A Late Afternoon at Fox Run Golf Course

If you want to play golf in the Gallup, New Mexico area, you have the choice of Fox Run or Fox Run.  So we played at Fox Run.  Built in 1965 the course was formerly known as the Gallup Municipal Golf Course.  Fox Run seems appropriate as we saw several large fox holes on the golf course.  

The price to play a round of golf depends on whether or not you sign up online for an email account; Denny and I each paid $20 after noon to play eighteen holes with a riding cart.  The next morning I received a notice by email of a variety of discounts including a tee time at 11:20 AM at a cost of $15.20 per person for eighteen holes and a riding cart.  So there are some good bargains.

The golf course itself is apparently recovering from mismanagement and lack of proper care so it is rough.  Two greens were lost and a couple others are a little dicey.  But the new course supervisor is working hard to get the golf course back in shape.  The day we played golf the rule was cart path only; I don't know if this is standard until the golf course recovers a bit or not.  But it was a beautiful breezy day that was in the mid 80s so the extra walking didn't bother us, although we're still adjusting to the elevation here.

Denny played from the black tees which were the longest at 6634 yards with a slope of 121 and a rating of 71.05.  The distance from the blue tees is 6203 yards with a slope of 114/134 and a rating of 69.1/74.6.  The white tees have a yardage of 5879 with a slope of 104/128 and a rating of 67.62/72.8 and the red tees are set at 5029 yards with a slope of 118 and a rating of 68.  In good condition, this is a links style course, complete with the mandatory southwestern rattlesnakes, I'm sure.  At this time the course is pretty open and there is ongoing construction/earth moving going on as you play.


The first tee.

The par 3 eighth hole.

The par 3 eleventh hole.

The thirteen hole. 

The course is flat enough to be walkable if you are used to the higher elevation. The layout is fun, the distant mountains provide a nice backdrop and the employees are helpful and friendly.  Denny and I would come back and play this again, even in rough condition.  The employees seem to be working hard to bring this golf course back and we hope they are successful because it's worth it.

Quarry Ridge Golf Course in Portland, CT

Course description: hilly. Best advice? Stay in the fairway. Duh.

Denny and I drove a little further afield this week to take advantage of an Internet special price at the Quarry Ridge Golf Course in Portland, CT. If you "liked" the golf course on their Facebook page, you could play eighteen holes with a riding cart for $26. So I grabbed the coupon online and Denny paid the senior price of $42. That's a little bit more than we normally spend (2 golfers, one pension, remember?) but this was also the first time we've played golf in Connecticut so we were going to be able to check CT off our list of states.There are actually three golf courses in very close proximity to each other: Quarry Ridge, Portland Country Club and Portland West Country Club. The gentlemen in the threesome in front of us said that the Portland Country Club was a bit shorter but was always in good condition. When Denny and I had driven past the course on the way to Quarry Ridge the parking lot was packed.
There are four sets of tees at Quarry Ridge, the longest being the black tees with a yardage of 6389 and a slope/rating of 124/70.9. The blue tees which most of the men used have a yardage of 6049 yards and a slope/rating of 119/69.5. The red women's tees have a yardage of 4852 and a slope/rating of 117/68.7. As you can see from the pictures, on the first few holes the course slopes steeply off to the right and on others you might find some granite outcroppings to bounce your ball off.Just to make things entertaining, we discovered a couple of foxes resting and later playing on the seventeenth fairway. It appeared that one of the foxes just might have been playing with a golf ball.Water really doesn't come into play on this course. There are some thick woods and a few areas of thick weeds where Denny lost a ball or two but for the most part the challenges of this course comes from the uphill/downhill lies and not being familiar enough with the course to know how/where to play the dog legs. Play was a bit slow as there were a lot of golfers out on a Wednesday but the golfers were friendly and pleasant and Denny and I had a nice day despite the length of time we were out there.

There were some boggy areas on some of the fairways that were in a valley due to recent rains and some of the tee boxes were a little rough but for the most part the golf course was in decent condition for the amount of play that it gets. We had fun, and that's the whole point of being out there.

