great MB golf courses - Minnedosa and Neepawa

On Friday, my foursome made the two-hour trek out to Minnedosa, teeing off around 8 am. We had heard good things about both Minnedosa and Neepawa's golf courses, but always seem to skip them in our weekly golf outing.

Minnedosa was fairly busy so I felt a bit rushed. Not having local knowledge, sometimes I ended up shooting the ball is less-desireable areas in many of the blind shots that I made. It's full of elevated tee boxes and greens that you would be wise to read from multiple angles in order to have a chance to read. The course design is such that it doesn't appear to be, say, 30 years old. It has a new-ish feel.

Neepawa is also full of elevated tee boxes, and some elevated greens, one very elevated. This course feels narrower and isn't as wide open as Minnedosa. Some the holes and overall scenery reminded me of Morden's Minnewasta course, one of my favorites. I'm pretty sure Neepawa was a 9-hole course that was expanded to 18, so some of the holes feel older, with smaller greens.

Overall, both are very challenging courses that we will add to our list of places to play once a year. If you're a golfer looking for some place to play outside of Winnipeg, try these courses.

My hubby and I have golfed both of these and agree, they are very challenging and some of the best little known in the province. We also just played the Pinawa course a few weeks ago and I fell in love with it. We have also played Granite Hills and although it is pretty, IMO it is not as nice as Pinawa yet. Pinawa has a mature feel to it that Granite Hills hasn't reached but I am sure in time it will. We will go to Granite Hills later this month on our vacation so it maybe my opinion will be a bit different.

A great little par-3 course is Crescent Drive.
Great for the beginner...or for someone who needs to work on their chip & putt game.

Speaking of which...I'm hosting a golf tournament there on July 18th if anyone wants to join...just PM me.

holly golightly wrote:My hubby and I have golfed both of these and agree, they are very challenging and some of the best little known in the province. We also just played the Pinawa course a few weeks ago and I fell in love with it. We have also played Granite Hills and although it is pretty, IMO it is not as nice as Pinawa yet. Pinawa has a mature feel to it that Granite Hills hasn't reached but I am sure in time it will. We will go to Granite Hills later this month on our vacation so it maybe my opinion will be a bit different.

I agree with you about Pinawa and Granite Hills. Granite Hills also seems to be a bit too packed. I've always spent too much time waiting. One round took us 6 hours, no joke.
My challenge this year is to play both of them in one day. Or play one of them twice. If we can do Minnedosa and Neepawa in one day, teeing off at 8 am, I hope we can do Pinawa/Granite Hills between 8 am and, say, 6 pm.

It would be nice if they could open up the rough in Granite Hills a bit more. It's a longer course than Pinawa, so a little more forgiveness off the tee might help rounds go quicker. A beautiful course though. I am partial to Pinawa, being my home course and all, but I have to acknowledge the excellent job they did with Granite. It has potential to be the nicest in the province.

Buffalo Point in also quite nice. Worth the drive, maybe once a summer.

I would rather shoot myself in the head than golf Cresent Dr again. A 6 hr round on a par 27 course? No thanks ...

cherenkov wrote:It would be nice if they could open up the rough in Granite Hills a bit more. It's a longer course than Pinawa, so a little more forgiveness off the tee might help rounds go quicker. A beautiful course though. I am partial to Pinawa, being my home course and all, but I have to acknowledge the excellent job they did with Granite. It has potential to be the nicest in the province.

Buffalo Point in also quite nice. Worth the drive, maybe once a summer.

I would rather shoot myself in the head than golf Cresent Dr again. A 6 hr round on a par 27 course? No thanks ...

Buffalo Point is nice. I played two rounds there recently. I only wish they had put more holes along the water.
How is it even possible to play 9 holes on Crescent Drive in 6 hours? Were you playing it twice? I would have left. I played Wildewood for the first time last week. Its not too bad. Nice and quiet when we played. Have you tried it?

Have not tried Wildewood, no. Is it public?

Crescent was just painfully slow. Nobody can golf, and nobody waves up the group behind on the par 3s. Maybe it was closer to 5 hours, but either way it was really bad. Harbour View is not a bad par 27. A little more variety in the holes, at least.

6 hours?
You must've picked the WORST day.

Our whole tournament is scheduled to start at 2pm, and be serving dinner to the last group off by 6pm.

If I was allowed to do a "shotgun start" for it...we'd be off by 4pm.

cherenkov wrote:Have not tried Wildewood, no. Is it public?

Crescent was just painfully slow. Nobody can golf, and nobody waves up the group behind on the par 3s. Maybe it was closer to 5 hours, but either way it was really bad. Harbour View is not a bad par 27. A little more variety in the holes, at least.

Wildewood is private or semi, but for $30 you can do 18. Worth it, just to play it once and not have to play the nearby Crescent Dr.
I've never tried Harbour View. I may check it out but not if it's another super-busy course. Generally speaking, my foursome prefers to drive between 1 and 2 hours out of the city to the country courses where the pace is slower and you can golf without being rushed or without having to wait much, if at all. Later this month, I think we will do Winkler in the am then Morden after lunch. This Friday, it's Portage.

Anyone compare the cost to golf in/around Winnipeg to Calgary? Toronto? Vancouver?

Seems to me the numbers posted here are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!

I'd also heard that Winnipeg has more golf courses per capita than other Canadian cities? This true? This mean anything?

