Driving Home

Stonebrooke—Shakopee

Semi-private Stonebrooke’s seventeenth hole—a 600-yard par-5 with a dog-leg right and generous opportunities to get hung up in sand, trees, and all sorts of water—was ranked second in KSTP-TV’s list of the Twin Cities’ 10 Toughest Holes. Its eighth hole is also famous, says Einar Odland, of Stonebrooke. “Basically, you tee off on the north side of Lake O’Dowd, hitting across a bay—which can be a 240-yard carry—then you put your cart on a pontoon that takes you across the lake,” he says.

Both of Stonebrooke’s courses—the par-71 Championship Course and the par-30 Waters Edge—are open to the public. Annual leagues and memberships are offered for each course or for both. Membership benefits include advance tee time privileges and discounts on green fees and pro shop merchandise.

According to Odland, the Stonebrooke neighborhood development, situated among rolling terrain and natural marshes, streams, ponds, and lakes, includes seventy-five homes, only eleven of which are directly on the course. “We wanted it to feel like a golf course,” he says, “not a fairway with houses along both sides. We get complimented all the time by golfers who say it doesn’t feel like they’re golfing among wall-to-wall homes. Homeowners like that, too.”

The Wilds—Prior Lake

 We’ll always be a public course,” says Aaron Ressler, The Wilds golf pro. “But we want anyone here to feel like they’re playing a private course.”

The Wilds Golf Course, designed by Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish (who apprenticed with legendary course designer Robert Trent Jones Sr.), has one hundred and fifty feet of elevation changes, water in play on nearly half its holes, swift bentgrass fairways, and more than seventy bunkers.

Residentially, The Wilds is a planned community of luxury homes, villas, townhomes, groomed parks, and walking paths set among hills, lakes, Ponderosa pines, hardwoods, wetlands, and wildlife habitat, but also offers a view of the Minneapolis skyline.

The Wilds Clubhouse—including its restaurant, sports bar, and golf shop—is open to the public. “We want people to feel like this is their clubhouse to use,” says Ressler. “It’s a very friendly atmosphere, but also very upscale.”

The Wilds Golf Course opened in 1997, and at that time, Ressler says many of its golfers were from the corporate world. However, in the last two or three years, as home ownership at The Wilds has increased, he’s seen a big jump in tournament and juniors’ and women’s programs participation. Homeowners at The Wilds can receive significant membership discounts on green fees, clothes and equipment, and club dining.