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?

Golfing Among Cranberry Bogs

Denny and I chose this week's golf course after passing by it on our way to shopping in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Lush green fairways dotted with Saturday morning players tempted us to come back, so Tuesday I looked online for tee time specials and spotted some for Wednesday so I booked an eleven-ten tee time and we were set. Southers Marsh Golf Club was a drive of about ten miles from our campground and we arrived way too soon for our tee time but the young lady at the desk allowed us to pay, pick a riding cart, grab our golf bags and head right for the first tee.

The first thing I said to Denny was, "are those cranberry bogs out there?" Sure enough, they were. As always, you can click on any of my photographs to enlarge them for viewing.Our next surprise was that we were on an eighteen hole executive golf course. I was so busy looking for discounted golf fees that I didn't pay attention to Southers Marsh's web site to see that this was not a full length golf course. My bad. So Denny got to practice a lot of short irons here. From the longest tees the yardage is 4111 and from the shortest it's 2907 yards. The course has sand traps and a few hillsides and enough elevation changes to make it interesting. Since there are no ratings/slopes for such a short course (par 61), instead you can look at photos of the cranberry picking process at the golf course here. And yes, this is a close up of the cranberries growing next to one of the greens. As you can see, the cranberries are just starting to ripen and should be ready in plenty of time for Thanksgiving.
Water only comes into play on the first hole and that's not even a problem. What does come into play are the cranberry bogs; you are not allowed to retrieve your balls from either the bogs or the drainage ditches that surround them therefore you may find yourself with several penalties for a lateral hazard and a few lost balls (uh, that would be me!) The pace of play was slow as there were a lot of groups on the course walking since it is a short golf course.

Luckily for us, the humidity had decreased after a passing rain shower the night before so even though we had to wait (and wait) on each hole, it was a beautiful day, the golf course was in fine condition and Denny and I managed to hit some good shots. Afterwards we had a really good lunch at the Chinese Pilgrim restaurant (hey, what kind of name do you expect in Plymouth, Massachusetts?) so we were happy campers.