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When Is A Hard Golf Course Too Hard?

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Golfers are by nature a whiney lot.  They complain about hole placement, they complain about conditions of the fairway, they complain that the clubhouse doesn’t stock their particular brand of beer, along with a million other little nuances that they can find to complain about.  When the tour hit Chambers Bay last June for the U.S. Open Championship I was amazed to hear so-called professionals whimpering about the bumpy and inconsistent greens, the setup of the course, and a myriad of other golf bombs levied against the USGA.  I mean they were being PAID to play and they SHOULD have to play a hard course right?

I’ve played hard courses before – from Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor, Michigan that hosts the Senior PGA tournament with its wild and undulating greens to Grindstone Neck in Winter Harbor, Maine with its rock-hard fairways, incessant black flies, and billion dollar views of the coast.  However, to this untrained mind, both of those courses were in a word – fair.  They played how you expected them to play and gave you a chance for good scoring on every hole.  So what were these professionals complaining about at Chambers Bay?  Just hit the ball and make your money.

I’ve had a revelation.  Hard does NOT equal fair.  It was a beautiful October day here in Virginia that Autumn-lovers like me live for.  The temperature was about 60 degrees, clear blue skies with a 5-10 mph breeze coming off the mountains, leaves beginning their annual gold, yellow and red show.  What a PERFECT day to play golf, I said.  Let’s try something new, I said.

To preface this – I have to state one thing.  I have played so-called ‘mountain courses’ before and I realize what I’m in for with their slanted and narrow fairways.  You tend to lose more balls on a good shot at a mountain course than on bad shots at wide open fairway courses.  I realize that and I expect that and most importantly, I ACCEPT that.

Without further ado, I give you Packsaddle Ridge Golf Course.  This is a course that I came across in the beautiful little hamlet of Keezletown, Virginia.  I should have immediately known that with a name of a town you could find in any Dr. Seuss book I was in for an interesting experience, but it only fueled the mystery and allure.  The next warning fired across the bow of my Dodge truck as I drove in was when I swerved to avoid a group of children playing right alongside the road –

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Creepy, right?  As you will see, the whole golf course is ‘littered’ with these metal sculptures – but this one struck me as even more odd.  Here are a few others:

When is a Golf Course Too Hard Cover

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All that being said (despite the creepy factor of the kids playing by the road) I was stunned that all of this beauty existed in this course.  Obviously no expenses were spared in the making of this course – but John Hammond said that about Jurassic Park as well.

So I drive up to this beautiful clubhouse and once again, am amazed by the time and effort it took to create this course in the middle of nowhere.

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However, my excitement was somewhat stunted by the fact that to get from the parking lot to the clubhouse you had to walk up a fairly major hill – and yes, I was completely out of breath by the time I got to the front door.  My problem, NOT theirs!!  It just set the stage for the rest of the afternoon.

I decided to start with the Blue tees after looking at the scorecard.  Holes 1 and 2 were under construction so you had to take some detours and avoid some areas.  That’s fine – maintenance work has to be done on the course and it was after their prime season.  Bogey, bogey hit the scorecard as I head with confidence to Hole 3.  A pretty little par 3 about 146 yards from the blues – I hit a shot that caroms off the rock wall in front of the green off to the right into the VERY thick rough.  Make a great chip within 3 feet of the cup and knock it in for par.  A great start to a great day at a great course.  Great!

That’s the end of the feel good story.  If you’re looking for a happy ending, go watch ‘Terms of Endearment.’  After the 3rd hole the clouds came over my brain, the wind picked up in my head, and the rest of the round was a nasty blur.  How could such a beautiful course turn into such a nightmare?  Two main reasons:

  1. Every single hole on the course is uphill.  OK, that MAY be a bit of a stretch but by the 6th hole I had moved up to the White tees to try to compensate for the distance.  By the 15th hole I had moved up to the Yellow tees to try to just finish off with two working lungs.  Thankfully there were only 18 holes to play or by the 20th hole I would have been teeing off with my pitching wedge.  There’s something extremely frustrating about a 484-yard par 5 that plays approximately 100 yards farther because of the uphill slope.  While this is fine for a couple of holes here and there during a round, the extremes exhibited by this course were quite the challenge.
  2. The rough (literally).  Let me give you a scenario here to exhibit the frustration that I experienced with this course.  Good tee shot on an uphill par 4 flies 200 yards in the air but bounces off into the rough due to the narrow fairways and slope from left to right of the fairway.  Fine.  Rough is (and I’m NOT lying here) approximately 8 inches long immediately next to the fairway.  Fine.  Take out a wedge to just try to get it out of this god-awful spider web of grass – and chunk the shot 25 yards towards the hole, but still in the rough.  Walk up to the ball landed and….There’s no ball?!??!  Where the heck is the ball?  That’s right, and this happened more than once, I lost a multiple balls after chunking a shot 25 yards ahead of me into the 8-inch rough.  Absolutely nowhere to be seen.  So there I am….stuck in the rough….laying 4 on a par 4 where I had an acceptable tee shot.  According to the scorecard I was 150 yards away – but actually because of the uphill slope more like 170-200 yards away STILL coming out of the thick rough.

From the aforementioned ‘panting on the way to the clubhouse’ section you can imagine how tired I was of fighting this battle by the final hole.  I actually was on the green in regulation on the 18th (downhill hole of course) and proceeded to putt my first putt off the green, ending the day with a well-earned and well-deserved double bogey.  By that point, I could not have cared less.

Again – it was an absolutely gorgeous course and I can tell that someone spent a LOT of money on doing things right.  In fact, it was one of the prettiest courses I have ever played.  Here are a couple of pictures from the holes that show this aspect of the course:

When is a Golf Course too Hard 5

When is a Golf Course Too Hard 6

In addition, someone took the time to actually build a covered bridge on the course – one of only two apparently in Rockingham County:

When is a Golf Course Too Hard 7

So can you call me Whiney McWhinerstyn?  Of course.  However, for such a beautiful location and a beautiful day I have never been more frustrated.  From cutting the rough to a normal height to putting the ‘actual’ distances on the scorecards (since it was so extreme) I think that golf courses can do a lot to improve the user experience.  I wondered if I was alone in this frustration and was just being the whiney golfer that I myself was complaining about at the beginning of this story.

My fears were allayed when I got back to the resort where I was staying.  Every single person (at least 10) who I mentioned that I had played Packsaddle Ridge Golf Course said the exact same thing immediately:

“Have they fixed it yet? I won’t play it again until they do…”

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you can tell if a golf course is not fair.


 

Tim Braun is an avid golfer and blogger living in Northern Virginia. Having reached the age where work is not nearly as important as golf, Tim is always on the watch for new techniques and interesting technology to improve his game. He currently works in the Washington, D.C. area at a defense contractor. To see more of Tim’s non-golf blogging, go to flyinghereinthemiddle.wordpress.com for his non-traditional take on life.

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