On Course — Six Rounds in Four States

In early June, Betsy and I drove down to Bethlehem, PA (northeast of Philly) to visit her cousins, Rick and Melody. Rick is an engineering professor at Lehigh and Melody is a special education teacher in the middle school. We had a marvelous visit, taking in the delightful James Michener Art Museum and touring the idyllic town of Doylestown with its delicious ice cream shops and used book stores. (I considerably lightened my wallet there.) We capped off the weekend with a wonderful dinner at an Indian restaurant and a concert at the legendary Godfrey Daniels in Bethlehem, listening to the incredible guitar virtuoso, Frank Vignola.

We left early Sunday morning for the Philadelphia Airport, for Betsy’s flight to Chicago to attend a trade show. After dropping her off, I headed due west(!) for my highly anticipated round at The Golf Course at Glen Mills. The course was designed by Bobby Weed, a Pete Dye protégé, and was selected by Golf Magazine as one of the top 10 upscale courses in 2001. The course is unique in that it is associated with the nearby Glen Millis School, the oldest existing residential facility in the country tor troubled youths. (That is a euphemism for what used to be called a reform school.) The boys get a second chance at succeeding by training at the course in golf operations and turf management. The green fees support this program and send graduates on to college.

I paid the weekend rate of $95, a bit on the pricey side but ultimately worth the money for this beautiful layout. I joined three others, Jack, Mike and Chris, on the first tee. Jack has only been playing for three years and frankly was overmatched. When he wasn’t getting sevens, he was getting eights! He recorded 11 sevens on his first fifteen holes and mercifully stopped scoring. But he was great company and the four of us had a blast.

The course is a gorgeous part links, part woodland layout with no homes, a mature forest bordering many of the holes and numerous creeks and wetlands (as well as one boulder field) dotting the course. There are a number of elevated tees and greens, rolling fairways and some of the largest greens I’ve ever seen.

Mike and Chris were long hitters and I was a bit psyched out at first but after noticing that neither one could hit the fairways with any consistency, I settled down. After going seven over my first five holes, I ran off a par, par, birdie, par, par stretch before finding some trouble on the back nine. I shot a 42-45 and had an absolute blast on this great layout with these funny and sociable golf companions. It kept me in a favorable frame of mind during my SIX HOUR drive home! Even my GPS couldn’t get me through New York City.

A week later, Bonnie, Paul and I stayed a bit closer to home, heading up to Grafton, MA (just north of Worcester) to play the delightful Highfields Golf and Country Club. I’d played there five years ago and enjoyed the Brian Silva designed course a lot. In the interim, they had replaced the trailer pro shop with a huge, gorgeous new clubhouse and restaurant while improving this wonderful layout. We had a great time on a beautiful day and despite missing a slew of short putts, I shot a 45-43 for a solid 88. This interesting parkland course is well worth the hour and a half drive from Simsbury.

Last week brought another highly anticipated mini-vacation. Bonnie, Paul and I drove up to Portsmouth, NH for a three-night, four-round sojourn in the southern Maine area. We left early on a Monday morning (5:30 a.m.) and drove the nearly three hours to South Berwick, ME to take on the highly rated Links at Outlook. Another Brian Silva design, this course is advertised as “golf in the Scottish Tradition”. Actually, it’s a schizophrenic course with 11 links style holes which oddly morph into mountain golf on holes 11 through 17. My game mirrored this schizophrenia. We had great weather as we teed off on this visually stunning front nine with beautiful green ribbons of fairway running up and down gently sloping hills lined with tall fescue grasses and the occasional pond.

Frankly, I find American links courses generally uninteresting, especially in comparison to the links courses in Scotland and Ireland, where I have been fortunate enough to play a number of rounds. Unlike true links courses, they don’t link the coastland with the sea and their geographic features are not the natural result of the effect of the elements. They are actually faux links courses and no matter how well executed, never approach the beauty of the real thing. Bonnie more properly refers to them as farmland courses which is to my mind a more accurate description. I also dislike the lack of trees, which adds both beauty and perspective to a course. The course was very wet and though we chose the blue tees at only 6,000 yards, it played a lot longer.

