Our regular weekend golf group visited The Summit Golf Club in Cannon Falls yesterday morning. I visited with course manager Jack Baker, who reported that they will be announcing new wine tasting events with a local winery soon (perhaps this one?).

Selected by Golf Digest as one of 2002’s “Best New Affordable Public Courses,” The Summit has been one of my favorite courses in the south metro for several reasons: all bentgrass layout, dramatic elevation changes on the back nine, general lack of crowds (even on weekends) and overall good value. The owners continue to reinvest money in the course, adding paved cart paths, upgraded parking lot and clubhouse deck over the past few years.

Word seems to be getting out, as there were quite a few people there when we arrived. Due to a scheduling glitch with Teemaster, we went off the back side first to avoid a multi-person group starting on one. We’ve never seen the course perform maintenance on Saturdays, so the patches of long rough can be forgiven. We were concerned, however, about the dryness of tees and fairways. Perhaps they were hoping the forecasted rain would arrive, but without more water, those areas are in danger of serious damage.

As I was playing the course, I realized I didn’t know who designed the course. The scorecard doesn’t say, but the course’s website lists Midwest Golf Management, while Golf Digest lists William Whitworth, Marty Benson Jr. and Greg Wencl. I’ll do more research on that as we prepare a series on prominent Minnesota course architects.