Before Alex Beach won the 2019 PGA Professional Championship, and before he qualified for his fourth PGA Championship , he was just a kid, growing up and learning the game at Loggers Trail Golf Course in Stillwater, Minn.
It also — cue the subject of this story — has an island green on the practice range that’s surrounded by water, a la TPC Sawgrass’ iconic par-3 17th, which it’s modeled after.
They exist — Bayonne has something similar and a handful of other notable courses do, too — but the first time I ever saw one was when I played Loggers Trail last month.
Sure, it’s exciting and a nice conversation piece, but I was blown away by how it made me focus.
You want pressure? Try rinsing two in a row and then blading one into the wood paneling, a spectacle that draws stares from the local high school girls golf team practicing nearby.
I can aim at a pin and hit it relatively close and watch the ball trickle off a slope, but it registers differently when a decent shot barely misses and plunks for all to see and hear.
“I think it’s more fun to play at a course like that where the amateur golfer can rip a couple over the pond onto the green, but to also have the golfer who is out there trying to get better to be able to practice with it and focus.
Loggers Trail wasn’t the primary course where Beach’s Stillwater Area High School boys golf team practiced, but he was often there on his own time.
“It helps you kind of dial in a little more,” Lawrence says.