Location: Hilton Head Island, SC

Architect: Pete Dye

Year: 1981

February 9, 2008

Just 3 months after my trip to Hilton Head Island to play Harbour Town I find myself back on the island.  This time I have an invite to the private Long Cove Club. Fortunately I have a lot of business contacts on Hilton Head and I got lucky with the first one I asked about Long Cove.  Turns out my client’s brother is a member at Long Cove and he was able to arrange space in his weekly match for me as well as my friend Rob.  What luck!

Rob and I arrived at 8:10 for our 8:45 tee time and met our host, Bill, at the bag drop.  There were 12 of us in his group and we headed to the range to warm up and meet the other guys in the group.  It simply wouldn’t be the South if Rob and I hadn’t received some razzing for our allegiance our our alma maters, Virginia Tech (me) and Clemson (Rob).  College sports are nearly a religion in the South which is one of the many, many things I love about the region.

We headed to the tee box where we were in the first of the three groups to go off.  We were playing with our host Bill and his friend Dec.  I rode with Bill and Rob rode with Dec who made it very clear that was not pleased to be sharing a cart with a Clemson Tiger.  I suspect he’s even more displeased now that I’ve broadcast this fact on the internet.  I only wish I had thought to snap a photo of him chauffeuring around Rob and his bright orange Clemson golf bag!

The course immediately reminded me of Harbour Town with its narrow pine tree lined fairways.  The first par 5 we came to (hole #3) was the number 1 handicap hole.  Fifteen years ago Golf Digest selected the 18 toughest holes in America and this one made it on the list.  I did manage to finish it with a bogey, but I had to chip in to do it.  This was just my first stroke of good luck for the day.  I’m not sure I’ve ever play a round of golf with so many lucky breaks in it.   As Dec said “You’ll play lots of different rounds of golf on your Top 100 quest, but you can say your luckiest round was at the Long Cove Club!”

Below is a photo of the 6th hole which is a pretty par 5 that tees off over water.  This gives you an idea of how picturesque this course is.  

Below is the first of the par 3s on the back nine, number 13.  It was a short little poke over the marsh.  I hit a 120 yard shot.  Unfortunately, I came up short.  The marsh is such that you can get in it fairly easily and play out.  That was fun.  Yes, I checked for gators first.  None on this hole, but we did see quite a few. Several really big ones.

The photo below is the 14th hole.  This was a par four where you really only needed to hit your tee shot about 200 yards and then cut the angle to the green.  Rob BOMBED a drive here and was probably 70 yards beyond all of us.

I really liked the hole below, number 15.  It is a really good looking hole with the 2 trees and the pot bunker protecting the green.  This photo doesn’t do it justice.  One thing I have learned for certain is that I am not a photographer!

The photo below is the final par 3 of the day.  It was playing 190 yards with the wind, all carry over water.  I did not fare so well on this hole I’m afraid.

After the round we went to the upstairs grillroom and sat on the porch which has a great view of the 18th hole.  As the other groups came in we found that we didn’t win, but we didn’t finish dead last either.  For Rob and me it was nothing but a win to play such a wonderful golf course with such fun people on a beautiful 70 degree day in February.  We spent our last 30 minutes at Long Cove Club having a great time on the porch swapping stories with our new friends and listening to some simply hilarious Long Cove fokelore.

I’m glad I got the chance to play Long Cove and Harbour Town so closely together.  I liked Harbour Town, but at $300+ per round there I can’t say there is a lot of value there.  Harbour Town has a ‘tricked up’ and ‘gimicky’ feel to a lot of holes.  Long Cove is the type of course that felt like all Pete Dye had to do was walk the land and put tee markers and flagsticks out.  The course had a very natural feel the way it wrapped its way around the land.  Even though it has only been there since 1982 it felt unforced and like it had grown there hundreds of years ago.  What a really great course.

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Location: Lecanto, FL

Architect: Tom Fazio

Year: 1988

December 29, 2007

The final stop on this Decemeber golf excursion was Black Diamond Ranch’s Quarry course in Lecanto, FL. I heard rave reviews about this course and I was really looking forward to playing it. It is a private club with about 450 members and 45 holes of golf.

We teed off at 9:50 with a temperature of 81. We were playing as a 3 ball and using 2 sets of tees, but there wasn’t a soul on the course other than us, so we moved quickly. The front 9 was what you would expect of a modern country club course. There were houses on many of the holes, but a fair number of them were set so far back and so densely wooded that you could not see much of them. As expected, the course was well maintained and perfectly manicured.

The real prize of this course is the Quarry and the 5 holes surrounding it, Nos. 13-17. The 5 quarry holes are cart path only. The community gets their water from the quarry and they have to use a special type of drainage system on these holes to protect the water from dangerous golf course chemicals. The cart path only policy slows play down a little bit on the back 9. Though we moved fast around the front, we ended up having to wait on a couple of holes around the quarry. We still finished in less than 4 hours though.

Below is the par 3 #13 the first of the quarry holes. Its a 180 yard shot. I hit a 4 iron 190 yards to be safe and bounced just over the green. Our host told us that one of the members spent a day down at the bottom of this hole picking up balls and found 3000 without even working hard!

