I travel from Minnesota to play the Harvester almost every spring and fall. It is wonderful rolling land and in my view has sixteen solid to very good holes. It generally plays pretty firm unless there has been a lot of rain.
Probably the strength of the course is its par threes and par fives. These pictures are from its website
www.harvestergolf.com. Unfortunately, the pictures do little justice to the course.
Par Threes -
3rd - 150-190 to a big green with water in front and on both sides.
The prevailing wind blows right to left and helping. There is a spine running down the center of the green, which slopes sharply to the left side. When the pin is left, if you bail out right, two putting is very difficult.
8th
The 8th is around 200 yards into the prevailing wind protected by a bunker front left and a green that slopes sharply to the right. One needs to hit it straight, control trajectory and understand that a miss right is much better than left.
14th:
My favorite of the group on land that is not unique. Prevailing wind helps from the right. Green is divided into two sections with the rear portion lower than the front. Plays from two different angles.
17th
Cape type green that plays from a variety of angles.
The par fives are also very good. The 3rd is pretty long with a nice green with a generally left to right slope that can be used to get an approach close. The 15th is a brute that plays up to 650 yards uphill directly into the prevailing wind. The green sits about 40 feet above the fairway and, when you cannot feel the wind that is blowing at you can be difficult to judge.
The other two are reachable and for me more enjoyable. The sixth plays into the prevailing wind but is significantly downhill so there is an opportunity to reach it on a relatively calm day.
If one lays up with the second, he must make the choice between the extremes of an aggressive shot leaving a short pitch or a very safe one leaving a 140-160 yard shot into a green protected by water in front and tall grass in back.
The 18th seems horseshoe in shape when you are playing:
There are a lot of options off the tee. A drive near the water leaves a chance to reach the green. A safer shot with a driver is left of the bunker to a fairway that is about 5 feet higher than the right side.
Regardless of the tee shot, you must make a decision with the second. Out of the bunker or rough, the carry to the island layup area can be a challenge. From a good lie on the right side, one can go for the green, hit a wood close to the green or a short iron to the layup area. Within the different areas, one can made choices about aggressiveness.
Most of the par fours are good, but none stand out to me as particularly outstanding. In my view, the two weak holes, on the course are the fifth, which is a short par four that has an extremely wide and a strangely huge green for reasons I cannot decipher. The hole could be vastly improved if it were turned into a driveable par four that was very tight in the area where one would hit a driver.
The other weak hole is the fifteenth, which is about 450 yards, downhill and usually downwind. Unfortunately, the goofy nature of the tee shot overshadows a terrific green that slopes away from a front right bunker.
The fairway runs fairly flat to within 200 yards of the green, then drops via a terrace to a 25 yard deep flat spot in driver range that ends abruptly in a creek. As far as I can tell, whether the drive goes in the creek or stays in the fairway is entirely random.
If the choice of driver could be made more inviting, I think this could be a terriffic hole.