Stonebrook Golf Club

For my birthday round of golf, I got to play at Stonebrook Golf Club in Shakopee, MN (S Metro-Minneapolis). I've never played there, and we were spending part of the afternoon at Canterbury Park to watch the horse races, and this course was close by. Sunday was extremely warm (for Minnesota) so we decided to play later in the day and teed off around 5:30. By that time the sun had retreated a bit and the breeze picked up, and it really turned out to be a lovely evening. I was happy they had a full bar and I was able to get a "to-go cup" for my margarita. As a margarita connoisseur, I can't recommend it, but hey, it was nice to have even a marginal one to enjoy a hot summer afternoon on a gorgeous golf course. (I'd love to see an upgrade on the quality of mixers behind the bar!)

Stonebrook is a long course and there were two holes that it took me nine shots to finish. I did lose a ball in the woods on hole #3? but found a kitten while I was looking for it. Other wildlife seen: Blue Heron, chipmunk, regular squirrels, LOTS of frogs around the water and birds. There was a surprising absence of mosquitos, so that was nice.

This is a beautiful place to play, although the greens were a little dinged up. I made par once and hit one or two over a couple more times. Missed the ball one time, and lost two balls. The most unique and enjoyable part of the course is the ferry ride on hole 8. You hit your tee shot over the water (the womens tee is after the water) and ferry your cart to the green. Here's a course tour of each hole, and you can view hole 8 if you want to see what i'm talking about: http://www.stonebrooke.com/golf/course-tour

After the round, we headed to Gold Nugget Tavern (http://www.goldnuggettavernandgrille.com) in Minnetonka and watched both the vikings and the twins on the tv's while we had dinner and a much better margarita. All-in-all, a pretty sweet day and weekend of birthday celebrating.