A few of the visitors to our backyard this week…DK

Willingers is a Golf Digest four-and-a-half-star rated course in Northfield, Minnesota. They are celebrating their 15th season this year and I had the chance to play my first two rounds of the year there last week.

Willingers has always been one of my favorite courses in the state. It is close to the south metro (15 minutes from Eagan), doesn’t have any houses around it, is fairly priced, has a friendly staff and is a great design by my favorite local architect, Garrett Gill of River Falls, Wisconsin.

Located on the site of a former tree nursery, there are lots of wetland areas and elevation changes. The wind always seems to keep the windmill behind the fifth green spinning wildly. The greens this week were in spectatular condition already and the fairways had very little winter damage.

The only issues I’ve ever had with this course are the neighboring gun club (which I’m sure they’ve tried to buy) and that they’ve not found a way to add 64 yards to the “Regular” or white tees. At a slope of 142, the whites are plenty of challenge, yet too many people don’t play them because of the sub-6000 yardage. If more people would move off of the 6310 yard blue tees, I believe the pace of play would improve greatly.

I’d also like to see a new set of tournament tees beyond the current 6775 tips to draw more tournaments in the future. The current tournament tees have a 74.4 rating and 150 slope, so I imagine a set of tees stretching to 7000+ yards would put it among the most difficult tests in the state…DK