Bay Pointe Country Club in Buzzard Bay

Many of the reasonably priced golf courses in the area of Rochester, Massachusetts are nine hole courses or very short courses. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with a nine hole golf course, Denny and I prefer to play golf where we get to play a different hole for the entire eighteen holes of golf. Thus our decision to drive to Buzzard Bay, Massachusetts to play the Bay Pointe Country Club course.

On this day, Denny decided to play the men's white tees rather than the "professional" blue tees. I was surprised to find that the red women's tees were on the same tee box tier throughout most of the golf course. Bay Pointe is not a long course, with the blue tee yardage at 6201 with a rating/slope of 70.3/118. The white tees measure out at 5720 yards with a rating/slope of 67.6/113. The red tees yardage is at 5380 with a rating/slope of 71.3/125.

Situated near and in a housing development, the residences really aren't too much of a problem. As I've noted in the past, if there are homes nearby Denny's golf ball normally makes a bee line right to them. The homes really don't come into play that much. Playing the white and/or red tees water comes into play only on the seventh hole which is an extremely short par 3 hitting to an island green.

This particular golf course seems to get a lot of play as we had to wait on every hole for the golfers in front of us. Of course, the two men in front of us started off taking 4 shots each to go 200 yards so it wasn't an auspicious beginning for them. The first hole is an interesting one going uphill to a 90 degree dogleg left to the green. Fortunately our scorecard had a map of the course layout on the back so we could figure out how each hole played because there were a lot of blind areas due to the hilliness of the layout.

Strangely enough we had to dodge sprinklers on a few holes--I'm not quite sure why the maintenance staff was watering the fairways in the middle of a very hot, steamy day. The fairways themselves were mowed but there was a large amount of crabgrass throughout the course. We did see signs that the groundskeepers were applying chemicals today so perhaps they are working on the problem. The greens were in pretty good condition. There are plenty of sand traps but we managed to stay out of all but one.

Denny and I were able to use our Golf Card discount to pay a total of $49 for the two of us to play eighteen holes with a riding cart. Online their prices show as $34 to play during the week if you use a riding cart. The course is hilly but walkable.

The pro shop has no golf shoes or supplies; I don't know if they were doing inventory or if they no longer bother. The two men golfing ahead of us followed us to a local restaurant for a drink after trying to get a drink at the clubhouse only to find there was no one there staffing the bar. Denny and I were able to get a hot dog on the turn so I don't know if the wait staff just stepped out or what.

Would we play it again? I think so.

Sanford Country Club in Maine

The Sanford Country Club in Sanford, Maine is about a 20 minute drive from the Moody Beach Outdoor World Resort in Wells, ME. While the golf course is a semi-private country club, it is open to the public and Wednesday is Seniors' Day with a reduced rate of $35 for eighteen holes with a riding cart. You have to go online and get the coupon on their website to get that price and you'll also find coupons for Men's days and Ladies' days.

Although Denny and I were second in line to tee off after our arrival, we were in for a long day because this very nice golf course gets a lot of play. After sitting and waiting for the foursome ahead of us to move up a bit, we invited the couple playing behind us to join us in play. Dick and Sue live in the area and play Sanford a lot so they were able to tell Denny and me the best place to play our balls for good angles to the green. Most of the time when Denny and I are out on a golf course it is totally new to us and there are times when we have no clue where the green is if the course is hilly or the hole is a dogleg, so it's nice to have the input from someone who plays the course a lot.
There are four sets of tees on the course and distances and slope/ratings on the seniors and women's tees are given for men and women both on each tee (I hope that makes sense). The yardage from the black tees for the course is 6703 with a rating/slope of 72.8/128. For the blue tees the yardage is 6151 with a rating slope of 66.9/125 . The white tee yardage is 5297 and 66.3/110 and the green tees yardage is 4901 and 70.4/122. The greens are some of the fastest we've played in months with very tricky reads. The course is in really good shape for the amount of play that it receives and it appears that most golfers here fix their divots and their ball marks on the greens. There isn't a lot of water on the course, but the twelfth hole is kind of fun with its double pond/island fairway thing going (the picture above.)
The fairway on the sixteenth hole reminded Denny and me of the golf course we played in Bethlehem, New Hampshire years ago where we came upon a huge granite boulder smack in the middle of a fairway. Here there were three sizable granite boulders in the fairway. Sanford CC is a scenic golf course with views of distant hills and valleys and it is very quiet. While Denny and I were very frustrated by the speed of the greens which caused us to make a lot of three putts, we thoroughly enjoyed the golf course and the company of Dick and Sue.