In The Beginning

Hi! We're the RV Vagabonds and we've been on the road since September of 1998. I've been blogging for six years about our travels, including writing posts about the golf courses we've played in several states and decided to transfer those posts to their own blog. Because strangely enough, not everyone enjoys golf--who knew?? My thought process for creating this blog was to share information about affordable golf courses for those on a tight budget like us.

I've only started blogging about the golf courses we've played the last few months although at one point in our travels I had a shoebox full of golf course scorecards to keep track of all the places we've played. After our third transfer of belongings due to buying a new RV over the last few years, I finally threw out all the scorecards. (I wish I had scanned them first, but oh well.) When Denny and I first hit the road, we had no specific destination in mind. I planned our travels based on two criteria; the campground had to be a part of the Passport America organization (50% off camping fees) and the campground had to be close to a Golf Card member golf course (Golf Card discounts back then were normally either 2 for 1 green fees or complimentary green fees with the rental of a power cart.) This worked well for us for a couple of years until both RVing and golfing became more popular with the crowd and the discounts became a little less discounted.

While we still use the Golf Card discount where we can, now I scour the Internet and the golf courses' websites for online tee time specials or information about ladies' days or senior days. In this way we're able play a round of golf once a week (remember, there are two of us on one pension) unless we're in a high tourist area and then we'll pass on playing golf. Because while we enjoy being out on the golf course bashing that little white ball around, we're not fanatics and we won't pay a ridiculous amount of money to play a course simply because it was built by a big name golfer (hi Jack!) or famous golf architect. Denny and I are from southern Ohio, where you can play a lot of good golf courses at extremely moderate prices. The Dayton, Ohio municipal courses are all fun, especially Community Golf Course in my hometown of Kettering, Ohio where there are two courses; the longer Outer Course and the shorter Inner Course. And now that I see what I have written about those two courses, I have to laugh. Anyway, in the Dayton area you can find a ton of golf courses in a 20 mile radius that are all fun to play and challenging for a variety of skill levels. Perhaps one of my posts will be a listing of those we've played dating back to the 80s but first I'll have to research prices because it's been a long time since we've played back there.

These posts will be weekly, because that's our schedule of play.

A Find at Foster Country Club

There are two golf courses within five miles of our campground; the nine-hole Coventry Pines Golf Club and the regulation 18 hole Foster Country Club. Given our druthers, we'd druther play an eighteen hole course any day for the variety.

Located in Foster, Rhode Island Foster Country Club is set among tall trees and gently sloping landscape. This is a walkable course although you would get a workout doing so. There are three sets of tees; blue, white and green. Your scorecard gives two slope/ratings for the white tees and two for the short green tees; one for men and one for women. From the blue tees, your yardage is 6221 yards with a rating/slope of 70.7/116. From the white (men's) the yardage is 5754 yards and 68.8/114. The green tee box yardage is 5130 yards and 69.0/114. There are creeks lined with tall, thick weeds throughout the course as well as a couple of ponds. Some of the sand traps have some pretty high lips for more of a challenge in blasting the ball out of the sand. The fairways and greens are very well maintained with the greens being a lot larger than what Denny and I are used to seeing on public golf courses. Some of the rough is a little dry and burned out but it doesn't really come into play that much as that is the rough that is pretty far off to the sides.

Since we are in Rhode Island where space is at a premium I guess I wasn't too surprised to see a graveyard just off the edge of the fairway on one hole. It is literally in the middle of the golf course.But I WAS a bit surprised to see a second cemetery a little later on, this at the edge of the green.

The pace of play was a bit slow here as the course gets a lot of play. Denny and I played for the senior rate of $38 each to play 18 holes with a riding cart. The golf course also offers special value cards that you can purchase online or at the pro shop for free greens fees and discounts at the club's restaurant.