Below is the 14th hole which is a par 5. You tee off to the right of this picture and go around the quarry even though the green is directly across the quarry in the middle of this picture. John Daly tried to carry the quarry and drive the green but came up a little too short. If Daly can’t do it, I suspect that no one can.

Below is the signature 15th hole. It is from a super elevated tee box and drives fly a mile as they drop back down to earth. A really good looking hole

The photo below is the final of the quarry holes, the 17th. The photo was taken from the green of the 13th  hole and the tee box would be further to the left of where this photo ends. It is a 225 yard par 3. We played it directly into the wind and I hit a driver. I have to say that is the first time I’ve ever hit driver on a par 3.

The 18th hole took us off the quarry holes and back to the regular world of golf. The Quarry Course was a lot of fun and it really had some incredible views. I really liked the course, but because walking is not encouraged at the club I would have a real hard time playing the 5 quarry holes cart path only every day. It is a course WELL worth playing if you have the chance.

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Location: Arcadia, MI

Architects: Rick Smith & Warren Henderson

Year: 2000

August 4, 2007

In many ways Northern Michigan is still a rugged and rustic place. I was surprised on my first trip to the area to see roads that were not paved. This is all part of the regions charm . . . as is Arcadia Bluffs. This doozy of a course sits right on Lake Michigan as you can see in the photo below taken from the clubhouse. 

I’ve been lucky the two times I’ve played this course and the wind has not really been a factor. I hear that it can it can reach levels where you are hitting 3 or 4 extra clubs to compensate. Of course holes that are meant to be played with wind behind you, like the 460 yard par 4 #16, can be a real bear without that wind. I did manage to get there in 2 but then executed a perfect 3 putt.

Though the course opened in 2000 it has the feel of a traditional seaside links style course. Natural fescue grasses all over the course make play difficult if you get off the beaten path.

The course itself is manicured immaculatly. The fairways are lush and nice and the greens roll true as can be. Speaking of the greens . . . they’re huge. I’m talking huge. I suspect that there are 8 or 9 available hole locations on these babies. They’re fast too so when it comes to the long putts you sometimes end up with on huge greens its all about judging the speed. As you can see in the picture below the greens are not lacking contour either. I have no doubt that whomever selects the hole locations was a bully in grade school.

There are many great holes at Arcadia Bluffs. The course is literally built on the side of a cliff. The scenery is epic and every corner you turn brings a vista better than the last. Some of my favorites holes are #4 (below) with its downhill drive towards Lake Michigan then slight dogleg right.

The par 3 #13 (below) with its 190 yard carry over a crevasse is another great one. You really cant be short here.

In order to get a cheaper rate we waited until late in the day to tee off. The good news is that Northern Michigan summer days are long and teeing off at 4pm will safely get you back to the clubhouse with daylight to spare. For those still out on the course as the daylight fades a bagpiper stands at the top of the bluffs and lets his tune carry out over the entire course to warn golfers that daylight is getting scarce.

This place is in the middle of nowhere, but it is well worth getting to. Playing against the backdrop of Lake Michigan is pretty fantastic and the course itself is a real treat. Don’t forget to bring some shag balls up to the tee box on #12 to see how far into Lake Michigan you can hit them.

The Itinerant Golfer :: May.01.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

Location: Pebble Beach, CA

Architect: Robert Trent Jones

Year: 1966

April 14, 2008

This was my first of 5 rounds this week on the Monterey Peninsula.  Spyglass Hill is ranked #52 on the list, but a lot of folks told me I’d like it better than Pebble Beach.  Spyglass Hill is a nod to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Treasure Island.  Apparently Mr. Stevenson spent a lot of time in this area and was inspired by the landscape when he wrote the book.  The holes at Spyglass Hill are named after characters in Treasure Island.  

Spyglass Hill is one of the Pebble Beach resort courses so players at this course suffer the same indignities at the cash register that they do at Pebble Beach Golf Links.  I took my medicine with the cashier and went to the range to warm up.  I had called the Pebble Beach caddiemaster the week before and requested a good caddie and they set me up with Bob Burke who is a regular looper for in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am PGA Tour event and has been carrying bags at Pebble and Spyglass for years.  He was going to carry for me at Spyglass and at Pebble Beach.  I met Bob by the first tee and was introduced to my playing partners for the day.  There was the father/son team Scott and Carroll who were from Virginia of all places!  Scott graduated from VA Tech just a few years after me.  Then there was Steve from Boston, MA who was in Pebble on a week long vacation that was a gift from his girlfriend.  Nice gift!

Spyglass wastes no time in getting you out to the views.  After your tee shot on the par 5 number one the first vista comes as you line up your second shot.  The photo below is of the first green with the water view in the background.  You can hear the sea lions barking for the all the holes along the water at this course.  Pretty cool.

The 2nd hole is not long and the tee shot is through a narrow shoot and then the approach to an elevated green.  A very cool hole.  Below is a photo from the tee box of number 2.

Number 3, pictured below, is still on the seaside and a nasty little downhill par 3.  The rough around the green is US Open length and if you get into it all you can do is hope to get out, which I discovered quite well in short order.

