This weekend we visited Valleywood Golf Course in Apple Valley. You would have never known it was early October in Minnesota–sunny and 87 degrees with a course packed with people. Unfortunately, that also created slow play issues that required a phone call to the clubhouse to help resolve.

Valleywood has always been a tough course for me to figure out. The course slope and rating from the regular “MGA” tees is relatively low–69.4 and 125. Aside from the very long par 4 eighth (420 yards) and par 4 ninth (450 yards) holes, the play on the front nine supports the easier rating.

Make the turn, however, and you hit some very challenging holes where it is easy to run up high numbers. The par 4 tenth demands a strange angle shot off the tee and has water along the right side all the way to the green. The par 5 fifteenth calls for a strong tee shot short of the water and then a good long iron to clear it and get close to the green.

Seventeen and eighteen are dog-leg target golf holes that confound me to this day. I played them Saturday at +1, so maybe I’m finally starting to get a clue (5-wood off the tee on both).