We didn't mind the slow play too much because of the attractive layout of the course and the fact that the landscaper planted a lot of flowers and flowering bushes throughout the golf course. Denny and I were fortunate to have paired up with a couple of men who played this course a lot because there are a couple of holes that dog leg behind hills and we would have had no clue as to where to aim/hit our balls. It is nice to play with someone who can give you a general idea of distance to the hole or where to aim to lay up for the right line to the green. There is one hole on the course that practically doubles around on itself so having that knowledge was very helpful.

All in all, this is a golf course we'd recommend. And it turns out that there is a campground (Ginny-Bs) that is literally right across the road from the golf course and they offer golf scrambles for their campers. How handy is that?

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.

Essex Country Club in Vermont

Denny and I are getting ever closer to checking off the final few states in our quest to play golf in all 50 states of the U.S. This week we played at the Essex Country Club in Essex Junction, Vermont, about 20 minutes from Burlington, Vermont and about 45 minutes away from our campground in Shelburne, Vermont.The golf course is an interesting mix of what Denny and I call cow pasture golf (open, flat, very young trees, no interesting physical features to the layout) to hilly holes with narrower fairways and tall trees and deep woods to snatch your balls. There were several players walking the course, but slower players allowed others to play through. The rates on a Tuesday were reasonable for us as it was Senior Day so we paid $22 each for green fees and then $34 shared fee for the cart. There is also a Men's day and a Ladies' Day with similar special deals. The course itself from the blue tees is 6545 yards long, from the white tees it is 6045 yards long. The rating/slope is the same for both sets of tees; 70.4/121. For the red tees the yardage is 5350 with a rating/slope of 65.8/111.Despite obvious signs of recent prolonged and heavy rains the course was in fairly good shape. Members and players appear to repair their divots and ball marks on the greens and the maintenance crews were out working on the course as we played. There are a couple of creeks that criss-cross a few of the holes and a couple of ponds as well as scattered sand traps but somehow Denny and I managed to stay out of most of these (okay, okay, I did lose a ball to one of the ponds.) I was a bit put off by the fact that several of the red (women's) tees were simply tee box markers in the fairway instead of a dedicated tee box because you have no idea of the proper yardage from the temporary tee boxes.

We had rain threatening us the entire round which took away from the view of the distant Green Mountains but on a clear day I imagine the views of the mountains from the seventeenth and eighteenth holes are gorgeous.Huge granite boulders along the fairway reminded us of a golf course we played eleven years ago in Bethlehem, New Hampshire. All in all, playing golf here was an enjoyable experience and we would play this golf course again.

A Morning at the Niagara County Golf Course

Think cow pasture. A very, very overgrown, covered with piles of dead, recently cut six inch long grass cow pasture.

To be fair, northwestern New York has received as much rain as the rest of the Midwest recently and due to the flat topography of the golf course it's obvious the rain had no where to run off. Thus the grass couldn't be mowed and when it finally was, it left huge piles of grass covering the fairways and rough. When Denny and I played this course on Friday, the maintenance staff was riding around with big leaf blowers blowing the piles of dead grass off the fairways. The fairways, however were still in need of another cutting as the grass on the fairways ranged in length from an inch to three inches. We would lose our balls in the fairway! And heaven forbid you were in the first cut of rough because we spent as much time there looking for our balls as we did playing.

The Niagara County Golf Course in Lockport, New York is maintained by Niagara County and thus has the reasonable rates of $24 to play eighteen holes with a riding cart for a senior golfer. I believe the regular rate is $28. From the blue tees the yardage is 6483 yards with a rating/slope of 69.9/112. From the white tees the yardage is 6195 yards with a rating/slope of 68.6/109 and from the women's red tees the yardage is 5081 yards with a rating/slope of 67.3/106. There is a tiny creek that runs across the course on several of the holes which for most golfers shouldn't be a problem. The fairways are wide, many of the trees along the fairways are young and well spaced so there are not many places to get in trouble here if the fairways have been cut properly. The course gets a good amount of local play but the golfers seem to fix their ball marks on the greens and the tee boxes weren't torn up. Walking is a reasonable option since the course is so flat and the staff provided water coolers at regular intervals. This would be a great golf course for the beginner and the senior player.

