The most underrated links course in Scotland.
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Name?
Moray Old.
OTM course.
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Doing a little side trip of golf in Indiana. Today I played IU Pfau course. Follow the link for the write up and photos.
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Nostalgia play for me today, played the first course I ever played for the first time in probably 20 years. Desmidt’s in Crivitz WI, front 9 is an executive and the back is full of half par holes. Still fun after all these years.
It wasn’t just childhood memories, #5 remains the most difficult 160ish yard par 3 I’ve ever played. Plays uphill about 15 to this monstrosity of a green. I hit one to the middle of the green, about 15 feet away. Almost made the sweeper of a putt and it still rolled 3 feet by the cup. Played it well outside on the comeback and it didn’t touch the hole low. Once again left that green just laughing at how dumb it is.
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Picked up the kiddo in advance of her senior year at college, and played the course with the second largest clubhouse (the men’s locker room is > 1 acre) in the world to Congressional.
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We just call it Olympia Fields, but big clubhouse works too I guess.
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I played Gearhart Golf Links (twice) and Manzanita Links on the front end of our Bandon trip. I can’t recommend this addition highly enough - the travel to Bandon is usually a bear anyway, so an extra day or two is well worth it.
Gearhart was awesome. I got to play in the afternoon wind and the morning calm to see a variety of conditions. It’s a course where you can blast driver all day if you know where to aim, but laying back and using the ground is always a fun and viable option as well. The local undulations in the fairways are a sight to behold. The small greens are lightning fast and surrounded by huge kicker slopes to feed the ball to appropriately positioned pins. I got to play with two members approximately four minutes after changing in the locker room, but got around fairly well under the circumstances. We played in a brisk 3:20 despite waiting a bit on the front nine and I took zero pictures. All photos are from the ensuing morning round where I played their specially procured Craic tees, which was a fun change of pace. Favorite hole: #3.
#2 tee and parts of #3-8 in the foggy background
#4 tee
#9 upper fairway and approach. The tall mound on the left has a 15 foot speed slot drop behind.
#16 approach
I liked the front side slightly more than the back. #2-4 in particular is such a fantastic stretch of golf.
Manzanita Links is a 9 hole par 32 course in the beach town of Manzanita, 45 minutes south of Gearhart. The grocery store has a deli and eating a sandwich on the beach was peak vacation. The golf course is short with large flat greens: basically an ideal place to learn the game, and they steer into that. But I’m a sicko and I loved it too. #2 is a downhill dogleg with a not-quite-centerline tree guarding the inside. I also loved the downhill par four #5 and more aggressively tree lined par four #8 - both are beautiful holes that I don’t get to see much. Favorite hole: #2.
#1 green looking back at clubhouse
#2 tee (blue tee is back and to the right) and approach from under the tree
#8 fairway
Tidy scorecard for the dude. Several tees were up, which definitely drove that.
These are wonderful courses that would make a nice short trip on their own. But given how often folks fly in to Portland on the way to Bandon - adding a day or two to hit these is a great way to turn that itinerary up to 11.
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Today I was influenced again. Cullen… super quirky super fun and everything that people have said.
Still fucking hate blind par 3s.
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Looking forward to the write up! Looks great
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Yet another round at The Park WPB. Won’t repeat all the course stuff, but realized I have never mentioned the canning machine at the Cabana at the turn. Beer or cocktails or whatever you want, filled up in a plastic logo can and spun a round with a lid. So good!
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As I sit in a hotel room after a flight delay that prevented me from getting home, I can reflect on a great trip with @dshaddy and @dinonuggets. These fellow Splash of OJ members joined me in my old stomping grounds of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
First round was at Timberstone, a course that had become my white whale of sorts in the UP. Between high school and previous trips home, I had attempted to play this course six times and every one was rained out. Despite a dicey forecast, we got the round in. Classic UP golf course cut into the trees in Iron Mountain. Highlight of the round was a lip out ace that led to a tap in bird.
Up next was Wawonowin CC, up in Ishpeming. The course had hosted the UP Championships the weekend prior, so the greens were still pretty spicy, especially from above the hole. An absolute steal to ride for $55 at this time of the year.
Unfortunately we got some bad luck in the afternoon round at Greywalls. The three of us got paired with a nightmare of a single who wouldn’t quiet down, to the point of asking me what kind of putter I was using as I was addressing a putt. Even had to give him the “hold up there, chief” hand signal as he was still yapping while Drew was over his putt. Got rained out after only 5 holes, sad that the guys didn’t get to enjoy the amusement park golf featured there.
Final day took us to the two courses at the Island Resort and Casino near Escanaba. First up was Sage Run. I had some concerns about the course, as some locals I have talked to over the years have not been fans of the course. They had talked up the high rough, especially around the bunkers, and some of the holes playing too difficult. I can see their point a bit on the difficulty, as a couple of the par 3s played long and significantly uphill, requiring a towering long iron or wood shot to reach safety. I still thought it was a tough test of golf with great conditions and a lot of fun, even though I played like ass.
Last round of the trip was at Sweetgrass, the original course at the casino property. Conditions were immaculate and a lot of fun despite a five hour round. I was too busy trying to maintain a decent card to get many pics here.
Highly recommend this trip to anybody looking to play UP golf, courses are all fun and it’s a great value. Leaves you with some change in your pocket to gamble with in the casino, we had a blast at the roulette table last night. Take it from us, it is always a good idea to fade a bet by anybody wearing the Titties Titleist font hat.
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Glad you guys had fun, bummed I had to pull the chute and bail last minute.
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Missed you out there. I made sure to let out a “FUCK!” at the top of my lungs after missing a putt in your honor
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Got to knock off Course 3 of the 4 big college courses in Indiana this past weekend with the Kampen course at Purdue (need to get up to Warren at Notre Dame). I had previously played Ackerman at Purdue and Pfau at IU. Gotta say that Kampen is my number 1 of the bunch so far with Pfau as a close second. Admittedly, I was very under the weather with a case of the bottle flu when I played Pfau, but at times Pfau seemed difficult for the sake of being difficult. Both courses did very much reward great shots though. I loved a lot of the run off areas surrounding the greens at Kampen and think that I am very quickly becoming a Pete Dye fan boy (shoutout @golf4miami). I also had a true mid handicap psycho scorecard. On holes 3, 9, 10, and 11 I was a combined 11 over….I was 1 under on the remaining 14 holes.
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