This course is pretty good as a stand-alone, but the fact that it is located in Sioux Passage Park right next to the original 18 really bumps up the interest for me. The park staff at Sioux Passage se ...
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This course is pretty good as a stand-alone, but the fact that it is located in Sioux Passage Park right next to the original 18 really bumps up the interest for me. The park staff at Sioux Passage seems to do a good job of maintaining the "Big" course and Briscoe. The designer really leveraged the elevation changes to add difficulty to the fairways and make some longer placements more scenic and difficult. There are some fast greens around a couple of the harder placements, so there is a lot of risk/reward, especially with the (currently) narrow fairways. Plan on hitting several trees during the round. You should definitely scout the fairways before throwing your drive because the thick brush hides some big drop offs and a creek along a good number of holes.
Smart golf will result in scoring well out here. In addition to some very unique holes, such as the hole 17 island green, this course already has a lot of character just by doing some little things like re-purposing down trees as benches, creatively using rocks to combat erosion around tee pads. Lastly, the course is named for the person that donated the land, so I like that they paid homage that way.
Nice that restrooms are within the park, multiple pin placements that can really up the difficulty, concrete tee pads, nice baskets, elevation changes, tight and technical, flows pretty well, easy to navigate, very creative use of open spaces, Without proper signage, someone playing this course for the first time on their own could get lost. Luckily, there is already a kiosk near hole 1 with a course map. Other than that, there is limited parking for this course, there are a lot more spaces at the original course.Some of the of the fairways are poke and hope, but I think of this as more of a positive. Had the designer cut all the trees/brush back the course/fairways would continue to erode even more quickly. By leaving the fairways a little raw, the natural erosion that comes from heavy traffic will open up the fairways just enough to be a little more fair, while maintaining a good challenge.
This course offers a great challenge, especially when played on the same day as the original course. Now that there are 36 holes in 1 place, I'd say this is the #1 top visit if you're coming to St. Louis for a weekend. Briscoe contrasts the original course beautifully. Since there isn't much shade on the original course, play Sioux Passage in the morning and the more shaded Briscoe in the afternoon. Bring water and snacks for the day, you will need it.