Stevens Point Country Club: Stevens Point

Review

“Stevens Point Country Club is a business in the front, party in the back kind of golf course. The green, tees and fairways are perfectly manicured while the bunkers and sandy waste areas have a rough, naturalistic look to them. The bunkers and waste areas almost look like they were naturally built through erosion of the hill sides and the bunker faces feature a long, fescue rough giving them a unique look to them. The bunkers are expansive, big and deep, but there are also tiny bunkers lurking and hidden throughout which look like they were carved out from glacial erosion. The layout though not difficult is well thought out and routed efficiently through the property. Red pines are seen thoughout the course and cooridors but much less are seen as before the renovation and tree removal. Tree removal helped restore and create the sandy waste lands. Greens are large and undulating and often times elevated. There is a good amount of dog leg left holes throughout favoring a draw off the tee. The Par 3s are challenging with two force carry holes and the short par 3 17th is a hole you have to play. The fun factor on this one is at a high with a green surrounded by deep bunkers all around. The par 4s seem to play very similar to each other with many short to medium length holes followed by a couple of long testing holes. All Par 5s for the longer hitter are reachable in 2 though the 15th hole does require some strategy off the tee to the left fairway in order to have an angle at the green. The 8th hole is dog leg right par 5 and though it leaves one to figure out the correct strategy off the tee, the quirkiness and narrowness of the tee shot around a 90 degree dogleg leaves me scoring it lower in the layout variety category. It's a bit unfair for the golfer playing for the first time since a sense of comfort is needed off the teeing area to actually know how to attack the hole. The best play is probably a long iron or hybrid and playing it as a 3 shot hole. The risk/reward to shave off yardage may not be worth it as the landing areas are quite small. Hole 10 is a great short par 4 with the tee box nestled up next to the bar room of the clubhouse. While you can't see the green off the tee, the hole is gettable if you know the correct line to take, but trouble is lurking if you hit left into the woods or right into bunkers or even water hazard. Back to back par 5s on 14 and 15 are unique as you don't run into this often. The majority of holes at SPCC are right in front of you and do not take an overtly amount of strategy off the tee. Holes 8, 10, 15 require the most thought and decision making to decide on the risk/reward you want to take on."

2023