Shadow Creek is ranked No. 81 by Golf Magazine in its 2020 list of the top 100 golf courses in the United States. That rank marked a slip of 20 spots from the previous year. Augusta National is ranked No. 6, Pebble Beach is No. 10.

When we finished playing Shadow Creek, Sean Walsh said if the course was on the ocean it would have been better than Pebble Beach. It’s an interesting comment that when he further explained meant that scenery counts for whole lot when ranking a golf course.

Shadow Creek was as perfectly manicured a golf course as anyone could find and it was lined with imported pine trees that made up the bulk of the scenery. I am partial to tree-lined golf courses, so that may explain why I rank Shadow Creek as the top course I’ve played. Granted, I haven’t played that many courses. Cherry Hills, where I worked part time one summer and got to play a handful of times as a perk, would rank second on my list. Cherry Hills, also a tree-lined course, is No. 100 in Golf Magazine’s top 100.

I learned, in playing Shadow Creek, that greens and fairways can only get so nice. There is a limit to the plushness of a golf course, so what has to exist to set a course apart from others has to be something else. For me, it comes down to the golf itself. What is it like to play the course?

Because Shadow Creek is such an exclusive venue, there are very few groups of golfers playing it on any given day. We didn’t see any other golfers on the course that day, until a twosome caught up to us on the last two holes. That meant the round went very fast for us, leaving little time to look around and soak it in. Chris Watson, who was part of our group that day, said he wished it would have lasted longer. He felt each hole went by so fast, the round was over too quickly.

I’d say that’s a great compliment to any golf course and I would wholeheartedly agree with him. It’s not that the pace of play was too fast, for there is no such problem in existence anywhere. It’s just that the course was that amazing, so amazing you wish you could linger as long as possible.

For me, personally, golf is a primarily visual game. I like to see a target, hit a target and keep walking. I feel like Shadow Creek allows you to have fun doing that and that is why I loved it so much. Throw in the secluded pine forest to walk within and the greenest grass you could dream of, Shadow Creek is pretty much a perfect golf course for me.

I’m getting close to running out of things I want to say about Shadow Creek, so that may be the last post I’ll offer on the subject, but it may not be. The year 2021 is beginning and it will be soon time to set the stage for another Alaskan golf season. The days are getting longer and spring will be here before we know it.