Last week I had the opportunity to play a little golf in Michigan. I asked for recommendations and got one from an anonymous poster and two from someone called Jeff. Luckily, I got to play two times so I was able to use recommendations from both of them. Thanks!

Coincidentally, both courses I played were also recommended by the local business owner I was there to see for work. He put all his favorite area courses down on a list in order or priority he would recommend them. Thousand Oaks was #1, and Quail Ridge was #3. His #2 (Boulder Creek) wasn’t recommended here on my site, so I skipped it to go to Quail Ridge. I don’t know about Boulder Creek, but boy am I glad I played Quail Ridge!

Thousand Oaks

First, I played a twilight round at Thousand Oaks after work on Wednesday. All the locals I was around raved about it and wished they could go with me. It’s also one of the more spendy courses in the area and in a pretty ritzy neighborhood. (I’m trying to make spendy a word.) Without the recommendations, those things alone wouldn’t mean much to me, but with them, I was expecting good things.

I played from the gold tees, which came with a course rating of 75.4 and slope of 137 for women (69.7/130 for men). The total yardage is listed as 6137, although a lot of the tees were back at the white distances, which have a total distance of 6677, so I guess it was somewhere in between. My drive came and went — usually I either have it or I don’t. The fairways are nice and forgiving, kind of like friendly valleys that kick or funnel your ball back into the middle. That was fortunate for me on a number of holes, although I missed by more than they could help me with on a couple.

Here’s a look from the tees at number 5. My drive went over the hill past the bunkers up there on the left.

The gallery pointed out my ball for me. Seriously, they were right on top of it.

According to my handy-dandy calculator, my 24.2 index translated to a course handicap of 29, giving me a target score of 105, so I played 5 over my handicap with a 110. Ugh. I hate the hundreds, but that’s where I still am most of the time. I’m working on that. It was still a great afternoon and a really nice course. I got some souvenirs to bring home since I live right by Thousand Oaks, CA and we don’t have a course by that name. Pretty neat!

Quail Ridge

The next day, all I had to do was fly home, so I played Quail Ridge at “Magic Hour.” Sunrise tee time. Steam still coming off the lakes. Grass all dewy — cart, ball and feet leaving fresh tracks for all to follow.

Thousand Oaks seemed to be above it on most people’s lists, and it was really nice, but I liked Quail Ridge better. Could have something to do with the time of day I played, I guess. I also thought it might be because I played it better, because my score was lower, but I entered it into my system and it turned out I played 5 over my handicap! I had a couple disastrous holes that really bumped up my score and ended up with a 101. I played the gold tees, which were rated 70.9/117, so my target score was 96.

Here’s the evidence of my unlucky-dog pass. On the par 5 #18 (9th for me, since I started on the back nine), my second shot hit that post and rolled backward! I might have made the green in two and three putted for five. Instead, I bogeyed. I have since been told I could have hit my second shot again from the original position without penalty, but I didn’t know that at the time.

Score aside, I enjoyed the peaceful serenity of the morning and the quaint, picturesque holes and scenery so much I could barely contain myself. While it would also be nice to share the moment with someone, I think part of the enchantment was the absolute silence and the feeling of being completely alone. Oh, except for the groundskeepers. Thanks for squeegee-ing the tee boxes!

Here’s a shot from the tees at #7. I think it’s a good representation of the course as a whole.

All told, I had a splendid Michigan golf experience and really appreciate the recommendations!

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In an old post comment I was asked the following questions:

Anonymous said…

I read that you played Ko’loa??? in Hawaii, how did you like it and from the all couses that you have played what was your favorite and which was the hardest.

August 17, 2005

Since that’s an ongoing and updated post, I want to keep it relatively “clean” so I thought I’d post my response here. Besides, I’ve been meaning to comment on some of the courses I’ve played so here’s my first installment along those lines:

Ko’olau was one of my top two for scenery, the other being Luana Hills. I guess I like the jungle courses. In fact, there’s a photo from Ko’olau under my post “Reason #2.” They were both really difficult, but Ko’olau claims to be the “toughest in the nation.”

