Course Review – St. Albans, Missouri

St. Albans (Blacks)
6678 yards – 72.5 Rating – 139 Slope – 83 Score
Day 38; May  28th, 2017*

*If this date sound familiar (like maybe you read the same one yesterday), it is.  Missouri was originally scheduled to be day 10, but was flooded out and was part of a double header of Illinois/Missouri on the 28th (busy day!).

 

The only appropriate way to start my review of St Albans is to begin with the weather.  We were rained (lightning’ed) out a few weeks back and this was a makeup round.  We were supposed to tee it up yesterday at 3:00pm; but, you guessed it… rain and lightning (back to back storms to be specific).  As we sat in the parking lot yesterday, looking at standing water on 18 in multiple places we wondered how we’d be able to play in the morning.

The answer to that “how” comes in two parts, 1. The course clearly drains very well and 2. The grounds crew deserves all of the accolades that I don’t have space to provide here.  In addition to being water free (after a night when the storms persisted for almost the duration), the course was in fantastic condition.  This was additionally impressive as the track had hosted a tournament the day before.  Long story made short, great work is being done on this course.

Also of historical interest as you play, Tavern Creek has multiple civil-war era grave sites, carefully preserved, located throughout the course.

 

To the golf itself; St Albans Tavern Creek course is chuck-full of absolutely beautiful holes.  It has multiple elevated tee boxes and a creek that runs through the course touching no less than 12 holes by my count.  One of the things I really liked was the fact that there is a good variety of design elements.  One hole might have a generous landing area, but perhaps be a touch longer and have a smaller green; while the next puts a premium on accuracy by way of a rather narrow fairway.

As the member (playing as a single) who played through me said “this is a shot maker’s course;” and, while quite scenic, one should not let their guard down.  At nearly 6700 yards and playing to a 139 slope (72.5 rating) from the blacks, there is plenty of “test” in this track.   Most of the par 3’s, for example, require firing into greens run away from you at an angle rather than straight on, magnifying consequences for a errant shot.  The last two, despite help from elevated tee boxes, require a good 200 yards of carry to avoid water.  My “shot of the day” tee shot on #14 needed 240 yards to get pin high on the green (you can see me lining up my unsuccessful birdie putt in the gallery at the bottom of the page).

No sand is wasted on the course as bunkers are placed strategically to either keep players honest or serve as bailout areas for aggressive shots  (the possibly driveable – for someone with bigger sticks than me – 15th, two pictures above, is a great example).  The creek and ponds are used similarly throughout the course (minus the “bail-out” aspect, of course).  Both the fairways and greens are in great shape and are as well conceived as they are maintained.

My favorite hole was probably the par 4 7^th, which has a very strong dog leg (perhaps over 45 degrees) really requiring well over 200 off the tee from either of the back boxes (I was playing from the back and wasn’t even in the ball park when I hit my 5 iron a little thick, it was essentially a par 5 for me at that point).  You can probably cut the corner if you are feeling a bit chippy. I wasn’t, so I can’t speak to the odds of success on that.

As a private club, most of the people playing the course know it quite well and the pace of play was brisk both in front and behind me (I was playing as a single).  The staff was quite busy with a tournament on the other course and members actively engaging them, yet they were very attentive to our needs (especially last night when they went way above and beyond helping us scout the weather etc.).  Sometimes at private clubs you are left feeling like an outsider or an inconvenience, my experience at St Albans was absolutely the opposite.

I really enjoyed my morning at St Albans and would certainly recommend the course to anyone who gets the chance to play.