OT: Golf courses

[mauconnfan]

I live right up the street from Indian Springs. Great family owned course, owned by super nice people. Hoping to get out there after work tomorrow,

Started my weekend men’s club there with some buddies in the 80s certainly some great memories. Al and his wife who owned it and lived right there were always out there working, putting money back in. Loved the bartender back then think it was Evelyn had some legendary 19th hole events there. Rovers also on the way home lol. Must say I played it a couple years ago and realized how much I hated holes 5 & 6 lol..

 

[Duncan Idaho]

CT National is one of the best, excellent layout. Besides the fact it’s a pain to get to I would suggest that everyone get out there to play it really nice.

You ever meet a golf course you didn't like?

 

[mauconnfan]

Used to 18 around 55-60 years ago. That hole was a killer for me then.

Yeah haven’t played it since it became just 9 but played it quite a few times back in the day of 18. Fun hole for sure, lots of crap talk on it lol.

 

[mauconnfan]

You ever meet a golf course you didn't like?

Hey Idaho hope you’re well, that’s funny. Yeah believe it or not there’s a few but you do make a solid point ha!

 

[freescooter]

I live right up the street from Indian Springs. Great family owned course, owned by super nice people. Hoping to get out there after work tomorrow,

I played Indian Spings from time to time for years. It was a real dog track back in the day but now they really upgraded it. Don’t care for #2 You can hit a perfect drive and end up in a horrible place and stay below the hole on 6 because putting down that slope is almost impossible. But a fun track

 

[Chin Diesel]

You ever meet a golf course you didn't like?

I know you were refencing Mau but I look at every golf course as a puzzle and no matter how good or how poorly I played I could go back and figure out what I was supposed to be doing on that course to make it more enjoyable. That was something PGA pros would say about Pete Dye courses. Once they figured out how Dye wanted them to play it vice how they wanted to play it, the shots and solutions make much more sense.
Some courses just aren't well kept and maintained and those are the ones that frustrate me the most.
Some areas that put courses way down on my list are inconsistent sand in the bunkers, inconsistent grass around the green and inconsistent turf.
Another area is course layout. Some courses seem to invite choke points which slows everything down. Short straight away Par 5's are the easiest way to do that because way too many people are standing 250-270 in the fairway waiting to go for it.

 

[Mike1984]

I played Indian Spings from time to time for years. It was a real dog track back in the day but now they really upgraded it. Don’t care for #2 You can hit a perfect drive and end up in a horrible place and stay below the hole on 6 because putting down that slope is almost impossible. But a fun track

Have you ever played Waterbury? The 10th hole is probably the worst slope green possible. If the pin is in the front and you’re putting downhill, good luck you might end up with 80 yards in lol

 

[Duncan Idaho]

I know you were refencing Mau but I look at every golf course as a puzzle and no matter how good or how poorly I played I could go back and figure out what I was supposed to be doing on that course to make it more enjoyable. That was something PGA pros would say about Pete Dye courses. Once they figured out how Dye wanted them to play it vice how they wanted to play it, the shots and solutions make much more sense.
Some courses just aren't well kept and maintained and those are the ones that frustrate me the most.
Some areas that put courses way down on my list are inconsistent sand in the bunkers, inconsistent grass around the green and inconsistent turf.
Another area is course layout. Some courses seem to invite choke points which slows everything down. Short straight away Par 5's are the easiest way to do that because way too many people are standing 250-270 in the fairway waiting to go for it.

Not especially a fan of courses that start with a Par 5. Choke point starts at the next hole because inevitably a Par 3 is usually hole #3 and everything is now fubared for almost the entire round. Pine Valley in Southington CT comes to mind. Agree 100% on the inconsistancy point you made.

 

[uconnfan68]

Not especially a fan of courses that start with a Par 5. Choke point starts at the next hole because inevitably a Par 3 is usually hole #3 and everything is now fubared for almost the entire round. Pine Valley in Southington CT comes to mind. Agree 100% on the inconsistancy point you made.

Pine Valley is no longer... only the back 9 was saved (too wet to build there)... not sure if it was renamed.

 

[uconnfan68]

Have you ever played Waterbury? The 10th hole is probably the worst slope green possible. If the pin is in the front and you’re putting downhill, good luck you might end up with 80 yards in lol

Not Waterbury, but nearby in Watertown... Crestbrook has a hole that is nearly impossible. Slopes so steeply from left to right and back to front. I had a short chip (maybe 20’) from the left side, and the ball landed exactly where I wanted, and only rolled on the green with its last revolution. Then it rolled 20’, just missing the hole, and barely moving... then it turned toward the right front of the green, and rolled another 40’, barely turning, until it hit the fringe, where it picked up speed. Ended up 20 yds off the front. First chip from there went near the pin, turned around and came back to me. I put it in my pocket and went to the next tee.