Majestic Springs Golf Club

Yesterday shortly after lunch Denny suggested we go play golf at the Majestic Springs Golf Course which is just a few miles away from our current campground. I suggested we wait until morning, but after checking the weather forecast for the next few days and seeing that rain and/or thunderstorms were predicted for the remainder of the week we decided to play while we had still had sunshine.

The Majestic Springs Golf Club is located at 1631 Todds Fork Road in Wilmington, Ohio. Probably only a mile or so from the Thousand Trails campground as the crow flies, it's a couple of miles further by country road but it's the closest golf course in the area. Carved out of farmland and built as a links style course, the golf course itself has a surprising number of elevation changes, hills, valleys and slopes to deal with. It's walkable, but on a hot, humid Ohio day I'd definitely take a riding cart. Because Ohio summers are killer humid.
Denny and I paid the surprising amount of $15 per person to play eighteen holes of golf using a riding cart, which is their after 1PM price. Since the golf course just opened after the last few weeks of torrential rains there were quite a few folks out there who had also jumped at the change to play some golf so we ended up joining up with a husband and wife duo who play the course frequently. That was a good thing, because we had only played the course one time previously and that was five years ago. Denny didn't remember playing here at all, but I remembered because the sprinklers had been turned on while we were playing and I got soaked on hole number five. The things you remember, right? But I didn't recall the ins and outs of the golf course and that's why it was nice playing with someone who could point out the hidden dangers on any particular hole. And there are some tricky holes here.

There are four sets of tees to play from; championship, men's, seniors' and women's. The yardage from the championship tees is 6464 with a rating/slope of 70.9/129. From the women's tees the yardage is 4487 with a rating/slope of 65.9/106. Par is 71; there are four par 5 holes, nine par 4 holes and five par 3 holes on the course.Because it has been raining in the Midwest for the last six weeks, the fairways weren't cut as carefully as they normally would be, the rough was higher than normal and there were soggy, boggy areas still. At the fifteenth hole which is a par 5 hole we had to stay on the cart path which ran along a ridge line and slip, slide down the muddy hillside on foot to the fairway to play. Normally this would be a fun hole but it was a bit too squishy for my liking on this day. There are nine ponds on the course and a creek wanders back and forth across the grounds, especially on hole number two where the creek crosses the fairway not once but three times. The creek was really high and the current was quite strong as local creeks and rivers are all still flooded here in Ohio so there was no looking for balls when Denny and Dan hooked their balls into the creek. On this hole depending on where you were, you could hit the creek whether you hit a slice or a hook. Fun hole.

Currently the sand traps aren't in play due to the fact that they are filled with water, but the course has 58 of them scattered around so they could be a problem on nice days. The guys clipped a few trees also here and there so there are plenty of challenges on this course. And the noisiest thing we heard was a peacock screeching at the farm next to the golf course; no road noise, no trains, no planes. Nice.
This is definitely a golf course we'd play again.

Holly Hills Golf Course

What happens when your husband trusts the Weather Channel instead of the visual evidence of black clouds? You play golf in the rain. Badly. Goodness knows, we needed more rain in Ohio right now. And yes, that was me being sarcastic.

As we were returning home from a trip to the grocery store we drove past the local Elks Club golf course and noticed that there were golfers on the course. Since Ohio has had rain for the the last three weeks all of the local courses have been closed or not available for play. We stopped in at the course to check the cost (very reasonable with a BOGO free special over Mother's Day weekend) and the pro shop employee told Denny that Holly Hills might be open also.

Well, that's all it took. Holly Hills Golf Course at 4966 N.State Route 42 in Waynesville, Ohio is the first place Denny took me to play golf. We went as a foursome, me and three men. I had never played golf in my life, had never even swung a club so Denny rented a set of clubs from the pro shop. Understand, I am left-handed. What was available to rent were sets of men's right-handed golf clubs, so that's what Denny got for me. He took me to the first tee, handed me the driver and said "swing away!" And that was my introduction to golf. To this day I play right-handed, but last year we finally broke down and bought me some ladies golf clubs.

