I have been pretty lucky thus far testing new golf courses. My luck ran out today. How you play undoubtedly will bias how you see a course, but I think I would be down on Sugar Creek even if I had somehow remarkably had the round of my life.

The course is just in terrible shape. The fairways are the worst I have played. They are incredibly thin with many bald spots. It’s nearly impossible to get an iron into the ground. It was like hitting off those garbage old school turf mats that many driving ranges have that I also can’t hit a well-struck iron on with my swing. The greens were super fast and tough. I would say they at least have those right and on some greens they were probably some of the best in the area. Unfortunately, a bunch of the greens have major scarring with huge chunks of turf missing making it impossible to putt if you end up with one between you and the hole.

Having said that it wasn’t all or really even mostly the course condition’s fault I played as poorly as I did. I was 8-over on the front with two double-bogeys. I didn’t get my full warm-up in or hit any putts (they currently don’t have a putting green) and it showed in my swing. I also felt groggy and don’t think I got a good night’s sleep.

It also didn’t help that this course is rather tight and the front has some holes with mind-bending elevation changes. If the course was in better shape you might call these holes unique or challenging, but in its current form, I couldn’t get the word “gimmicky” out of my head. The fifth is a Par 3 that they had set up at 125 yards but all of it is straight uphill. I don’t have a slope reader but it must have been 50 yards uphill. The seventh is its twin with basically the same shot but straight downhill. I fell right into their traps both times, coming up short on the uphill and long on the downhill. I didn’t make a long putt all day, so those were both bogeys. My two doubles came on lost balls off the tee on extreme downhill drives. One, the par four 8th, includes a blind shot down a grass cliff, so I have no idea if I hit and rolled out of bounds or just overcooked the draw straight into oblivion.

By the time I hit the back, I had somewhat figured out my swing especially off the tee and the Red Bull had kicked in, so things went much better. Two of my three bogeys on the back were caused by lip outs. I bogeyed the 18th because my block push came back and I had to play my second from the trees.

It was an overall frustrating day on the course. I didn’t do anything well and was downright terrible with the driver on the front and pretty terrible with my irons all day. My putting wasn’t awful, but it was frustrating misreading putts and barely sliding by cups all day.

Hopefully, I can get in at least one round this week to get the taste of wasting the first day after the time jump and a gorgeous 70-degrees and sunny day out of my mouth.

ScoreCard from Tim Kaiser on Sugar Creek Golf Course (Sugar Creek) – 18Birdies https://18birdies.com/s/AKltDcsDyKs