COMPROMISE

Thursday night presented a difficult choice; the first 4 games of the sweet 16 round including Miami and the Cinderella teams Wichita St/LaSalle games. There was also a Charter Commission meeting with presenters former City Clerk Laddie Wyatt, PMUA Director and former Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson and also former Financial Director Ron West.

My preference would be to watch the basketball games but I was especially interested hear Laddie’s remarks based on her 23 years as City Clerk. Fortunately, I could “tape” the ball games so it turns out to be a no brainer.  

Since I would not have time to write about the meeting for Friday morning; I will continue my “golfing days story” with a description of some of the Courses other than the West Nine and Ashbrook where I flailed away.

Another 18 hole privately owned public course, Oak Tree, was In nearby Edison. It had several interesting holes including a par four that had a short 50 yard drive through a “shoot” in the trees to a fairway that was a sharp dogleg to the right. I could not drive over the trees, as any good golfer should be able to do. I did however make a habit of hitting the trees lining the “shoot”. By the 80s, it had become a county course. A few years ago Union County closed it as a golf course in favor of a park.

          In the summer when at the lake, Helen and I would go to Schroon Lake Village where there was a 9 hole public course. It was unique. There was a long steep uphill par 4 first hole bordered on the right by a dirt road that led away from the lake and up the mountain. To the left of that green was the tee for the par 3 second hole, that could not have been more than 100 feet at the most long. However, there was no fairway, just a 9 iron or pitching wedge drive over a canyon to a postage stamp green. Needless to say, in our hands almost all tee shots landed in an impossible resting place at the bottom or else were way over the green into impossible rough.

          The 3^rd was a par 4 from the elevate tee, which offered a beautiful view of the lake, to a precipitously lower downhill fairway. The second shot should be a chip to the green. Since there was nothing but fairways to the left; par should have been a given.

Next there was a series of six par 4s one next to the other over the crest of a hill. Over/back three times. It was a blind drive on these 6 holes. This part of the course was wide open the direction altering for each hole.

          I lay claim to the fact that I probably am one of the few if not the only one to play Bermuda’s exclusive Mid-Ocean Golf course and the Castle Harbor course at the same time.  Bob and Jean Reis and ourselves were vacationing at Castle Harbor and were playing on the Hotel’s golf course. My hook drive landed on a Mid-Ocean Fairway which was parallel to the hole I was playing. I took two shots towards the Mid- Ocean tee in order to reach the Castle Harbor green.

          One summer we drove to Prince Edward Island with Jean and Bob Reis. Helen and I had been to the Island on our 1949 belated honeymoon trip (three kids); it was about time) and had fallen in love with the beach. We were aware of the adjacent beautiful provincial golf course.

          The front nine was an inland course: hilly with elevated greens and deep traps. In front of one green there was a trap so deep that to get out it required a shot backwards to the fairway. Being in the deep rough or woods on the front nine was not too bad, since when looking for lost balls the girls would pick and eat strawberries. The 9^th was a long par 5 with a postage stamp green on the side of a hill. In front of the green, there was a deep 30ft wide valley that had to be crossed.  Behind and slightly higher than the green was the original “Anne of Greengables” house. This also served as the club house.

          The back nine was a true seaside links. The nine holes ran counter clockwise around a peninsula jutting into the St Lawrence Bay. We often played with a Canadian whose left arm had been amputated. He was great company and a better golfer.

          On that trip, we played other courses included one at Moncton. This course had a hole which was a dead ringer for the tree hole at Oak Ridge. It required a drive through a narrow fairway surrounded by woods. Twice my tee shot hit a tree landing at least twenty feet behind us.

          We also spent two days at a Bed and Bath near the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrews New Brunswick. We would dine at the hotel, where the service was as fitting and perfect for a top Canadian Pacific Hotel. The hotel had two golf courses, one a tournament caliber 18 hole course, the other was supposedly a par three course with very narrow but long fairways.