Number 4 is a cool dogleg to the left with a tee shot over the dunes.  In the photo below you can’t really tell if you are in California at Spyglass Hill or on Kiawah Island in South Carolina at the Ocean Course!!

The green at number 4 is the only ‘gimick’ on the course according to my caddie Bob.  It is VERY narrow and long.  Bob called it a bowling alley and thats a pretty good description.  The photo below only gives a hint of how long and narrow this green is.

Number 5 below is a cool par 3 with a great house in the background.  This house is the primary residence for one of the Spyglass members as well as the house used in Clint Eastwood’s film Play Misty For Me.  Not a bad little hut with the golf course and ocean views!  Again with the long grass around the green.  I put this one on the putting surface, but Scott tangled with the long grass on this one.

Speaking of Spyglass members, apparently they are going to lose their membership in a couple of years.  Pebble Beach Resorts owns the course and the memberships lease on the course is just about up.  It will be a full on public course once this happens.

With the 6th hole we head inland and the course begins to look a little more recognizable for this East Coaster.  Once we’re off the water Spyglass Hill in a nice parkland style course with some good elevation changes.  Also, the wind is dramatically reduced which is quite nice!  Below is the 6th green with our last view of the water for the day.

I had a pretty good day on the course once we got inland.  Below is the approach at the 11th hole which is a really nice par 5 hole.  I love the bunkering on this one.  This was the site of my second birdie of the day.

Below is the 15th hole and the last of the par 3s on this course.  Interestingly, three of the four par 3s on this course played to a severe downhill green.  I hit the fringe and 2 putted for a par on this one.

Spyglass was a great course and I really enjoyed it, and it was nice to play well to start my week on the Monterey Peninsula off.  I actually think I liked the parkland style holes better than the seaside holes.  As for Spyglass being better than Pebble Beach, I think I have to disagree with that.  There was no competition in my mind.  If you want to play great seaside holes there are much better ones elsewhere on the Monterey Peninsula in my humble opinion.

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Location: Stanwood, MI

Architect: Jim Engh

Year: 2001

August 3, 2007

This course is a newer addition to Golf Digest’s Top 100 list. I heard about it from a local who said it was the best course no one had ever heard of. I flew into Grand Rapids and stopped off here for a round on my way to play Arcadia Bluffs. This is a Jim Engh design that opened in 2002. It is certainly in the middle of nowhere which explains why no one has heard of it.

After warming up a bit on the driving range we headed for the first tee. I hit a nice drive down the left side of the fairway. Even though I was hitting a fade I had no complaints with my driver on this Michigan trip. I was hitting a lot more fairways than I was used to. I also was getting some great distance. I’m not sure if it was the lack of humidity I was used to in Virginia or something else but I had several drives over 300 yards which never happens back home.

The first 2 holes were rather uneventful, but the course did get a little more interesting with the 3rd hole, a short 317 yard par 4. An errant tee shot had me hitting 3 off the tee, but fortunately the shortness of the hole and a great 2nd tee shot allowed me to get in the hole with just 2 more strokes for a bogey 5.

As we arrived at the tee box of number 4, the par 3 pictured below, we saw the first major challenge of the day . . . 205 yards, all carry, over water.

The pin was located on the left side of the green in the above picture and not wanting to be short I decided to hit a utility club that I can carry 215-220. I hit a career shot and it looked like it was going to be way long. Luckily it flew straight into the tree left of the green which promptly spit it out onto the putting surface 20 feet from the pin. A 2 putt later I escaped with a par and was pretty pleased about it.

There are back to back par 3s at Tullymore and #5 was a 182 yarder that was all downhill with a green 40 yards deep, not very wide at all and with a huge ridge in the middle of it. Of course the pin was in the back on this day so it was playing more like 190 or so. Below is the view from the tee box.

With the hole in the back its a pretty tough tee shot to hit the green in the right spot. Leave it short and you have to putt up and over the hill in the middle of the green and if you hit it long you will have a downhill chip to a tight pin. A pretty challenging test when the hole is cut in the back to say the least. You can really see the ridge in the middle of the green in the photo below.

Tullymore did have some interesting points. The bunkering sticks out in my mind in particular. There were several sunken greenside and fairway bunkers like the one in the picture below that required delicate and smart blind shots to get out of them and onto the fairway/green.

The 18th hole is an interesting one with the classic risk/reward situation. After a drive over water on the tee shot the players who hit the fairway will find themselves in the position pictured below. They must decide if they want to go for it over the water with a medium long shot or lay up a nice short iron to the right and play it safe. I chose the safe layup and was glad that I did when I holed out for par. The guys in our group that went for it either ended up wet or in the woods to the left of the green. A fun hole regardless how you play it.

Overall I wasn’t dramatically impressed with Tullymore. It was well groomed, but it felt like just another modern course without much personality. There are a few interesting holes, but mundane seemed to be the order of the day. If you’re thinking of a Michigan trip, its not a bad idea to fly into Grand Rapids and go ahead and play a warm up round at Tullymore before heading further north for the real reason you’re there, Arcadia Bluffs.

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