Week 18

Early September and the weather is summer-like (much more so than summer has been this year!).  We tried to book Brudenell for this Saturday, but they had a big tournament and 3:30 was the earliest tee-off, so off we went to the Links at Crowbush Cove.  We've only played here once before and walked it with Mike Weir and Vijay Singh when they were here with the Legends of Golf.  It is a spectacular course with a lovely clubhouse (although who builds a clubhouse with only a one-hole ladies bathroom in the basement?  It is also the site of another of the lovely Rodd Resort Hotels which has received good reviews, at least from our Alaskan friends!  The weather was perfect, even early in the morning, with a pleasant breeze, sunshine with warming tendencies and NO mosquitoes, which we had heard horror stories about here.

We were paired up with two members - both summer residents, Dave from Houston, TX and Tom from Toronto, ON.  Both are accomplished golfers (which should have twigged to this when they insisted on playing from the golds), but about as gruff and unfriendly as "fellow" golfers can get.  Dave was a purist walker, with a very small carry bag filled with old (and I do mean "old" clubs) complete with a very small hickory putter, blade irons and his driver was the only club in his bag younger than I am!  Tom was a drive cart operator and took a couple of holes to get his groove going, but he could be very precise.  They had played together before, although they didn't even seem particularly friendly with each other!

Precision is what is required on this course, as it is narrow and challenging with lots of water hazards and deep pocket bunkers all over the place and some tricky, fast greens.  We did "so-so" but lost some balls and I figured that I'd died and gone to heaven when I parred the 9th hole!  We made it as far as the tee-box on Hole 11, which is high up above the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with the most spectacular views of the sand dunes and the Gulf and inland across the rest of the course.  We stopped and took some photos and wished Tom and Dave good luck with the rest of the course.  When you've lost almost 10-12 balls between us, the course is beating you and the fun of golfing with the others had ceased about 6 holes earlier, there really isn't any point in continuing.  It was still a beautiful day and the deck needed painting anyway!  We did spend almost an hour on the practice facility which has a great putting green, chip and sand facility as well as an irons only range - it's great.

My recommendation to other, average golfers is leave this course to the skilled professionals and the wannabe pros and save yourselves some grief.

Hope to see you next week, the list is down to Brudenell, Glasgow Hills and Mill River (which we have left to last, so that the fall colours have as much chance to show themselves), Jane