Depending on the time of day, golf in Vancouver can be comparable to Winnipeg. But saying that Winnipeg has some of the cheapest course costs but you also get what you pay for. Hubby and I were in Vancouver a couple of years ago and did an early morning round at a course in North Vancouver called Northlands. Very young course, under 15 years, tee off at 7:45AM paid $100.00 for 2 with cart. Absolutely worth the money as far as course condition, management, sights and difficulty. We also played Peace Portal for 60.00 for the 2 of us with cart and although it wasn't as pretty as Northlands, still very pretty. Peace Portal is the course that Happy Gilmore was shot at although we did the par 72 and Happy Gilmore was shot on the par 27 9 hole course.
We have golfed in Jasper for 95.00 per person with cart twilight round. Absolutely amazing course, not compares to it here in Manitoba. One thing I can say about Manitoba courses is they are hard pressed to compare to courses in the mountains so that is not fair. The other is the type of terrain that Manitoba courses have to build upon makes it difficult. Yes we may have some beautiful courses here but nothing can compare to a view of a 6 point elk on the tee box with a mountain range in the background on a warm summer evening. Priceless.
We are off to the Mount Rushmore area in a couple of weeks for a golf/hiking/biking vacation so will let you know what the courses are like there. Hubby is at River Oaks today and he said that some of the greens are not that great, damaged from the spring flood but other than that not too terribly bad for $30.00.

grumpy old man wrote:Anyone compare the cost to golf in/around Winnipeg to Calgary? Toronto? Vancouver?

Seems to me the numbers posted here are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!

I'd also heard that Winnipeg has more golf courses per capita than other Canadian cities? This true? This mean anything?

There's some website that shows you how many courses each province has and I do know that SK has more than we do, and they are close to us in pop.

My question was not one of quality (although there is that element) rather it was one of quantity and one of price.

Well you can say that Manitoba has some of the cheapest courses in the country but again you get what you pay for. If you are looking at price point only then yes we are one of, it not, the cheapest. As far as the quantity of courses, for the Winnipeg (and surrounding area of local municipalities) we do have the most courses per capita but I am not sure what criteria they use. If you look at a few of the websites Winnipeg has as fews as 15 courses to as many as 25, depending on the criteria. so if it is just City limits it is 15 and for variation it lists Kingwood in Lasalle as a city course as well as Victoria Beach (and that's because they have a Winnipeg mailing address).

Cheapest golf ever, all-day, all you can golf with a shared power cart, $37 or so, at La Verendrye, home of the par 6.
You can do three rounds (or four) in a day, easily, so that's just over $12 to play 18 holes, with a cart.
The course is fairly flat and wide open, but still quite enjoyable and tough when the wind picks up. Anyone know of a better deal?

Our most expensive course is probably Bridges: $66 on the weekend including cart. If that's as bad as it gets, that's pretty good.

Trini: you're a lucky person to have a weekly golf outing like that. I would love to get out once a week.

cherenkov wrote:Our most expensive course is probably Bridges: $66 on the weekend including cart. If that's as bad as it gets, that's pretty good.

Trini: you're a lucky person to have a weekly golf outing like that. I would love to get out once a week.

Every other Friday we play 2 rounds, either on the same course or two nearby courses. The other Fridays, we play one round.
I'm the course booker and each Friday, it's a different course. There's more than enough courses to not have to play the same one on another Friday. Best of all, my game is better than ever. I'm driving the ball dead straight, usually and scoring better than ever.

Handicap?

grumpy old man wrote:Handicap?

Not positive, something in the 20s I think.

I have golfed Bridges and $47.00 - 49.00 to walk that course is a bit steep considering it is now the beginning of July and they were still using temp tee boxes 10 days ago. And for the distance that someone from the city has to drive, the price is a bit up there. One of the reasons we decided to drop our membership at Teulon this year was they increased their membership fee discount and did not take into account how many of their members were from the city. They lost about 10% of their membership because of this.

holly golightly wrote:I have golfed Bridges and $47.00 - 49.00 to walk that course is a bit steep considering it is now the beginning of July and they were still using temp tee boxes 10 days ago. And for the distance that someone from the city has to drive, the price is a bit up there.

I only golf Bridges when there is special on in the fall or spring...it's way too expensive otherwise.

holly golightly wrote:One of the reasons we decided to drop our membership at Teulon this year was they increased their membership fee discount and did not take into account how many of their members were from the city. They lost about 10% of their membership because of this.

They "...increased their membership fee discount...," or increased their membership fees? Discounts are a good thing, IMHO. Mind you, costs do go up and so should fees, sometimes.

Hey...next time you shoot well...you can interview yourself like this:

holly golightly wrote: One of the reasons we decided to drop our membership at Teulon this year was they increased their membership fee discount and did not take into account how many of their members were from the city. They lost about 10% of their membership because of this.

I like to walk when I play a course where I have never played before.
Is Teulon hilly or can I walk it?
What week-day is a good day to play (since I am not a good player) ?
Thanks

Teulon is as walkable. Not hilly at all, and walks between holes are not especially long.

Agreed, Teulon is very walkable. I think the longest walk between holes is similar to that of a par 3.
As for the membership discount, for the first two years if you purchased your membership before April 1st, you were given a discount of $250.00 per main member and $100.00 per additional member so we had a discount of $350.00. This year the discount was $100.00 for both members. Quite a significant difference in incentive. And they raised the family price by more than 200.00 As well, they have raised their green fees. $30.00 for weekday and $35.00 for weekends is pretty steep for this course location. But they can garner this because the next closest course is Inwood or Netley Creek. There were other circumstances as to why we did not renew but these were the main ones.