Getting To Know: Woodlands Golf Course By Brian Weis

Getting To Know: Woodlands Golf Course

An Insightful Interview With Joshua Willis, Director of Golf Operations

By Brian Weis

Whether you have played a course 20+ times a year or looking to play the course for the first time, insights from an insider can help enhance your golf experience. Below is an interview with Joshua Willis who shares some valuable tidbits about the course, memorable holes and must eats and treats at the 19th.

Give Our Readers An Overview of the Golf Course/Property
As one of the Pacific Northwest's finest championship courses, Woodlands is praised for its superb conditioning and beautiful setting. With an abundance of water and outcroppings of lava rock, shot accuracy is a fun and exciting challenge. Woodlands helped Sunriver Resort earn accolades from Golf Magazine as their Gold Medal Award-Winning Resort.

What Tips or Local Knowledge Would You Provide To Help Them Score Better At Your Course?
A 3 wood or long iron off of the tee is often a better option as the rough at the Woodlands can sneak up on you and be very troublesome

Recent Awards or What You Are Most Proud About The Course?
Over the past four years we have replaced all of our greens to new Bentgrass greens. The greens are in great shape and rolling true

What Is The Signature, Most Talked About, or Most Photographed Hole?
We have a few holes that are talked about quite often. Typical to Robert Trent Jones Jr design there are some obstructions (trees) that can cause some headache if you are not familiar with the course. On holes 8 and 9 you will find a tree in each fairway that are good targets but may force you to be a little more creative on your second shot.

What Is Your Favorite Hole? Any Tips to Play It?
My favorite hole is hole #17. It is a tough par 3 with water on 3 sides and a bunker in front. It requires a high approach shot into the green.

Must Have Dish or Drink after the round at the 19th Hole?
McDivot's café has a great menu but a must try is an order of deep fried green beans.

Who Holds Course Record and What Was Their Score?
To the best of my knowledge the course record is a 62 shot by a young man in the Central Oregon Junior Golf Association tournament of champions named Andrew Vajaro.

Back Tee Stats
Par: 72
Yardage: 6947
Slope: 142
Rating: 73.4

More Information
Woodlands Golf Course
17600 Center Drive
Sunriver OR, 97707
1-800-801-8765 or 541-593-4402

www.sunriver-resort.com/golf/oregon-golf-course-woodlands

Revised: 09/26/2014 - Article Viewed 35,292 Times - View Course Profile

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.