Travel Club - Iowa

You’ve played the course. We all have. The course begging for a tweak here or flip there. We’re all experts as golfers, especially when our ball ends up in a particularly unplayable spot. It’s not our fault… it’s the architect’s, the manager’s, the superintendent’s. “This hole could be so much better if…” and “Who in their right mind puts a tree there?”

Every summer for a decade I’ve driven back and forth, from the Twin Cities to Des Moines for business, and every year I almost drive off the road when I pass through Ankeny.

HAMILTON COUNTY, IOWA:  If you’re unfamiliar with the beauty of North Central Iowa, but interested in exploring it, I can think of few better origin points for your expedition than the Boone River Valley of Hamilton County.

Everyone is setting records. “2020 was the best (golf) year ever,” they say. “And 2021 was even better.” “Not necessarily,” Stephen Kahler of Kahler Golf Management tells me, noting the game itself was responsible for THIS boom (not just one individual – Tiger).

The opportunity is too good to pass up, and yet hundreds to thousands of people literally do it each day. It has to just gnaw at them – the golf-loving commuters anything like me.

“We had the biggest influx of Minnesota golfers last year, of any year. You could call it overflow, given how close we are to the state line, and how packed the courses up north were, but there’s also something to be said for the ‘escape factor’ we provide.

The less good things change, the more good things stay the same. “We really haven’t made many changes lately,” Head Golf Professional Curt Ingham acknowledges, (not since the massive, multi-million dollar 2009 Paul Miller renovation) and I know that, but that fact is saying something on its own.

2019 marks the 10 year anniversary of my first visit to Otter Creek – not anything for the world to celebrate, by any means, but something I marvel at, just as you might looking back on your own golf travel history.

There are five Iowa public courses every Midwest golfer should play, and the Tournament Club is absolutely one of those five. Ratings themselves are subjective, doesn’t matter which publication we’re referring to, but at one time or another every single relevant golf magazine in the world has proclaimed Arnold Palmer’s suburban swingbox one of Iowa’s very best.

Wisconsin Dells is the Water Park Capital of the World. With all of its water parks, golf courses and outdoor recreation opportunities “The Dells” is simultaneously the Activity Capital of Wisconsin. The Preserve at Honey Creek Resort is the Water Park Capital of Iowa.