Last weekend we traveled to Owatonna to play Hidden Creek Golf Club on yet another hot and humid day. I had not played the course for a few years, but I remembered it as being a challenging design that was a little different from your typical Minnesota farm country course. Opened in 1996, the Randy Nelson design brings serveral water features into play and has a few holes that are shaped by mature trees. The course had all bentgrass tees, fairways and greens when it opened–a relative rarity in Minnesota due to the cost of maintaining that much high-grade turf.

Unfortunately, the costs must have caught up to the owners. Combined with the hot weather, the bentgrass all over the front nine was in bad shape. Bunkers needed tending, some of the tee boxes were haphazard and serveral of the bridges were showing signs of wear and tear. The course is apparently under new management and I hope they are able to eventually restore the course to its original conditioning.

The layout itself is fun to play. The conditioning trouble didn’t impact my play too much, although I did start out eight over par through the first four holes (three of which have water in play). I managed to hit the next six greens in regulation, though, with five pars and a bogey. The back nine was in much better shape and I finished with an 86–my best score this year. The temperature at the end of our round was around 92 with high humidity, so we were very happy to see the cart person on sixteen green with free, ice-cold bottles of water.