Thunder Hill Golf Club, Madison, OH

This weekend while visiting family in northeast Ohio, I took advantage of the available time and played 18 holes at Thunder Hill Golf Club, probably my favorite course on the planet. I played it several times during high school golf, and always walked away disappointed with my score, yet appreciative of the terrific layout and condition of the course. The course was built by Fred Slagle, who bit-by-bit purchased farm land in Madison, Ohio, to build a golf course among other projects. My father worked at the course during the early days, and provided me with some of the history of the course. Unfortunately I was not able to write it down, as we were mid-round, but maybe sometime I can get it down on paper or find it elsewhere on the web. 

The basics of the story goes that the course was built and initially maintained by Slagle, and eventually a couple decades later it was handed over to a few management companies who ran the course up until 2007. During the late 1990's, the course underwent a significant renovation, which saw building of new tees and re-routing of several holes. Early in 2007 Todd Bishop and Kevin Laymaster took over ownership of the course, and have got it back to its pristine conditioning. Although we played on a cold fall day where leaves covered nearly all the turf, it was still easy to see the plush fairways and greens. This is not surprising, however, as the course was awarded 4.5 stars from Golf Digest for 2008-2009.

The complex also features a short course called Little Thunder, which plays around 3,200 yards. The course was designed to make golf available to youngsters, and although that it is still its focus, it appears to receive a fair amount of play from adults as well. I personally have yet to play Little Thunder, but hope to do so in the spring.

The popularity of the golf course focuses on its difficulty, which was cited by Golf Digest in 2007 during its listing of America's Toughest Golf Courses. The publication ranked Thunder Hill No. 46, joining some extremely elusive company on that list. Notably, the closest location to my home is the P.B. Dye Golf Club in Ijamsville, Md., which falls at No. 26. The course features five sets of tees, with the back tees referred to as the "Thunder Tees," which according to the scorecard "Playing the Thunder Tees may be hazardous to your golf game." The Thunder Tees play to 7,504 yards, with a rating of 78.5 and a slope of 152, both among the highest in the state of Ohio. The yellow and green tees are 6,866 and 6,436 respectively, with slopes of 74.5 and 72.5. At one point in its past the course featured just under 100 lakes, however, over 20 were removed during its most recent renovation.

One perfect example of the course's difficulty lies in one of the greens on a difficult par four on the back nine. According to credible sources, the club employed an old beat-up Volkswagen Beetle as a utility card to travel around the golf course. One day it was parked on the side of the green and simply would not start. Rather that tow the car back to the maintenance shed, the workers expanded the green to include the Beetle, which now is a very large hump in the right side of the green (see pictures to the left).

The course is very reasonably priced, with rates varying depending on time of the year as well as weekday vs. weekend, but the top rack rate is $49, and deals are to be found for those with flexible schedules or those willing to sign up for E-mail specials. I also found a cheap tee time at GolfSigma, and would highly recommend their services.