Since that time, Holly Hills has been on of our favorite golf courses. From the men's blue tees the course is 6785 yards with a slope/rating of 126/71.6. The yardage from the women's tees is 5402 yards with a slope rating of 117/70.3 There are also white and yellow (senior) tees. The golf course is mature, having been built in 1962 and over the years the only real changes have been the height of the trees. When we first started playing here we walked the course which is a terrific workout since the course is aptly named; there are quite a few hills and slopes to climb. Now, we take a golf cart.

There are sand traps here on the course but they are avoidable. A couple of tiny creeks (little more than washes) cross a couple of the holes and there is a small pond to the side of the fifth hole which doesn't shouldn't come into play. With the design of the course, sometimes you are hitting uphill to the green and sometimes you are hitting down to the green and all of the greens are pretty fast, even when sodden with rain.Currently, the course is badly waterlogged but overall for just coming off the winter months it was in surprisingly good shape. Right now the act of the groundskeepers cutting the grass is tearing up the fairways a bit but I'm sure once this area dries out they will be hard at work getting it back into shape.
The sun did finally come out yesterday, but only after we were thoroughly drenched. I would like to think our scores would have been much better had the course not been so boggy and we weren't rather stiff and tense from the cold and wet. The double dog leg at the second hole continues to challenge me with its par 5 length, but this time around I actually conquered my nemesis--hole number thirteen.
Hole number thirteen is a par 3 hole where you have to hit your ball through a small opening in the trees and over a small creek to the green. The tee boxes are on a hill and the green is on a hill with lots of room to lose your ball in between. For the first time in all of our years playing here, I almost parred this hole, which almost made me forget how cold and wet I was.

Prices to play golf at Holly Hills are reasonable. Before noon a senior (age 50+) will pay $25 to play eighteen holes using a riding cart. After twelve, the price drops to $21 for seniors. Not a bad deal for a course that will challenge your playing skills.

Loutre Shore Country Club

We drove 30 miles to play golf at the Loutre (pronounced Looter) Shore Country Club because a G**gle search stated the course was 18 holes. It's not. This is a nine hole golf course. And while I felt bad for making Denny drive that far for a nine hole golf course, we did have fun playing this one.

Loutre Shore's course is set in the hills of the Rhine Valley just a few miles north of Hermann, Missouri. The hills surrounding the golf course would be breathtaking in the fall with the great variety of hardwood trees in the area. As it was, playing in the early spring we enjoyed the wild phlox and dogwood trees that were in bloom on the course.

Hole number three, a par 4 that dog legs to the right after you hit across the pond (and dodge the Canada goose sleeping on the cart path.)

The golf course is set up for you to play two different sets of tees if you play an eighteen hole round of golf here. That means the men's second hole is a par 4 but when played as the eleventh hole there is a different tee box farther back which makes the hole a par 5. The fifth hole on the front nine is a par 4 but on the back nine as hole number 14 it is a par 3. Denny played the men's blue tees for a total yardage of 6654 yards and a rating/slope of 69.9/116. I played the red tees for a total yardage of 5204 yards and a rating/slope of 68.6/106. There are no sand traps on this course and water only comes into play on two holes (3 holes if you have a wicked slice.) The challenge comes from the large trees lining the fairways and the sloped lie of some of the fairways.

There were some rough spots off the sides of the fairways but the fairways themselves and the greens were in pretty good shape for just coming out of the winter mode. Normally for seniors we would have paid $25 each to play 18 holes with a riding cart (and this is a hilly course) but on Thursdays it's "dollar a hole day" so we paid $18 each for green fees (no cart fee) plus tax so we paid just over $38 for the two of us to play golf. We saw a golfer come out of the clubhouse with a hot dog so there is at least that much to eat at the turn and their website says there is a full bar which includes wines from the local Hermann wineries (and there are a lot of them in Hermann.)

At ten thirty in the morning we were the only people on the golf course, although others soon followed. Therefore we enjoyed a leisurely round of golf on a perfect, sunshine filled day out in the middle of nowhere, Missouri. We may just go back.

