Another convert! I'm rejoicing even as I type this. I've mentioned my thoughts (mostly negative) to good friends about URidge, and they sort of give me this "huh?" look like I'm out of my mind. Nearly 20 years after it opened to much fanfare (the University of Wisconsin had long neglected to build its own course; they brought in RTJ Jr.; they obtained a nice piece of land, blah blah), I still don't get the appeal of this place.
Sometimes you run across courses that are more than the sum of their parts -- no particular holes stand out, but the totality of all 18 makes for an enjoyable round. URidge is the exact opposite of this -- it's full of holes with a great deal of individual merit (some are among the best in the area), but the overall experience of the round is less than it ought to be.
The reasons, many of which Brad touches on, are several-fold: the routing is poor, particularly the front nine; pace of play (related to routing, as Brad mentions) is almost always abysmal; its overly penal in parts (meaning, the difference between being in an ideal position and dead is often very small, as in less than 10-15 yards in some cases); it's a pain to walk (the course literally screams "better take a cart!" -- it's a pretty rugged piece of land in parts, with some severe up and down walks, and there are several long green-to-tee walks). The course employs rangers (in carts!), but I've never seen them do anything other that sit there and chat up golfers; I once played behind a group playing off the very tips and watched golfer after golfer barely elevate their tee shots and struggle to make the fairway (OK, that's my game, but at least I play off the shorter tees). I asked a ranger about the foursome, and he just sort of shrugged his shoulders.
But that's just poor operational details. The real problem is the course never does flow very well, at least not until the back nine. No. 1 is an OK opener, although tighter than it looks (left into the woods is also lost-ball territory) and it catches unsuspecting golfers.
No. 2 is awful, in my view. Let's say you clear the creek on your tee shot (not an onerous shot, if playing off correct tees). The choice is a really long second into a green surrounded by trouble, or a layup that requires the golfer to turn 90 degrees to the right, and it sort of looks like a mid-iron layup, because the fairway to the right just dead-ends into the woods. Of course, that's an awkward and stupid shot for most folks on a par 5, so many try to thread their ball into a tiny patch of fairway located between the two field-goal trees left of the green. Which, is a really hard shot to pull off, and often leads to yanks left into the tall grass, shots into a deep ravine short, or even wayward slices right into the woods. All of these decisions, and the penal nature of the green surrounds, makes for a hole that I guarantee takes an average of 20-25 minutes to play, from the time you step on the tee to the time you leave the green. It's a poor hole, and an absolutely awful one for pace-of-play reasons at that point in the round.
No. 3 I think is a very good par 3, but again poorly placed in the routing. It's a bitch of a hole, with a green as Brad mentions much shallower than the diagram. Long waits here on the tee, often two groups deep (this is where the rangers sit and chat up golfers).
No. 4 is a hole where the difference between a good ball and one that lands in jail is razor thin; the fall-off into the ravine to the right is STEEP and immediate. I actually think a semi-rationale play here is to aim into the trees left, hope you don't get stuck behind one, punch out in front of the green, and chip and putt your way to a par/bogey. From the back tees (set way down in the wetlands), this hole is almost over-the-top hard; from the shorter tees (played at @ 340-375 yards), it would make for a good match-play hole later in the round, because it does have a risk/reward element to it. But again, it's poorly placed in the rotation for pace-of-play reasons.
George:
The next hole, 5, is a medium-length par 3 that's pretty simple. But the one after that, 6, is a real slog of a par 5, well over 550 yards, almost always back into the wind, with a cape-like tee shot over a pond, and a massive, deep bunker left that runs alongside the fairway left as you approach the green. I once played it driver, 3-wood, 3-wood and didn't get to the green. Another hole that leads to a long round.
Dan:
Mowing might help some, but not enough to mitigate many of the pace-of-play concerns raised by Brad. I think they like "the look" of the tall grass too much to mow it down.
The course does improve, IMO, on the back nine, which is cut through some woods. The 10th is a lovely hole, with a nice wide ribbon of fairway surrounded by woods, and there are a couple of good risk/reward par 4s out there. It also ends very nicely (after the whacky par 5 16th -- split fairways, dozens of pot bunkers fronting the green, that sort of thing; and the boring par 3 17th with an elevated tee over a pond, something I'd never, ever seen on a golf course before playing URidge) with a strong, doglegging, uphill par 4 18th to a narrow but very deep green.
Brad's probably correct; flipping the nines would almost surely improve the pace of play, but I'm not sure the folks at URidge pay enough attention to that kind of stuff to make a change. A few years ago, there was talk of adding another 18-hole course nearby (the university has the land). I had hopes the university would hire someone unconventional to design the course. But golf in this area is generally thought to be built out, and they have put those plans semi-permanently on the back burner.
URidge -- a great opportunity missed.