition leaves a bit to be desired. The teeboxes are destroyed, the fairways are laced with crab grass, and many of the greens, especially on the front, had been badly damaged by the brutal winter we had. The combination of extremely fast greens and winter damage means your putts will hit shit and stray offline, so expect to lose 3-5 strokes because of that. The bunkers were one high point - nothing special in the sand department but they were very well groomed, so there were no surprises.
Overall I'd say that I enjoyed my round here. It's a little bit boring and easy (if you can hit it straight) and not in the greatest shape, but it's fair and has lots of charm. It was a perfect track to get out to after taking the afternoon off work on a beautiful day and it beats the hell out of Manitou and Goodrich. Although from what I understand, Goodrich is getting a nice refurb from the people that built White Eagle and Legends, so it remains to be seen what happens there. I'll give it a 6/10.
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