The ninth/eighteen hole looking towards the clubhouse (the building that looks like a barn.)

Millwood Landing Golf Club

How nice is it to walk outside and have the staff at your campground/golf course pick you up to take you over to the the golf cart barn to grab a golf cart? At which point you drive the golf cart back to your trailer to load up your golf bags and drive onto the course to play 18 holes? Let me tell you it's wonderful! Add to that a ridiculously low price to play golf (a special favor from the pro shop employee) and it was a fun day.

To be perfectly honest, the golf course here is a little rough. The staff is watering the fairways and greens but they haven't kept up with the grass cutting (as a matter of fact they were cutting the fairways as we were playing today) and the fairways need some reseeding as do the greens. This golf course is set up beautifully for play, however, and with the influx of a little money could be a wonderful little golf course. There are some houses along the back nine but for the most part it's just you and the golf course. There are plenty of mature trees lining the fairways and Denny found a lot of them, but straight shots will get you par easily. Even I made a couple today. There were only five other golfers on the course today which is a shame because the course can be a challenge and it reminded us of one of our favorite courses in the hilly area of northwestern South Carolina.

For the golf course statistics; Denny played the blue tees for a total yardage of 6413 yards. The rating/slope is 70.4/118. I played the ladies red tee at 4731 yards with a rating/slope of 68.4/122. There are sand traps on the course but they didn't come into play much for us (okay, one time for me) and the only troublesome water is the 16th hole which is a par 3 (shown in the picture below.)
This is a pretty, well-laid out course that has tremendous potential if there was a little money invested in its maintenance and upkeep. And it's always nice to play at a leisurely pace (especially when your husband is hitting WAY errant shots into the woods.) We liked it.

Tawakoni Golf Club

Tawakoni (ta WAH ko nee) Golf Club in West Tawakoni, Texas has the potential of being a really nice little golf course with some terrific views of Lake Tawakoni as you play. At the moment however, the course is a tad on the rough side and I'm not sure if that's because it is winter here or if that is its normal condition. There is no apparent watering system for the tee boxes or fairways and it shows. The greens seem to be watered and kept cut so there is that to be thankful for. But a drive down the middle of the fairway can hit a clump of grass on that hardpan surface and kick straight right or left on you for no reason. And here we thought we'd play well because the Texas winds were quiet for once!From the men's blue (championship) tees the golf course is 6697 yards long with a rating/slope of 72.6/124. The white tees make the course 6320 yards long with a rating/slope of 70.7/121. There are also senior and women's tees. The women's yardage is 5050 yards with a rating/slope of 69.7/116. I was able to get more distance on low flying shots due to the hard surface of the course since the ball would run quite far if it didn't hit a rough spot. Large oak trees lining the fairways can be a problem although the fairways are reasonably wide. Ten of the holes have water that can come into play (and did). There are a couple of sand traps on hole eleven which I remember because I shot out of one into the other, but I can't recall sand traps on many of the other holes. Or else Denny and I just managed to avoid the sand traps on all the other holes.

Green fees with a riding cart were $24 each, credit cards accepted. There didn't seem to be a snack bar or restaurant on the grounds so it is bring your own here. A sign in the parking lot says no alcoholic beverages are allowed on the grounds but the empty beer cans in the garbage cans at the tee boxes seemed to put the lie to that.

I have to say that despite the golf course's condition we had fun playing here. There were only about 20 other people on the golf course with us and we never had anyone on our heels during play. That always makes for a more relaxing round of golf and usually better scores for the two of us. A sunny day, no wind, low humidity and out playing golf with my best friend. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Columbus Golf Course in Texas

There aren't a lot of inexpensive golf courses in Colorado County, Texas, nor are there a lot of eighteen hole golf courses. Most of the courses are several miles away and with the price of diesel fuel currently at $3.79 or more here, Denny and I chose to play the local nine hole golf course here in Columbus, Texas.