 

[mauconnfan]

Not Waterbury, but nearby in Watertown... Crestbrook has a hole that is nearly impossible. Slopes so steeply from left to right and back to front. I had a short chip (maybe 20’) from the left side, and the ball landed exactly where I wanted, and only rolled on the green with its last revolution. Then it rolled 20’, just missing the hole, and barely moving... then it turned toward the right front of the green, and rolled another 40’, barely turning, until it hit the fringe, where it picked up speed. Ended up 20 yds off the front. First chip from there went near the pin, turned around and came back to me. I put it in my pocket and went to the next tee.

Haven’t played that in 30 years at least it wasn’t a bad course. Long from what I remember built on the hill but not up and down instead basically sideways so nothing was flat.

 

[Mike1984]

Haven’t played that in 30 years at least it wasn’t a bad course. Long from what I remember built on the hill but not up and down instead basically sideways so nothing was flat.

Crestbrook was my home course for years, until they got rid or the pro and then I went to Watertown golf club. Crestbrook is not an easy course. Semi long and like you said all side hill lies. The conditions went down hill about 15 years ago when the greenskeeper left and the town was in charge. Within the last few years it’s starting to come back although it’s always super wet there. Still it’s a great layout and pretty challenging!

 

[Mike1984]

Not Waterbury, but nearby in Watertown... Crestbrook has a hole that is nearly impossible. Slopes so steeply from left to right and back to front. I had a short chip (maybe 20’) from the left side, and the ball landed exactly where I wanted, and only rolled on the green with its last revolution. Then it rolled 20’, just missing the hole, and barely moving... then it turned toward the right front of the green, and rolled another 40’, barely turning, until it hit the fringe, where it picked up speed. Ended up 20 yds off the front. First chip from there went near the pin, turned around and came back to me. I put it in my pocket and went to the next tee.

They ended up fixing that green but in turn made it multi tiered and in my opinion worse! If you’re putting from the top to the bottom there is no way to stop the ball. They pretty much made the green usable in halves. Has never made sense to me. It’s like they fixed it backwards!

 

[HCCForever]

You are ignorant. My story is the same as yours, only I wouldn't exaggerate the gunshot sounds or talk down about the place I call home. Been playing both courses for like 25 years...never heard a gunshot. I lived on Adelaide Street in Hartford for three years as well...never heard one there either. The view that you articulated is greatly exaggerated.

I grew up in Wethersfield right by the Stop and Shop and would walk to Goodie almost everyday in the summer - the course was my babysitter. I'd play that flat nine multiple times a day as a kid, and then the South course when I grew up. I had the same Junior membership you did. Bill Sullivan gave me my first set of clubs. Later in life, my buddies and I used to close down the Oxbow. I still play both courses constantly. Played Goodie 4 times last week. Your're not the only local here.

Thanks for the memories. I grew up on Hillside Avenue in Hartford and used to play Goodie daily for 25 cents with the golf card. We used to rent lockers every year for our clubs and items we couldn’t bring home. We called the flat nine the hackers. The 7th hole green was tough and hilly. Haven’t played there in years. My uncle used to take us to
Keney on occasion. We also used to play hockey at Cedar Hill cemetery in the winter. I loved growing up in Hartford

 

[storrsroars]

I know you were refencing Mau but I look at every golf course as a puzzle and no matter how good or how poorly I played I could go back and figure out what I was supposed to be doing on that course to make it more enjoyable. That was something PGA pros would say about Pete Dye courses. Once they figured out how Dye wanted them to play it vice how they wanted to play it, the shots and solutions make much more sense.
Some courses just aren't well kept and maintained and those are the ones that frustrate me the most.
Some areas that put courses way down on my list are inconsistent sand in the bunkers, inconsistent grass around the green and inconsistent turf.
Another area is course layout. Some courses seem to invite choke points which slows everything down. Short straight away Par 5's are the easiest way to do that because way too many people are standing 250-270 in the fairway waiting to go for it.

I loathe Pete Dye courses. Playing a Dye course vs say a Ross or Tillinghast or MacKenzie is like the difference between baking and cooking. The former requires precision and steadfast adherance to the recipe while the latters allow for riffing and creativity. I've played a half dozen and really didn't "enjoy" any of them, other than playing the final four holes at TPC Highlands and the 17th at Sawgrass. Mystic Rock at Nemacolin here in PA is just a pain. And I really didn't like the Dye course at Barefoot in Myrtle Beach, although the Love course was even more loathsome.

That said, any opportunity to play golf is (or used to be) a good day. I played a lot of goat tracks when I lived in Fairfield and Westchester counties. Lots of Westchester public tracks had mats for tees, as did Hubbard Heights/E.Gaynor in Stamford. They were all extremely overplayed. But generally it was better to get out on those than not go out at all. Although I haven't played Oak Hills in Norwalk in 22 years, I can still recall the layout and where to play each shot and green. There are very few really awful courses out there (the one I think of immediately is Sunset Hill (a.k.a. Helmet Hill) in Brookfield. That place is legitimately dangerous.

