Two Municipal Courses

This is golf week, well more like golf mornings. The rest of the days are spent with some beyond delightful people; aka grandchildren. But back to golf. 

There are several courses available in the area but we only had time to visit two on this trip. The first course, Ellis, is undergoing a renovation. A new clubhouse is nearing completion. The derecho a couple years ago changed the city dramatically, uprooting thousands of trees and damaging countless buildings. It is good to see the city investing in restoring and upgrading their recreational facilities. 

The second course we played was Twin Pines. The starter told us they lost about 60% of the trees on the golf course in the derecho. It was very open compared to many, many years ago when Papa and I played here. Then the fairways were lined with pine trees. 

This course does not have rolling hills, but it is heavily traveled. You can see by the lower right photo above that we had a play delay on hole #9 as waited for the traffic to clear. We barely got our fairway shots off before another wave of traffic approached. Whew!

An awesome addition was made to Twin Pines. A miniature golf course was constructed between the 9th green and parking lot. We have stopped by Twin Pines three times in the last few days and every time there are families enjoying this course. What an excellent way to get young children exposed to golf and an affordable, fun family outing. Smart move.