I had been planning a trip to Sweetens Cove in Tennessee for months… After contacting the course, I was thrilled to learn I could lug my travel trailer down there and set-up camp in their parking lot for the weekend. (For Free!) Booking their $100 for all-day-play for Saturday, we had the makings of a cheap weekend filled with awesome golf. It was perfect.

Then spring showers decided THEY would camp at Sweetens, not us. Friday arrived and we had to call an audible. Memphis maybe? Go to Wisconsin?? Looking to the West, the weather was tracking to be 20 degrees warmer and sunny. St. Louis was only 3.5 hours away. That kinda freed up some time to get set-up Friday night somewhere, get home earlier on Sunday. So the die was cast, the call was made. We scrapped Sweetens.

We didn’t do ourselves bad though; we found some fantastic golf and we kept within earshot of our original pricing. Accidentally St. Louis was a great way to spend the weekend.

Our first round was at Pevely Farms in Eureka, MO, just southwest of downtown. An Arthur Hills course, with rolling hills everywhere and zoysia fairways, it was top-notch golf experience. I’ve played A. Hills’ courses before, and a theme I expected was dog-legs/blind landing areas. This was a little different. There are really very few flat spots out there, and this lends itself to a ton of great looking elevations on your tee ball or your approach shots. I love hill golf, even if it doesn’t love me back all the time. We played the blues (with a few stops to the black tees to see a better looking tee shot) and it was a solid test. The drivable par-4 third hole is a fun test and the par-3 fifth hole was stout at 185 yds into the wind.

The par-5 twelfth is a wonderful hole wandering down the hill and around the bend to a tucked green. The par-4 thirteenth is a great position hole with the remnants of a stone bridge deftly left on the course by Hill.

We played just down the road for our next 18 at Aberdeen Golf Club which is a Gary Kern course on markedly different ground than our morning round. Both courses are influenced by the Meramec River, this course being the bottom ground much closer to the water. When you roll around the bend from Pevely, you are kinda struck by how open and barren it seems. There are only about 10 trees in play around the course and you can immediately recognize the scottish-links styling. It was a fun gearshift from the hills; the wind was a bigger influence as you might expect. They have zoysia fairways here too, but the vibe is more about the ground game. This was April golf, and they’d had rain for days before, so we lamented not seeing this place in its later-season glory, bouncy and drier like something British. (That would be better for sure). There are shared greens, some sod-faced bunkers and some local knowledge will help you steer tee shots better. It was a fun romp. The par-5 sixth stands out for fun, strategy and can offer a birdie chance. Both nines finish well, as nine and eighteen share a green and skirt the same lake, both tee boxes guarded by an ancient sycamore tree standing by like a sentry. Neat touch.

Our trip was capped Sunday morning with a round at Annbriar Golf Course near Waterloo, IL. The course routinely gets accolades from Golf Advisor and Golf Digest. It’s a Michael Hurdzan design and in many ways, it’s a stunner. Not as hilly (outright anyway) as the ground for Pevely, but by moving around some ground, the course does a great job of weaving around the mounding and elevation. The front 9 has a bit more muted feel, as the holes march thru mounds. The stretch of 6-7-8 is solid, with the brute par-4 eighth asking a for a deep tee ball and long approach, Par is a good score. This all sets you up for the dramatic back nine. Starting with the eleventh (clearly one of those holes the architect just “found”) as it’s a gorgeous tee shot down to a fairway the swoops to the right with the creek. This kicks off a stretch of holes that move back and forth across chasms and elevation changes. We played more than a few back tees here too so we could take it all in. Annbriar reminds me a bit of The Fort in Indy, but it’s better and I’d play it a ton if it was nearby.

We were whipped by the time we wrapped 18 on Annbriar. Including the “emergency 9” we did at Aberdeen the day before, we were north of 50 holes of golf in 36 hours. Factor in way too many cigars and booze, it being only April, and you have a recipe for tired men who kinda dreaded driving home for three hours. Oh well, it was worth it. We made some great memories and can firmly attest that SLU has first-class golf chops, so bring your clubs next time you go.

FIELD NOTES: I was breaking in my new irons, Mizuno JPX tour/forged combo set. They rock. We camped north of Highland, IL, off I-70 and ate dinner in town Friday. Pevely was $70 and Aberdeen was $40, so the switch to St. Louis had only bumped us about $10 from Sweetens. Annbriar was a steal at $40, which was what we were going to spend at Sewanee if we had kept the TN trip. All the courses had zoysia, which I love; they were still a little dormant, but they played fine. All the greens were bumpy and hard to get figured out; it added a bit to our scores. They had had a lot of rain, so I have to give the courses the benefit of the doubt because they were battling. One item that seems worth noting was the rough at Annbriar. It was U.S Open penal, punch-out and hope rough; it bordered on unfair. I hope they mow it closer when it’s drier. Otherwise, you better be keeping it on the short stuff because I got my ass kicked more than few times when I didn’t. That course is too good in every other aspect to need or use rough like that. My opinion. Aberdeen stacks back-to-back Par 5s on the front nine and it’s a horrible idea. We waited 20 minutes; they need to make one a par 4 by shortening it and get play moving.