Outstanding pictures here (amongst the many of Kingsley on this site) that has me fondly remembering my round there earlier this summer.
If I may, just a few thoughts on some things that others have touched on. While I’ve only had the opportunity to play there just the one time, I was extremely fortunate to be paired up with Mr. DeVries as my host for the round. No doubt this allowed me to soak in a little more of the course on just one play than one might normally be able to. Also, Mike was an excellent host and within just a hole or two could judge my game accordingly and gave me great lines off the tee and into the greens.
As others have mentioned here, the green sites are simply outstanding, and moving pins to different sections of a green can make for a completely different play and strategy day to day (3, 5, 9, and 13 immediately come into mind.)
On #9, we did play the South Tee/West Pin combination that Sven referenced (and when I say west, I mean WAY west, the flag was probably no more than 3-4 steps off the left edge. Very cool shot indeed.) Mike intentionally had us play from over there even though the course was set up for the West tees that day. To give a great example of how a GIR doesn’t necessarily mean a par is imminent: Mike hit an iron shot to the right hand portion of the green and probably 2/3rds of the way onto the surface (he was almost immediately bemoaning his shot knowing what was coming up.) I slightly pulled my iron and left myself just left of the far left bunker, a bit short of the green, but with a fairly simply lob wedge shot. Because of the ridge and back to front slope on the west portion of the green, Mike had to aim his putt left of the hole, on a strong right to left breaking putt, just to keep it from picking up speed and likely going down into the bunker. Even then it still ended in the fringe, with maybe 12’ left for par. I hit my lofted wedge up to the surface for a fairly basic 5’ par putt - which I promptly missed of course!
Absolutely loved the stretch from 12-16 and the contrast it provides to the wide open feeling of the south 40. I know most of the crowd here favors the front overall but there is an awful lot of fun and challenge in this five hole stretch (it didn’t hurt that I made kick-in birdies on 13 and 14!)
In terms of playing conditions, the area had received about 1.5” of rain over the prior 24 hour period, and the course still played very nicely. Certainly more ball marks were made on the greens than normal, but you could still play some bump and run around the greens and tee balls had a little run out on them.
Overall a wonderful experience and I could certainly see why people love the place so much. And big thanks to the staff there for sending a Christmas card to my home, it helped re-ignite a discussion with my better half on whether a membership could be in my future….