Sunday was one hot day to pick for 36 holes of golf. The temperature hit 97 degrees and the wind was howling out of the south. My regular Saturday morning golf buddy grew up in Hayfield, Minnesota, and I wanted to get down there and play the course where he worked during school. I had visited both The Oaks and Maple Valley during the Golden Links days, but this was the first time playing both.

The Oaks is not what I anticipated at all. Based on the few holes I had photographed near the clubhouse, it looked like your typical wide-open Minnesota farm course. The reality was a course with several narrow, tree-lined holes, a meandering stream that comes into play on multiple holes and small, severely sloped greens that, when combined with the constantly blowing wind, made for a challenging start to the day. Despite the double bogey on one and triple bogey on two, I managed to string together a number of pars and shot an 89.

After a great lunch at the Miller ranch, we drove from Hayfield to Maple Valley–located just south of Rochester. Designed and built by Wayne Idso in 1964, Maple Valley is a shorter course that sits in the Root River valley. The course has craggy rock cliffs, large elevation changes and beautiful views of the Root River itself. It has a very low rating (67.2/106), but I find it hard to believe that the average high handicap golfer would find the course that easy. There are way too many places to get in trouble if you aren’t hitting the ball straight…DK