Don’t Scoff at the Short Course Until You Try It
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It doesn’t look challenging or complicated in the least when viewed from a car on Highway 42.
But, let’s say you’re an experienced golfer who has a lot of trouble with shots between 60 and 80 yards. Let’s say you step up to the first tee and see the sign board with changeable numbers showing “today’s yardage” at 77 yards. Let’s say you hate those sand-wedge shots so much that you do the math on all par-4s and par-5s to avoid 60- to 80-yard shots.
Let’s say “you” are me.
Passing the six-hole short course at Peninsula State Park Golf Course in the car, probably 300 times, the first hole looked easy. So easy! Too easy! But on this day, the pin was tucked behind a small, round sand trap.
Still taking this little course too lightly, I must have let up a bit on a tee shot with a 60-degree wedge, and my ball plopped into that bunker. I didn’t anticipate encountering a “sucker pin” on this simple-looking course, so naturally, I fell for it right away.
Neither birdies nor pars come easily at the six-hole short course. I did so poorly on the course with high-quality contoured greens and five holes in the 66- to 90-yard range that I called one of the area’s top golfers, Nick Kwaterski, to whine to him about my difficulties with the course and those three-quarter and half-swing shots.
“Maybe you should get an annual pass,” Kwaterski said, chuckling. I contemplated that. It might make me a lot better at those shots – or make me miserable.
Kwaterski noted that golf facilities throughout Wisconsin and nationwide have added par-3 facilities in recent years. Prior to moving back to Door County and operating a bed-and-breakfast in Sturgeon Bay, Kwaterski worked as the caddie master at world-famous Sand Valley in Nekoosa, Wisconsin.
While he was there, Sand Valley added a 17-hole, Ben Crenshaw–designed par-3 track, with greens of varying shapes and sizes cut and maintained just as well as the big course.
Kwaterski said he didn’t play the short course much, but a lot of caddies did after work. He said it wasn’t all that easy to score there, and it included challenging putting surfaces, such as a tiny, postage-stamp and double-plateau green. When there were staff tournaments there, some players came in with surprisingly high scores.
Kwaterski noted that many prestigious clubs have added extravagantly designed par-3 courses, such as Bandon Dunes’ 13-hole course in Oregon. Others built during the past 15 years or so include Threetops at Treetops Resort in Gaylord, Michigan; the private Pete and Alice Dye–designed St. Andrews at Delray Beach, Florida; Orange County National’s Tooth Course west of Orlando; 12North at Wisconsin Dells; and Big Cedar Lodge’s Top of the Rock: a mountaintop par-3 course in the Ozarks that hosted a Legends Tour tournament.
Resorts – even Pinehurst – started adding par-3 courses to give resort guests a little more to do – or to sell a few more drinks to groups that didn’t have the time or energy for another round after their first 18.
In keeping with that mountaintop theme, golfers take a tram ride from the 18-hole regulation course up to the hilltop to play Clifton Highlands in Prescott, Wisconsin, near Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Although many highly regarded par-3 courses were built after 2007, Jack Nicklaus designed Missing Links in the Grafton area in 1986. With greens and lakes tucked among berms visible from Highway 43, Nicklaus designed the course for the Cayman Islands ball: a dead ball created to limit ball flight on courses built on limited acreage.
In southern Wisconsin, northeast of Lake Geneva, a top-ranked par-3 course, Barn Hollow, has the same high-quality greens and bunkering as the five-star–rated Hawk’s View Golf Club championship course. Yours truly gave the par-3 course a try in April and found an excellent test of golf. It’s a good enough challenge that high school coaches had their teams playing and practicing on the course that particular day.