Sweetgum

Par 28

Level 3 playing from 892 – 1,592 yards

Sweetgum is one of my favorite courses to play and products to chew.  It’s circles around a large wetland and had it's greens refurbished in 2022.  With only one par four you may think it’s a glorified pitch and putt – you would be wrong.  You’ll use most the clubs in your bag!  With one of the hardest holes, one of the prettiest and with a home that looks like it’s begging for trouble, this track has all the ingredients to satisfy your sweet tooth, with far fewer calories!  It's even got a world-class stretch of holes you'll want to play over and over again - and stretching might a good thing to do after eating all these sweets! 

Lick your lips as you leave the starter shack because #1 looks really easy.  It’s flat, wide open with a level green – what a perfectly sweet appetizer to get your meal started!  #2 is longer and most likely into the prevailing wind, so you’ll need to club up.  But #3 is short enough that you may only need a half swing wedge – and sometimes that’s more challenging than hitting a full shot.  Plus, it’s tricky green slopes back toward the teebox with a pin-placement that’s most often back on the highpoint ridge.  Just like my favorite Hot Tamales candy, it only takes a little to make a taste explosion, so don’t underestimate #3!  Then move on to the hole that maxes my anxiety level - #4.  Not because of the wetlands that ride along the right, nor the large bunker that protects the front.  It’s because of a house with a glass enclosed lanai that sits just beyond the back of the green – it’s just begging me to blade an iron shot into it.  Inevitably, because I’m not immune to self-induced anxiety, I hit it short.  God help me if I ever have to hit out of that front bunker looking at that window - imagine the cavity it would leave in the window! 

Finally at #5 we get the driver out on the only par four.  (see picture below) Even better is this hole has a large waste bunker along the right just over and past the large pond.  Why is that better??  Because the first time I played here an older Villager Veteran told me you can move the ball out of the waste bunker and place it directly in the fairway – I love that rule!  It reminds me of a course in Minnesota that has a similar “Wildflower” rule where you can move the ball back to the fairway if you hit into the protected wildflowers – now I see wildflowers everywhere!  Anyway, back to #5, despite that forgiveness on the right, aim your drive down the left.  It may look longer, but the left side has no overhanging oaks to deal with – so play left and get a par!  After making that good decision, you now have to make a bad one!  Regardless of what color tees you’re playing from, you’ve got to try #6 from the blacks – you rarely have a more interesting, albeit blind approach.  Use a junk ball and a mulligan if you’re unsure.  But you’ll have a sweet story to tell after your round if you hit it from blacks!   The fun continues on the next two holes - both made my Top Holes List!  #7 (pictured above) is on my Postcard List – it’s framed by a beautiful pond on the right and a Villager’s amazingly perfect backyard gazebo left of the green – if I lived there, I would spend all day watching wannabes being mesmerized by #7 and then mocked by #8.  That’s because #8 is on my Hardest Holes List.  It’s about 170 from the gold and a whopping 198 from the black with a pond that fills the entire approach to a green guarded by two large bunkers.  It’s an easy green but getting there’s a mind-bender - there’s few par threes in the bubble more difficult than this!  Just try to remember how beautiful #7 was as you’re kicking it around on #8!  Thank goodness #9 is so simple – and like a good after-dinner dessert, it makes you look forward to the next meal – I mean golf game!  This Sweetgum is really in my head!

Toughest to Easiest:

8, 5, 2, 4, 7, 1, 3, 9, 6 – hardest green #3