Pine Valley
I had the opportunity to play a round of golf at the best track in the country -- Pine Valley.
One of my partners is a member there and he was gracious enough to invite me and Allen Greenberg to his club. We drove up through torrential rains (see yesterday's entry for more on that). Traffic was backed up through all of Delaware. We finally made it to the turn off and drove down an isolated street and through an unmarked gate and back into another era.
We walked into the main lodge and Mr. Scott was waiting for us there with drinks at the ready. He showed us to our rooms and then we enjoyed a surprisingly good dinner. The next morning it was another feast for breakfast and then time to start our round. As a high handicapper, I am not really allowed to play at Pine Valley. They prefer that no one with a handicap over 15 venture onto their course. I am nothing if not confident so we went to the range to warm up and then met our caddies at the first tee. My caddie was an incredibly nice fellow even when he lifted my bag and realized it was completely water soaked from yesterday's CSS tournament at Raspberry Falls.
Pine Valley is set up so that it is fair if you hit the ball long and straight. Most holes begin with a forced carry requiring one to drive the ball 180 yards to reach the fairway. While I will not repeat each of my 113 strokes over the 18 holes, I was pleased that I hit the first drive over the carry but disappointed to see that I was in a trap on the right with no second shot. I managed to carry all of the forced carries on my drives on 14 of the holes; my caddy found my ball on all but one occassion when my slice caused it to go far into the woods.
The highlight of my day was on the 10th hole, which is a short par 3. Here is a picture of the 10th hole at Pine Valley (courtesy of Chris John of Photographic Design, Inc.) from the tee. I managed to step up and knock the drive right onto the green. Two putts later, I had my par at Pine Valley.
As noted earlier, I shot a 113. I was actually quite happy with that score. Over lunch, we added up our scores, and when I announced mine, Mr. Scott looked around and said "Shhh. Lew, not so loud. We want to play at least nine more!"
We did play another 9. After a quick trip to the pro shop to pick up some souveniers with the famous logo (a bit nondescript), we drove back to DC.
I dropped Allen off at hotel and then went to visit my wife and in-laws at the Hechinger family home.
Snapped on 09.28.02 || More Golf Photos || Comments
(0) ||
← Previous || Next →