Of course, playing poorly didn’t help my mood as I carded five 6s in my first six holes and ended up with a disappointing 47 on the front. The 10th hole was more of the same as my perfect (I thought) approach shot to the green came up just short and bounced back into the pond. Then in an instant, everything changed. We drove through a tunnel under the road to the 11th hole and into a world of mountain golf. The back nine is terrific with huge elevation changes, twisting fairways and forced carries over marshlands. This is my favorite kind of golf and my game all of a sudden kicked into gear as I ran off pars on holes 13 through 17 and shot a 40 on the back nine, despite three-putting two greens. A frustrating day turned into a delight on this very unusual hybrid course.

We drove back to the Anchorage Inn, our wonderful base of operations, in Portsmouth, NH and had a great dinner at a nearby seafood restaurant overlooking the water. We spend several hours just meandering around this lovely, walkable city enjoying the many beautiful buildings, old homes, harbor views and ice cream shops. (Is there a theme here?)

Tuesday brought us to my favorite course of the week, the amazing Ledges Golf
Club just over the border in York, ME. Betsy and I had played it last year on our way back from Sugarloaf and I wanted Bonnie and Paul to experience it as well.

The Ledges was designed by William Bradley Booth, an architect with whom I’m unfamiliar, but he did a masterful job on this scenic and challenging layout. The course is cut out of a vast woodland forest and it is a beauty. Every hole is different and interesting and rock ledges (hence the name), wetlands and ponds abound. The signature hole is the par three eighth which plays from a severely elevated tee over a picturesque pond to a large green guarded by bunkers. There are interesting elevation changes, a nice array of short and long holes and challenging approach shots everywhere. This is certainly one of my top 20 courses in New England and at $70 was well worth the cost.

Wednesday brought us to the highly anticipated Dunegrass Golf Club in Old Orchard Beach, a Dan Maples design. I’ve played several Maples courses down south (Pinehurst and Myrtle Beach) and generally like his layouts. But this round turned into a disaster. We teed off in dense fog, unable to see the tee shots land. But this was a minor inconvenience compared to the swarms of mosquitoes that mounted unending attacks on us, regardless of how much Cutter’s and Off we applied. (Instead of water stations, they should have put out “transfusion stations” at every hole to replenish the blood loss.) The course was largely routed through a housing development which I always find disappointing. In addition, the tee boxes and many of the fairways were in terrible shape, adding to the visual disappointment. Lastly, there were no dunes, no dunegrass and no hint of the nearby ocean, as suggested by the course name. A very depressing day.

We had a final day tee time of 6:40 a.m. at the incredible Atkinson Resort and Country Club in Atkinson, NH about 40 minutes from Portsmouth. I had played here about three years ago and loved the course, shooting an impressive (for me) 84. There was to be no repeat.

This is a beautifully designed, beautifully maintained parkland course with a lot of great holes and nary a single home visible. We played the white tees at 6,100 yards but a challenging slope rating of 134. My favorite hole is the par three 11th, one of the prettiest par three’s in New England. We played this hole from the blue tees at 183 yards from the top of a rock ledge. The tee shot requires a carry of 170 yards over a beautiful marsh filled with reeds rippling in the wind, with a large bunker just over the green on the left and rock ledges to the right. It’s a picture postcard hole.

I was way off my game, or maybe just warn out from too much golf (yes, there is such a thing) and ended up shooting 50-50 for my worst score of the year. And yet, I highly recommend this gorgeous layout which cost only a modest $45 (not including cart) and feels like a private country club.

I’ll be doing some day trips over the next two months before my next big trip to Cape Cod in September. I’ve never played on the Cape and am anticipating a great time with my friends Bonnie, Paul and Gary R. Till then, stay well and hit ‘em straight.