When I lived in Quincy, I used to play Presidents after work regularly. Place was built on a landfill and had virtually no flat lies, nor did there really seem to be a "design" to it. But it was golf. Played Ponky in Clinton Canton MA a few times, an old Ross design that fell into serious disrepair, but you could still see the beauty in it. Those courses and others in the Metro parks system cost like $20 back then and honestly, I was as happy at those places as playing the $75 daily fee places down the South Shore.

After playing more than 200 courses in 20+ states and 5 countries, I have some favorites, but they're often not top 100 courses, of which I've been fortunate to play a few due to a past job that valued client golf. Probably the one I recall most fondly was Ko'olau in Oahu. It was nominally target golf played in a Jurassic Park setting. If you weren't in the fairway, you didn't find your ball. So many streams to cross at the outer range of your long irons you had to lay up constantly. At the time I played it in 2001, the slope rating was 157, highest in the country. My playing partners hated the place. But IMO, there's no other course like it in the US due to the setting, which at times seemed prehistorical jungle.

 

[mauconnfan]

I’ve only played a couple Dye courses but I’m a fan. TPC here, Barefoot Myrtle, Wintonbury Hills here and my favorite Rum Pointe Ocean City MD area. Mostly very fair on the tee shot but then your approaches are challenging, where you hit it on the green or where you miss.

Ross courses can be fun and challenging for sure but also can be very overrated especially in this area. I mean there are quite a few some beautiful and historic others ehh.

Having said that as @idahohusky said I’m not arguing with too many tracks as long as they maintain the greens and the rest the best they can.

 

[storrsroars]

I’ve only played a couple Dye courses but I’m a fan. TPC here, Barefoot Myrtle, Wintonbury Hills here and my favorite Rum Pointe Ocean City MD area. Mostly very fair on the tee shot but then your approaches are challenging, where you hit it on the green or where you miss.

Ross courses can be fun and challenging for sure but also can be very overrated especially in this area. I mean there are quite a few some beautiful and historic others ehh.

I'm going to guess the main difference in opinion is because you're likely a much better golfer than I am. I never got lower than a 15 hdcp as I cannot play a controlled game. I'm like early CV, constantly playing hero ball when a dish would be the smart play. I'm the guy who can shoot a 37 on the front and still not break 90. My wife always believed I could regularly shoot 5-8 strokes better if I just clubbed down and played more David Simms than Roy McAvoy. But I can't.

My highest value in any team competition is one of those shotgun tourneys where you pick the best ball and everyone shoots from there, because at some point your best shot will be under a tree and require a hooded four iron hook shot of 180 yds, and I'm your guy.

I'm actually afraid to see what my game is now. I'd been hitting a disturbing frequency of nasty hooks in the past 5 years, then lost most of '18 to leg issues and '19 to my back. So basically haven't played since turning 60. Haven't been out yet this year. Perhaps complete inability to hit hero shots might yet turn me into one of those old geezers who keeps hitting it 140 and shoots an 84 every time out.

 

[mauconnfan]

I'm going to guess the main difference in opinion is because you're likely a much better golfer than I am. I never got lower than a 15 hdcp as I cannot play a controlled game. I'm like early CV, constantly playing hero ball when a dish would be the smart play. I'm the guy who can shoot a 37 on the front and still not break 90. My wife always believed I could regularly shoot 5-8 strokes better if I just clubbed down and played more David Simms than Roy McAvoy. But I can't.

My highest value in any team competition is one of those shotgun tourneys where you pick the best ball and everyone shoots from there, because at some point your best shot will be under a tree and require a hooded four iron hook shot of 180 yds, and I'm your guy.

I'm actually afraid to see what my game is now. I'd been hitting a disturbing frequency of nasty hooks in the past 5 years, then lost most of '18 to leg issues and '19 to my back. So basically haven't played since turning 60. Haven't been out yet this year. Perhaps complete inability to hit hero shots might yet turn me into one of those old geezers who keeps hitting it 140 and shoots an 84 every time out.

Sounds like I’d like playing with your style lol funny stuff. But nothing at all wrong with a 15 that has game that’s a nice “winnning” handicap. Best I’ve been was 5 and sit at 8.7 these days but just enjoy the game. Have to gamble when playing otherwise I lose the concentration. My buddies are mostly all the same and we talk a lot of crap all in fun.

 

[DayDayTFS]

Sounds like I’d like playing with your style lol funny stuff. But nothing at all wrong with a 15 that has game that’s a nice “winnning” handicap. Best I’ve been was 5 and sit at 8.7 these days but just enjoy the game. Have to gamble when playing otherwise I lose the concentration. My buddies are mostly all the same and we talk a lot of crap all in fun.

