Course 149: Veterans Memorial

When I check off a new golf course, I post a review on Instagram. If you are interested in reading the review early, and reading some additional thoughts that go beyond the Instagram caption limit, you can become a Supporter or Founder.

Veterans Memorial has a lot of things going for it. It offers great value and some engaging, interesting golf.

The design is simple and straightforward. The greens are well-conditioned in that lush, bouncy way. They are round, and many of them slope from back to front. They are just fast enough to make 30-footers tough to gauge, as they can roll a bit more than one would think.

It is a rather easy walk, with greens and tees close to one another, aside from crossing the street to play the back nine.

The course allows for players to hit a variety of clubs off tees if they wish, but there is a good amount of space off most tee boxes to hit driver, especially on the front nine.

Holes 10 and 11 are probably the lowlights of the round. 10 is particularly tricky with a green that is a touch extreme with a big false front.

The tee shot on 11 is intimidating the first time, but there's more space than it appears along the left side.

The standout holes are the 2nd, 8th, and 15th.

The 2nd is probably the tightest tee shot on the course, but it's a strong hole with a tough second shot. Have to be accurate here to make par.

The 8th is a cool, short par 4 that plays over wavy land. Missing too far to the left will leave a blind shot to the green. A tree can cause some trouble on that side of the hole, too.

The 15th is a strong par 3 that requires a good mid to long iron to a rather large green with some short grass in the approach.

One thing about Veterans that falls a little flat is that the approach shots are almost all one note. The greens aren't terribly interesting aside from their slope, so every approach is all about playing to the front of the green. The 10th and 17th stand out as holes that deviate from that formula.

Apparently, the back nine sustained damage in the 2011 tornado, which tore through the area and pulled out many trees. The trees are sparse on that stretch, but they still provide some shape to the routing.

Veterans is a course I'd frequent and have in my rotation if I lived in that neck of the woods. Great value and sporty, scoreable golf.

Additional Thoughts:

Subscribe to Supporter to read the rest.