General Burnside Island State Park

Getting To Know: General Burnside Island State Park

An Insightful Interview With Stephen Lutz, Head Golf Professional

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 Stephen Lutz 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
General Burnside Island is a fun layout, with tees and challenges to suit golfers of all abilities. Located just south of Somerset, the island itself has golf, camping, and one of the largest boat ramps on Lake Cumberland. If roughing it is not your cup of "tee", there are several national chain hotels and dinning experiences in South Somerset only minutes away from the golf course.

What Tips or Local Knowledge Would You Provide To Help Them Score Better At Your Course?
Don't be fooled by the scorecard! Many first time players at General Burnside look at the yardage and pick the wrong set of tees. With the many elevation changes and zoysia fairways, the course plays longer than the yardage. At least two thirds of the greens are elevated, which requires a longer shot than a player may suspect.

Recent Awards or What You Are Most Proud About The Course?
The Grounds Crew take great pride in the product they put forth as can be told by the regular high ranking in Ky Life Magazine as one of the best courses in Kentucky.

What Is The Signature, Most Talked About, or Most Photographed Hole?
The 2 most talked about holes on the course are numbers 6 and 16. Number 6 is a straight away par 5 with a scenic view of Lake Cumberland down the entire right side of the hole. This also happens to be a lateral hazard so stay left. Number 16 is a sneaky par 3 that plays anywhere between 136 and 170 yds. The tee shot is all carry over a pond featuring a fountain, to a angled green. This puts proper club selection at a premium.

What Is Your Favorite Hole? Any Tips to Play It?
My favorite thing about this course is not a particular hole, but the layout of the par 71 course. The front side has 3 par 3s, 3 par 4s, and 3 par 5s, while the back 9 is all par 4s, with a couple 3s thrown in and finishing with the lone par 5.

Back Tee Stats
Par: 71
Yardage: 6349
Slope: 126
Rating: 70.1

More Information
General Burnside Island State Park
8801 South Hwy 27
Burnside, KY, 42519-0488

http://parks.ky.gov/

Revised: 02/12/2014 - Article Viewed 33,488 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.