7 Minute Miles

Island View Golf Club


Dan Callahan, Head Professional at Island View Golf Club in Waconia (and Tapemark Charity Pro-Am player), welcomed us this morning to the first tee on a beautiful Saturday morning. We started behind a fivesome (one of my pet peeves), but Dan assured us that they were members and would not hold us up. He was right–our round took under four hours and we rarely had to wait.

Island View has always been a more expensive course ($49 walking), but the course conditioning and the unique layout have justified the cost. Unfortunately, the conditioning today was not as good as when I played here in 2004. There was a fair amount of winter damage in the fairways and one of their mowers is leaking fluid, which appears to have caused some issues on the greens (which were much slower than last time).

The layout, however, continues to shine. The short 465-yard, par-5 opening hole is a great way to start the round and the stretch of holes from number three through six are very scenic (too bad I forgot the camera today). There is a lot of elevation change and it seems like none of the side-by-side holes interfere with each other. The par-4 thirteenth hole has water everywhere and continues to stump me as to how best to play it off the tee. I did play the par 3’s better today, hitting three of the four, but unfortunately no birdies.

Tomorrow: Keller.

Originally published by DK on August 19, 2006 at 2:47 pm in Golf


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