You ever have just “one of those rounds…”?

A round that almost makes you want to take your sticks and bury them in the sticks. 

Some place no one will ever find them.

Except for maybe the Golf Gods… whose cruel sense of humor has you coming back to this game like a fiend looking for a fix.

Well for me, that round was over this past summer at TimberStone Golf Course in Iron Mountain, Michigan. 

And I want to be VERY CLEAR… the course is AMAZING!!!

It’s BREATHTAKING…

AN ABSOLUTELY STUNNING ACHIEVEMENT in course design… 

A design that is so perfectly and meticulously etched into the U.P.’s Pine Mountain… that one might think Pan himself helped create it.

Instead, it turns out to be one of Jerry Matthew’s best works.

TimberStone is 18 holes of pure beauty and utter chaos… much like a Greek Tragedy.

But the only tragedy on this beautiful summer’s eve, during our epic U.P. Golf Odyssey to The Island Resort & Casino… was my golf game.

Let me set the stage.

I was playing out of my mind on Day 1!

A 78 at Sage Run…  

Followed by a 76 at Sweetgrass.

And boy was it SWEET just taking it to Brian and Paul! SOOOOOO SWEET!!!

Maybe a little too sweet. Because when you start tasting the nectar of the Golf Gods… you begin to think you belong in Olympus with them. You become seduced by the Sirens’ trickeration… 

The thoughts that they sing in your mind…

“You’ve got this golf game figured out. You are so good!”

And if Sage Run and Sweetgrass were my Sirens… then TimberStone was my Sea Cave.

Again, I can’t state enough how gorgeous the course is. It’s beautifully maintained and such a fun layout. But I got in my head SOOOO BAD.

Which stinks because it started out SO GOOD.

A par on the first hole… a short par-4 where my 3-wood put me just off the front of the green.

And then pars on the next two holes. Both fairly straightforward par-4’s. The key word being STRAIGHT. Because if you can hit the ball straight at TimberStone, you can shoot lower than Hades (sorry, I’m in a Greek Mythology mood).

But unfortunately… those damn Sirens played to my ego. They sucked me into their cave of false confidence. They made me feel like I could tame TimberStone, and TimberStone had other plans.

After these first 3 amazing holes, the ship began to shake. 

A double on a routine par-3..

Finding the water on 5…

Then again on 6…

And after that… I joined Pan in his woods for the rest of the round.

After starting even through 3, I finished with a 90 that felt like 290.

But I gotta tell ya… I can’t wait to go back. The challenge that TimberStone presents is truly enjoyable in a weird “stepping on Legos with your bare feet” kind of way.

I mean, some of the holes are just so unique and so amazing that it’s hard to write a sonnet about them.

Take for instance the par-3 17th and par-5 18th holes.

The former featuring a 110-foot vertical drop, into an hourglass-shaped green. Which is fitting because I could spend hours admiring its beauty,

And then you finish your round with another massively elevated tee box on 18. Giving you a stunning view of the property and featuring a two-tiered fairway, split by rocks with an approach shot into a narrow green that has water in front. Honestly the 18th hole encapsulates the entire course: Beauty surrounded by danger surrounded by more beauty surrounded by more danger.

Overall, TimberStone was one of the more challenging golf courses I have ever played and, in hindsight, that’s honestly what made the round so fun. Golf is a perfectly imperfect game, and sometimes you need a course like the one nestled into Pine Mountain to keep you humble, keep you working and keep you coming back for more.

Because I will tell you this… I want another crack at this SOB!!! And next time, I will be King of the Mountain!