Course Comparisons / Kentucky

Cherry Blossom Golf Club vs. Canewood Golf Course: The Georgetown Choice

Georgetown, Kentucky is not a big town, and it supports two courses that golfers from Lexington genuinely drive north to argue about. Cherry Blossom has the trophies. Canewood has Elkhorn Creek and a clubhouse older than the republic's second century. Both are par 72, both are built through residential communities in Scott County bluegrass country, and both cost a working golfer a reasonable day's money. This is the rare head to head where the choice is actually hard, which is what makes it worth writing.

Cherry Blossom Golf Club

Cherry Blossom is a Clyde Johnston design, the centerpiece of the Cherry Blossom Village community, opened in 2001 per LINKS Magazine, and it carries the strongest public golf résumé in this part of Kentucky. Golf Magazine named it the No. 1 public course in Kentucky for seven straight years, 2004 to 2010, per club summaries. Streaks like that do not happen by accident in a state with real competition.

The numbers describe an efficient test. Par 72 at 6,866 yards with only 38 bunkers, which is restraint you can feel. Johnston did not scatter sand to fill the picture; the hazards that exist are placed to be thought about. Tree lined fairways do much of the framing, and the two holes everyone cites earn it: the 150 yard par 3 twelfth, an island green, the postcard shot of the course, and the 439 yard par 4 eighteenth, guarded by nine bunkers with water in the conversation, a finishing hole that asks for two proper shots when the match is usually still alive. Semi private status means members share the tee sheet with public play, and the conditioning standard that comes with a membership base shows.

Canewood Golf Course

Canewood is the public counterweight, designed by Danny McQueen and opened in 1994, also par 72, a touch shorter at 6,501 yards with a 70.7 rating and 123 slope per GolfLink. On paper it gives up 365 yards and the trophy case. On the ground it has the better story and arguably the better stretch of holes.

The signature run is the fourteenth through the sixteenth, a par 3, par 4, and par 5 playing along Elkhorn Creek per GolfPass. Creekside golf in the bluegrass is its own genre: water close enough to matter, limestone country rolling under the fairways, holes that feel found along the water rather than imposed on it. And then there is the clubhouse, a historic house built between 1787 and 1791 that was once the residence of General John Payne. You check in for a public round in a building that predates Kentucky statehood's early years. No architect can design that, and no ranking captures it.

The verdict

On the golf alone, Cherry Blossom wins, and the margin is the design discipline. Thirty-eight bunkers, a real finishing hole, an island green that has tested twenty years of public fields, and a seven year run as the state's top public course put it ahead in the Kentucky state ranking. If you are keeping score seriously, playing a match that matters to you, or showing a visiting golfer one Georgetown course, Cherry Blossom is the pick.

Concede Canewood the day, though, because the day is half of any honest ranking. The Elkhorn Creek stretch is the most enjoyable three hole run in Georgetown golf, the historic clubhouse turns a routine public round into an occasion, and 6,501 yards at a 123 slope is the friendlier test for the mixed group where half the foursome plays twice a year. The better player picks Cherry Blossom and is right. The golfer bringing three friends of three different abilities picks Canewood and is also right. Georgetown is lucky. Most towns this size get one course worth the drive, and it usually is not either of these.