Spirit Hollow - Iowa - USA

Occupying a 400-acre property in the Mississippi River Valley that was previously used as a cattle ranch, Spirit Hollow Golf Course lies a mere 10-minute drive southwest of downtown Burlington, close to the Southeast Iowa regional airport.

Owner Randy Winegard had a vision for the golf facility when he acquired it back in 1991 but it took the experience of architect Rick Jacobsen to transform the dream into reality, laying the course out in two circuits, with the front nine routed around a residential development and the back nine through a rugged landscape of rocky outcrops, mature oak trees and flowing streams.

Grassed with bent grass tees, fairways and greens, the layout stretches across varied terrain, with continuous elevation changes experienced from start to finish and natural creeks coming into play at more than half the holes on the scorecard.

The fairways are configured as two returning nines, with demanding par fours identified as the toughest hole on each circuit: the green for the 445-yard 6th (stroke index 1) is pond-protected to the front of the putting surface and the 480-yard 13th (stroke index 2) doglegs right to a green that slopes way towards the clubhouse.