I played Ko’olau twice, once from the red tees after having played golf for only a couple months and shot a 108. I lost only two balls on this course where they say to bring as many balls as your handicap. Then I played again several months later from the whites and shot a 123. I lost a bunch to all the double carries but the other difference was my putting. I think I lost about nine balls that time. It would have been more, but they have a “special” rule that allows one to drop on the other side of the hazards in the drop area because of the difficulty of the course (they want people to come back). I would like it better if they allowed carts on the fairways. It’s too hot and muggy and hilly for permanent cart path only.

The other Hawaii courses I really liked were Turtle Bay Arnold Palmer and Makaha West.

As for around the CA area where I live, there are a bunch of nice ones. Glen Annie is definitely one of my favorites and I’m sure it’ll get its own post eventually. Monarch Beach is the most overrated, and I really like the way the ball goes clangety clang in the metal cups at Malibu Country Club.

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They seem to have almost everything at the Iowa State Fair. It’s so enormous, they might even have a golf course hidden in there somewhere, but since I was only there for a few hours, I didn’t even come close to seeing everything. Fortunately, I made my way to a golf course directly from the airport the day I arrived and can now officially add Iowa to my list of states played.

I walked onto a course called A.H. Blank around 4:00 P.M. It wasn’t very busy, but there were only foursomes on the schedule so I went out by myself. It’s a municipal course and priced accordingly — I played for 20 bucks including the cart and I brought my clubs, so no rental fees applied. Actually, I don’t think I’ve played any 18-hole course in California for that low of a cost. It was well maintained, well staffed with friendly folks, and had nice facilities. The carts were gas powered, but were in good condition and were equipped with sophisticated GPS monitors. The system had a main controller at the pro shop up on a plasma screen for all to see. From there, one could see the entire course layout and all the carts on it. I’ve never seen anything like it. I imagine most control systems are viewed from some tucked away 17″ desktop monitors in back offices.

Here’s how hole 12 looked from the tee box (wide open)…

…and from the GPS (not). All courses should have GPS.
How I played this hole: Perfect drive about 250 right in the middle of the fairway. 4 iron chunk (time for those rescue clubs!), 9 iron into the greenside bunker, sand wedge just over the green on the other side, sand wedge chipped in for par!

As for the course itself, if I had played it before, I would probably rate its difficulty just slightly above Westlake. Somehow, it seemed like more of a “real” course than Westlake, which is my local executive jobbie. It has been awhile since I’ve played Westlake, so maybe that’s not a fair comparison. I don’t know if I’m underestimating it or overestimating my progress. A.H. Blank is longer and par is 5 strokes higher but aside from the strokes I always add by playing my usual game, I really only put on strokes due to the unfamiliarity factor, not the challenges of the course. I lost two balls on the same hole into the driving range on the right. The GPS warned me of this and still I went for it. I thought the first one might have stayed in, but no. I wasn’t sure about the other one either because it hit a tree as I was trying to play out of the trouble where I dropped, but I guess it ricocheted back into the range as well. There was a sign that cautioned “Enter at your own risk.” Not worth it. I didn’t like those balls anyway. I count the first of those lost strokes to the course, the other to my game. Not that the score card cares.

My handicap index is now a 24.9 (down from 28.8 not long ago) so that made my course handicap here a 26, which made my “target score” a 96 and I shot 101 — 5 over my handicap. I enclosed target score in quotation marks because that’s only the official target to play to my handicap. My own target or goal is to break 90. Boy, I couldn’t even break 100 and it didn’t feel like I played that badly! I guess it’s time to start beating myself up over double bogeys and not just triples. I need to adjust mentally to keep up with my changing handicap.

“A.H. Blank,” though? I wonder why they call the place Blank. Are we to fill in our own descriptors? I’m sure golfers would vary their choices depending on how they play. It could go from Actually Hit Par to AH F*** in the same cart.

All in all, I played in just over 3 hours and even though it was really hot, it was relaxing and fun.

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