The Summit Golf Club

TL;DR A smashing golf course of two very different halves: the front nine is a polite handshake, the back nine a gin-fuelled conga line through the forest. I booked in at the last minute on a Tuesday morning in August, the sort of day when the sun behaves impeccably and the breeze remembers its manners. My companions for the round, let’s call them Brad and Chad, were the sort of chaps who wear mirrored sunglasses large enough to be visible from space, perched upside down on hats the size of satellite dishes. From the first tee, they treated me to a brief but pointed performance of Minnesota Not-So-Nice, scowling at my cheery greeting while a Bluetooth speaker belched forth hideous music by someone almost certainly named Jelly Bits. Chad, with the air of a man delivering bad news about a soufflé, announced I would not be joining them. So, I toddled off as a lone wolf behind the Bros, resigned to a day of glacial progress. The front nine unfolds like a park stroll with a sensible aunt, rolling hills, tree-lined fairways clipped as neatly as a prep school lawn, and a mercifully free of the ostentatious flourishes favoured by designers of the early 2000s. I was settling into the rhythm when I began to regret taking a cart rather than walking, my preferred mode of golf transport, until the back nine revealed that walking here would have been tantamount to volunteering for a coronary. Around the 13th, the course appeared to ingest a small quantity of hallucinogens and transform into an exuberant, slightly deranged carnival ride. Towering trees hemmed in fairways that twisted like a politician’s promise, elevation changes more dramatic than a soap opera, and greens with the kind of malevolent subtlety that would make Machiavelli proud. It’s thrilling, terrifying, and impossible not to love. By the 17th, the course has composed itself again, smoothing its jacket and straightening its tie, before returning you to the clubhouse as if nothing untoward had happened. Brad and Chad spent the day flinging clubs and expletives with abandon, and will likely tell people the course was “tricky.” They’d be right. From the back tees, it’s a proper test, a course that could turn tournament play into absolute pandemonium, and that, in my book, is a very fine thing indeed.

I bought the players card to play this course during the summer. There was one day where we couldn't even play during open hours because the person working there "didnt want to let more people on because he was planning on going home soon" even though the course was open for another 5+ hours. I also liked to play the par 3 course but they closed it halfway through the season and didnt refund any of the money I paid for the players card. There were also multiple occasions when I showed up during open hours but the pro shop was locked and closed for the day. Its a nice course and the back 9 is fun but they definitely screw you over if you decide to pay to get the players card for the summer. You would be better off going to another course for the season.

This is a big man’s course playing from the back tees (7000 plus yds). Very scenic but extremely challenging as some holes required precision drives (like #12,13 & 14). Greens were running pretty fast considering it just rained. Fairways are good but bunkers are a mess due to Covid-19. Bring lots of balls if you tend to spray it all over. I still think you’ll love this challenging course.