I think the new hcp structure brought everyone down a full stroke or two so we got that going for us all... lot more things being considered with the calculation. Much harder to sand bag. We’ve got about a 15-20 man crew every weekend ranging from 0.0 (me - humble brag yes) to 12, with most around 5-8. Makes for lots of good games, 2man bb, best 2 of 4, etc.

 

[freescooter]

I loathe Pete Dye courses. Playing a Dye course vs say a Ross or Tillinghast or MacKenzie is like the difference between baking and cooking. The former requires precision and steadfast adherance to the recipe while the latters allow for riffing and creativity. I've played a half dozen and really didn't "enjoy" any of them, other than playing the final four holes at TPC Highlands and the 17th at Sawgrass. Mystic Rock at Nemacolin here in PA is just a pain.


When I lived in Quincy, I used to play Presidents after work regularly. Place was built on a landfill and had virtually no flat lies, nor did there really seem to be a "design" to it. But it was golf. Played Ponky in Clinton MA a few times, an old Ross design that fell into serious disrepair, but you could still see the beauty in it. Those courses and others in the Metro parks system cost like $20 back then and honestly, I was as happy at those places as playing the $75 daily fee places down the South Shore.

After playing more than 200 courses in 20+ states and 5 countries, I have some favorites, but they're often not top 100 courses, of which I've been fortunate to play a few due to a past job that valued client golf. Probably the one I recall most fondly was Ko'olau in Oahu. It was nominally target golf played in a Jurassic Park setting. If you weren't in the fairway, you didn't find your ball. So many streams to cross at the outer range of your long irons you had to lay up constantly. At the time I played it in 2001, the slope rating was 157, highest in the country. My playing partners hated the place. But IMO, there's no other course like it in the US due to the setting, which at times seemed prehistorical jungle.

Ponky was in Canton, not Clinton. I grew up playing there. #2 was the easier of the courses. Ponkapog #1 was a great design but pretty difficult and at least at the time not well maintained. Haven’t been there in years. I heard they closed the back 9 of the Ross course (#1) and now just have 27. When I was a kid the CYO tournament was held there and was huge. I played it a few times but never got out of the qualifier I also played Presidents from time to time. When I first played there it had a different name, maybe Wollaston. It was closed for a few years before it was taken over by the city and reopened.

I agree with you on Pete Dye courses. My opinion is they are too artificial And too almost industrial if that’s the right term. I played a course somewhere in Canada iirc that had been expanded from 9 to 18 and the original 9 was designed by McKenzie I think. The new 9 by Dye plus a second 18. The holes were sort of interspersed. 1 original, 2, 3 Dye 456 original etc. It was very bizarre because you played a very natural hole followed by a very contrived one. I never got comfortable. There is one in York Maine that is similar Where traditional and modern let’s call them are interspersed. Very Pretty but you almost need two different games to play it well.

 

[storrsroars]

Yeah, Canton. Memories of 20 years ago fail me at times. But Ponky is the inspiration of the crappy course in Rick Reilly's "Missing Links", a must read for any golfer. Reilly basically took Ponky and put it in Dorchester.

I also played the Braintree muni a lot. A few pretty good holes on that one.

 

[Deepster]

Sounds like I’d like playing with your style lol funny stuff. But nothing at all wrong with a 15 that has game that’s a nice “winnning” handicap. Best I’ve been was 5 and sit at 8.7 these days but just enjoy the game. Have to gamble when playing otherwise I lose the concentration. My buddies are mostly all the same and we talk a lot of crap all in fun.

8.7.

cough cough SANDBAGGER cough

 

[mauconnfan]

I think the new hcp structure brought everyone down a full stroke or two so we got that going for us all... lot more things being considered with the calculation. Much harder to sand bag. We’ve got about a 15-20 man crew every weekend ranging from 0.0 (me - humble brag yes) to 12, with most around 5-8. Makes for lots of good games, 2man bb, best 2 of 4, etc.

See the crazy thing is that I know the difference between like a scratch (you) and a 5 like I was isn’t 5. Like now at 8/9 I’d ask for 5 a side at least ...... scratch and pluses come to play all the time consistently period. 65-72 expected a 5 is thrilled with his occasional 70 but an 80 happens way too much. Lol you have game my friend nice!!

 

[uconnfan68]

They ended up fixing that green but in turn made it multi tiered and in my opinion worse! If you’re putting from the top to the bottom there is no way to stop the ball. They pretty much made the green usable in halves. Has never made sense to me. It’s like they fixed it backwards!

It was just unfair before. But I liked the challenge.

 

[uconnfan68]

8.7.

cough cough SANDBAGGER cough

Money winner.