Playing a course a bunch is undeniably helpful. You know where to miss. You get a feel for the greens. However, sometimes playing a course for the first time can do magical things for your game.

Golf is such a mental game, and I often fall prey to its tricks. I often stand over shots, especially with the driver, and think of all things I shouldn’t do and places I shouldn’t go. Don’t snap hook this into the trees like last time. Don’t slice this into the tall grass because you won’t find it like last week.

With a fresh course you have none of that bad experience. You have no choice but to visualize your ideal shot because you don’t have all the bad shots flashing in your head from previous rounds.

I have two concrete examples of this from just this summer alone. I played Old North State Club to my best round ever there of 78 after it had been a full year since I played it. My game had changed and I was playing from a different tee so I had no reference but knew the layout. That’s the ideal because you get the added benefit of course knowledge without the ‘Nam flashbacks.

The other example is at Pevely Farms. I shot a personal best 77 on a course that I had never seen, let alone played before. I played the round by myself with only the 18 Birdies app GPS guiding me.

I had another today. I shot a five-over 76 at Incline Village today and was a perfect par on the back — 35 with 9 pars. I ran up 12 pars in a row to close.

Now, this of course can’t happen if you’re not playing well. After a rocky 5-over through 6 I dialed in the driver and hit it the best I have in months. My two last drives– a 280-yard shot up the hill and a 300-yard shot down the hill — were two of the best drives I have ever hit. Just middled arrows right down my target line. I also putted well (27 with no 3-putts) and had my wedges cooking.

I think Incline Village might be the first course I break par on, but I don’t think I will stop the quest when I do because it is only 6000 yards from the tips. They compensate with crazy elevation changes. They miraculously seem to have more holes going straight uphill than they do downhill. However, it’s still so short that I had less than a full pitching wedge into every green that wasn’t a Par 3 and a lot of them were knockdown 54-degrees or pitches. If I hadn’t snap hooked my second drive OB and pushed a couple early full swing 54-degrees, I could very easily have made par on every hole. That’s not even including the 5 birdies I left on the course that finished a combined 6 inches from the cup.

The Golf Club of Incline Village is a gorgeous course that I can’t wait to go back to this summer when it’s in all its glory. The layout is awesome. A huge chunk of the back nine winds around a large pond or mini lake. It’s a super beautiful part of St. Charles County that I am mad I have not been to enough. The greens (aside from the first, which according to the other Tim I was paired with today has some permanent scarring issues) were pristine despite the rain and snow this week. They are also tiny and usually raised which makes me think this course might get slightly tougher when everything firms up. Depending on how soft they are, their speed at their peak might make holding delicate pitches nearly impossible on the sometimes severely sloping tiny greens. However, with the warmer temperatures and faster fairways instead of longer pitches and laying up on Par 5s, you might be chipping on and hitting 5 irons in under regulation after bigger drives. So, it might even out.

How you play on a course the first time can paint how you see the course, and I am definitely not unbiased after how the round went today. The Golf Club at Incline Village is a gem and I can’t wait to go back.

ScoreCard from Tim Kaiser on Golf Club of Incline Village (Incline Village) – 18Birdies https://18birdies.com/s/AKaQAIl2-K4