Columbus Golf Course is a little pricey at $30 per person to play 18 holes with a riding cart but the cost of driving a lot farther out cancels out the benefit of a cheaper round. Denny and I weren't real impressed when we walked into the clubhouse, which is supposedly undergoing remodeling. For the time being the pro shop is in the bar which is also the snack bar. There are no balls for sale, no golf clubs, no shoes, no alcoholic beverages of any sort, no hot food. You have the choice of a variety of bags of chips and soda pop should you become hungry during your round. I suggest you bring your own snacks and drinks.

Once we walked over to the first tee we were pleasantly surprised by the condition of the fairways and greens. The course plays 5635 yards for the men who start off playing the blue tees on the front nine and the red tees on the back nine. The slope/rating is 120/66.5. For the women the yardage is 4804, playing the white and the red tees.

Mature oak trees caused us the most problems with their low hanging branches. Denny and I both hit into and through the trees several times although the fairways aren't really all that narrow. It's simply an errant shot can cost you an extra shot or two. There are several ponds fronting or beside some of the holes which also makes the round a little more interesting.

Speaking of interesting, how many golf courses have a cemetery as a hazard? Click on the picture below to enlarge it and look on the right side of the photo to see what I mean. This is the 7th/16th hole which has an extreme dogleg to the right passing behind the cemetery after you hit the ball off the tee. I actually took this photograph well to the left of the tee box to show the cemetery better. Believe me, the slightest slice and your ball will be resting in the cemetery.
The eighth hole is also made a bit more interesting by the fact that there are two greens for the hole, both protected by water. You play the green on the right on the front nine and the green on the left on the back nine. And I hit my two of my best drives each time on this hole, meaning I hit the ball hard enough for it to roll into the water. And here the ponds are either too murky or the banks drop off too steeply to be able to retrieve any balls. Just consider them lost if you hit into the water at this course.
Prices go up $10 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. This is a walkable course and this time of year Denny and I were among only a handful of players on the course in the late morning hours. Despite the price, we'll probably go back next week, simply to attempt to play the course better than we did the first time.

And if you are hungry afterward, we suggest Schobel's Restaurant in town. If you get there before 2:30PM they have an excellent lunch buffet or a great lunch menu.

Abita Springs Golf Club

There aren't a lot of choices to play golf near Abita Springs, Louisiana but fortunately the one course near our campground is a fun one.

Mondays and Wednesdays are Seniors and Ladies Day at the golf course so you can play a round of golf for $25 with a riding cart. When Denny and I arrived for our tee time there was a crowd of men ready to tee off who I'm sure were locals taking advantage of the good price and the fact that Wednesday was the warmest day that we had had for a week, although that wasn't saying much. It was overcast, cold and breezy and I was prepared for a miserable day with my tight muscles and sore back.

Indeed both Denny and I started off playing poorly (it was COLD!) but eventually the wind died down and the sun started trying to peek out of the clouds and the two of us settled down to hit a few good shots. This was the first golf course I've ever played where the green were brown; whatever grass they use for their greens apparently goes into hibernation and changes color. Very strange and hard to find the greens when you are playing a strange golf course for the first time. The course itself is a bit short with the yardage on the hole markers and score cards in no way matching where the grounds crews have set the tee markers. So picking a club to hit was a guessing game off the tee although there are the standard yardage markers along the sides of the fairways after you hit your tee shot. Denny played the white tees at 6065 yards with a slope/rating of 124/69.3 while I played the red tees at 4645 yards with a slope/rating of 112/66.8. We were surprised to see that all of the men playing in front of us were playing from the "senior" tees at what we thought was a relatively short golf course.

I have to say Denny and I will need to return to this course to play it again due to the cold weather, the fact that we had torrential rains the night before which made the golf course very boggy (it was cart-path only that day) and the greens were "dead". The course was actually in good condition otherwise and it was obvious the players fixed their ball marks on the greens and their divots in the fairways, which can be rare. The two of us managed to stay out of the sand traps which was good because all the sand traps were mini-ponds due to the rain. There are a lot of ponds and lakes and creeks on this course so you should be prepared to lose a ball or two when you play here.

Once the sun finally came out Denny and I settled down to play some better golf so we'll put this course on our "we'll be back" list.