Our attempt at a company golf outing ending with lightning and a downpour that lasted about an hour and thoroughly drenched Highland National Golf Course in St. Paul. After everyone left, I completed my round when the rain stopped and played the last nine holes in about 75 minutes.

I played Highland twice last year after the big re-do and thought it was an improvement over the previous course, but still had a lot of back-and-forth that end up being dangerous on crowded days. Garrett Gill (and former partner Paul Miller) did the re-design work here and I feel they made the most of the limited land available.

The greens are by far my favorite change–they are now very different from before with unique shapes, fast surfaces and much more undulation. They were in very good condition and most of the fairways were also above average. The rating and slope of this course from the whites are hard to believe: 69.3/114. I’d buy that for the old layout, but the new one has plenty of challenge for the bogey golfer. Time for the MGA rating team to revisit St. Paul.