Race organizer Diane Tran contacting me about a race coming up at the end of the month:

Join Smoke-Free Dakota for the World No Tobacco Day 5K Run on Sunday, May 31, 2009! The run will benefit low-income children with persistent asthma to attend Camp SuperKids 2009, a weeklong summer camp sponsored by the American Lung Association in Minnesota. The USATF-certified 5K course will start at the eastern end (in Lilydale) of the Big Rivers Regional Trail, a nearly flat paved trail built on an abandoned railroad bed overlooking the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. Please spread the word to your friends, family and colleagues and don’t forget to register yourself!

For more information, call 651-789-0036 or visit their web site.

Just as Minneapolis Golf Examiner Kyle Anway posted a review of the same course, I got a call last week to join a group playing Sawmill Golf Club in Stillwater.

It’s been three years since I last played Sawmill and it does seem like a bargain at $18 (weekday walking rate). They are also currently giving out $10 off coupons for their sister Loggers Trail course if you play again by the end of the month.

Parts of the course were already mid-summer lush, but the greens were extremely firm and wouldn’t hold anything (we found out afterwards that they had just been rolled).

Sawmill is not a long course – 5499 yards from the whites with a par of 70 – but there are some nice memorable holes on both nines. The all-carry par three fifth (above) and the scenic par three thirteenth are two of my favorites.

7MM Sawmill Photo Gallery