Week 14

This week - Eagles Glenn.  Don't be intimidated by the audio tour from its website, this course is very playable - challenging, yes; intimidating, no.  The fact that Saturday morning was, as predicted, very sunny with the promise of heat to come, but cool and dewy to start out, with barely a breath of wind, made it the ideal morning for a golf game.  We had a tee off time of 8:40 but arrived at 8 a.m. so that we could take advantage of the magnificent practice facilities that this course in the heart of Cavendish offers.  The putting green was wonderful, the driving range is good, we were ready to take on the (as the website told us) constant grassy mounds, fescue infested rough and challenging greens of Eagles Glenn.

We started out a little shaky, but we discovered that when your drive or second shots were only slightly off the perfect location on the fairway, the mounds and bumps tended to roll you back onto the "sweet" spots of the course.  It also helped me get much more mileage out of my shots.  Now, if you found the deep rough or a white sand bunker, that was a different story all together!  On the front nine, much of the deep fescue seemed to have been trimmed back and that helped our confidence and allowed us to get out of some places that we otherwise weren't going to be able to find the ball, let alone play it where it lies.  The course is a delight - the tee boxes (all five of them) were level and well-cared-for, the fairways are like broadloom and the greens (even when wet with dew) were very quick and predictable.  There are some lovely floral plantings on almost every hole which are very nice and the course and the views to surrounding countryside are very picturesque.  The only note which I would make is that the water hazards seem oddly out of character with the rest of the course.  They are invariably bare of any vegetation and have a very unfinished quality to them.  To be a superb addition to the golf courses of PEI, the owners need to do something to perk up these water hazards.

Despite the name, we didn't actually see any eagles - however there were at least six ospreys on the super-long par 5 Hole No. 8 that were circling as my husband made his approach shot to the green.  The "audience" hushed as his third shot dropped within 10 feet of the pin!  There were also a couple of families of Canada Geese on Hole No. 18 and its three ponds.   Otherwise, what we noticed as much as anything was how quiet the course is.  The holes have good seperation from each other and the trees lining the holes kept down any noise from off the course - at least until near the end of the back nine when all of a sudden there were the squeals of happy riders on the Sandspit ferris wheel.  It was a little reminder that we weren't actually off the beaten path, but rather in the heart of Cavendish.  It's easy to forget that though when you are playing this lovely course.

I would like to recommend that the score card include a little map of the lay out of the course, as it was a little confusing sometimes finding which way to go to the next hole.  Despite the topography, it is a good course to walk!  A healthy "two thumbs up" for this Graham Cooke designed nine-year old course.

Looking forward to next week, but a little fearful that it will be hard to find a more perfect day or a better course than this one, Jane