One More Mulligan

Sorry for the delay in posting this round review but Vegas and the holiday got in the way. Needless to say my early morning attempt at golfing was much more enjoyable than the previous day at one in the afternoon. I play Silverstone Golf Club in Henderson, Nevada and had a blast. I was greeted and driven down to the covered real grass practice range where I was able to hit balls and practice putting until my group was at the first tee. When I got in my cart I was pleased to see a built in GPS that acted like a “you are here” map. I played with three locals, an older couple and a guy just older than me.

Things started off shaky on the first hole with a triple bogey. I was very nervous for some reason but I settled in and started hitting fairways. In fact I noticed that not only was I hitting the ball pretty straight but man was it flying! I hit my drive on the third hole 285 yards.  I had about 120 yards to the green on one of the early holes and ended up flying the green by a pretty decent amount with my nine iron. The course was in amazing shape with lush fairways and well groomed greens.

The front nine was a dream, fairways and greens the whole way. I wish I could have putted better but I still shot 45. The back nine was just as fun but not as low scoring. The heat started to affect me a little and while I still hit some really good shots I blew up on the 12th hole. A long par 5 with a dogleg around a water hazard to the green. I hit it to the right of the green on my third shot in between the bunkers in some deep grass. I took a hack at it and bladed it into the hazard. I ended up taking a 9 on the hole with the penalty. I carded a 51 as the sun was really getting up into the sky. My 96 total is a new personal best and really made me happy since I was playing on a course with a 128 slope rating.  I only wish I had started the round a little earlier so that I could have concentrated better in the final holes.

I highly recommend this course to anyone travel to Sin City. For any out of towner they offer a rental car reimbursement for up to $30 off your round. I played the entire 18 for $55 including the cart. Just stay hydrated and tee off nice and early! You can see more photos in the photo gallery.

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Over the weekend I spent some time with my college buddy Chuck on an amazing course called Great Gorge in McAfee.  It was both beautiful and deadly, from a golf standpoint. There are three course: Quarry, Rail and Lake. We played the Quarry to Rail path and from the start were surrounded by a huge rock out cropping with tight fairways. Accuracy was very important from the tee and I certainly didn’t have much of it. The evidence is in the 4 penalty strokes on my card. I haven’t had to take that many strokes in an entire round all year let alone in nine.

The back nine, the Rail course, as the name would have you believe snakes around the rail road tracks. It was much more open which meant that I could find my errant drives and since I was hitting my irons well I could get myself back on track. My putting woes continued and no matter how close I got with my short game I would blow the putt by the hole or end up woefully short.

My iron and short game were really on, it was at the far ends of the course that I was sorely lacking. I couldn’t stop slicing my drives deep into the woods or missing lag putts by ten feet to save my life. It wasn’t until the 14th hole that I really got my driver back in plane and hit some really good tee shots. My putting never turned around which was disappointing since my last few rounds putting was my strong point. Considering how bad my driving and putting was a 54/52 – 106 isn’t really that bad. The couse had a slope of 129 which is way above the average course that I play. I am going to try and play Timberpoint tomorrow morning the lower slope rating should be better for my ego.

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I have played a couple of rounds since my last post.  They were all between 107 and 103 at the usual locations. I played one new place that I had planned on putting up a gallery for since I thought it would be nice but I was very wrong. I was pumped to play Lido Golf Course but found that they had moved all of the tees at least 20 yards closer to the hole with some of them being 40 yards closer. The first hole was a par 5 that ended up being a 440 yard hole! Talk about eagle opportunity! It had rained quite a bit but the drainage was amazingly poor with standing water everywhere. There was almost no difference between the rough and the fairway either. Overall I was very disappointed because a couple of the holes on the back nine were really amazing. One had two water carries, one from the tee and if you were brave one on your second shot.

I also played the entire 18 at West Sayville for the first time this year. I played about average as of late and shot 104 with a 52 on the front and back. I am going to continue taking pictures the next couple of times I play and try to use that as my first course review on the site. I am starting to get the hang of playing in a timely fasion and picking the right time to take out the camera without slowing down the round for everyone in the group. I am playing nine there after work tomorrow and trying to get 18 at Timber Point in tomorrow morning. I also have a trip to New Jersey to play Great Gorge with Chuck and some of his co-workers sometime on Memorial Day weekend. In the mean time I plan on getting some more posts in and I will have some first hand coverage of the Open at Bethpage Black since I will be there on Sat and Sun!

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Rain, the bane of any dedicated golfer, thwarted my plans to go to Virginia and play Meadows Farms. The backup plan was to play Bethpage Blue on Saturday and use our free passes for Harbor Links in Port Washington, New York on Sunday Morning. We headed over to Bethpage on Saturday expecting iffy weather and received a gorgeous sunny day. Even with a couple holes shortened the course was still amazing as usual.

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