Pohick Bay

Year Opened: 1982

Architect: George Cobb

Web: www.nvrpa.org/parks/pohickbaygolf/?pg=golfcourse.html

Phone: (703) 339-8585


I first ventured here with the Dawgs, my boy’s old golfing crew, back in my formative golf years. They reminisced and joked around while I sat quietly and pensively over on a picnic bench, trying to level out after getting my drink on the night before. One dude, who had a country club background growing up, had a sweet smooth swing, clearly polished by substantial time spent with his club pro. What he didn’t have is a complete set of clubs. I don’t remember the details, if he’d come in out of town or what; what I do remember is that as a fellow southpaw he used my clubs – and lemme tell you, they were a little off-put being hit in the sweet spot so often. So mostly I remember kinda being this dude’s caddie.

Pohick Bay’s terrain is heavily forested (it’s in a regional park along the Potomac River near Lorton) and fairly hilly. Play moves along in a reasonable manner once you get going since there are no fairway bunkers at all and no water hazards until late on the back nine.

George Cobb, a fairly prolific course designer in the Southeast US, has a pretty cool accomplishment on his epitaph – he teamed with Clifford Roberts (co-founder of Augusta National with Bobby Jones) to build the charming par-3 course in 1959, site of the well-known par 3 tourney the Wednesday before the Masters. And how do I know it’s charming? Well, actually, truth be told, because I played it. Now you wouldn’t think , what little you know of me, that I’d be the sort of fellow who hobnobs with corporate honchos or the United States power elite (though I do know someone who recently saw Jane Curtin on the streets of NY), and back in the early 80s I attached a lapel microphone to Loni Anderson’s dress strap (that was a bit of a show) and I was once in the urinal adjacent to Dean Martin, who was slurring “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometimes”…oh yeah, and Dennis Eckersley once gave me the snub at an airport car rental joint. I thought as a fellow recovering alcoholic we’d find more of a connection, maybe share our thoughts on the 2nd Step. What a dick. I should’ve done the Kirk Gibson one-handed limp-off home-run imitation off Eckersley in the car rental lobby - that would’ve showed him. So I had to be honest with myself, I didn’t move in the social circles of Augusta-types. I smoked a lot so maybe I could work that admittedly distant connection with the Southern plantation Big Tobacco tycoons but I couldn’t quite visualize the way from buying cigarettes at 7-11 to garnering a seat at the Philip Morris boardroom. So let’s see, I’d never broken 85 so I probably wasn’t going to play my way into Augusta. And I didn’t(don't) know anyone. Augusta doesn’t allow women so I couldn’t even use the Ukrainian gigolo kept-man angle as an unrealistic possibility (I can only imagine the nightmarish dames that would go to Augusta if they could – think Anne Coulter or the Julia Roberts character in “Charlie Wilson’s War” (to quote Anthony Lane, film critic from The New Yorker: “the pro-Pakistani Texan hostess (how many of those do you know?)”), or the Donald in drag, sporting a sundress). Plus I’m not exactly gigolo material – I haven’t done more than a couple dozen sit-ups in a decade’s time (I'm more of a Chairmaster work-out devotee), I’m bald and sort of scowly-jowly, not into navy blue blazers at all, I don’t make a great whiskey sour and I most certainly can’t quote Scripture. So it looked like I’d have to go the servile routine – put all that humiliating hotel experience to use. Alright then. I could caddy, no? Wrong again. The Southern crackers that run Augusta use only black caddies – “Boy, hand me the 5-iron and hold dis here ceegar” “Yessum, boss”. Else what could I do? Bingo. I would master the art of the pimento- cheese sandwich and that would be my ticket into Augusta. Bam! And you know what? They didn’t take long to master. I loaded up my pimento cheese mix, a jar of mayo, a few loaves of white bread and I started the long trek to Augusta, Georgia. Outside the club I set-up shop, putting to work all my marketing acumen: I opened up the rear of the hatchback, put on some Charlie Daniels CDs with the Confederate flag fluttering haughtily off the radio antenna, and made up a cardboard sign, “Klan Special: Hoods Bleached & Ironed with Purchase of 3 Sandwiches”. Guess what? I didn’t get even a nibble. Oh, the New Tolerant South. Former Masters champion Fuzzy Zoeller, in his trademark aviator shades, did slow down as he passed, merrily whistling "Dixie".

OK, ok, so I never played the par-3 course. But I read somewhere that it’s quite charming.

So not surprisingly, Pohick features a strong set of par 3s, especially the long uphill fifth and the lakeside downhill 15th. While the tee shots are fairly straightforward, Pohick gets some marks for its greens, which are decidedly more interesting than the run-of-mill fare you find at other munis, with lots of contouring, swales and distinct tiers. About half of the holes here are doglegs so even though the tee shots don’t have much going on, you’ll need to at least reach the corner of the dogleg so you’ll have a clear look at the well-bunkered putting surfaces.

Even though they are out of character with the rest of the course, the 13th through 15th, which wrap around and over a central lake, offer the most thrills (and possibilities for some big scores), especially the par 5 thirteenth, where the lake needs to be carried on your second shot to have a short approach to the tricky uphill angled green. The 14th is a semi-blind lay-up short of the water, followed by a short-iron approach over the lake to a green tucked into the hillside.

As I made my way around with the country club dude, I found out that the 3-iron (which I had heretofore used pretty much exclusively as a punch out club from under tree limbs) could indeed be hit properly with a real golf swing. In fact all of my clubs could be hit with a real golf swing. And here I thought it was the clubs. I guess it was the old golf adage, it’s not the arrows, it’s the Indian. I mean Native American. No, hell with it, I'm sticking with Indian. What, no good? Ok, fine, how about it's not the chopsticks, it's the Chinaman? Also no good? Damn. Well, I'm kinda stuck here, I've gotta tell you. Anyhoo, as far as the 3-iron goes, it and its long-iron kinfolk were on the verge of extinction - thankfully the boys in the lab were hunkered down and drawing up the plans for the prototype hybrid-iron, 21st century panacea of the weekend golfer.

As far as Pohick Bay goes, it’s a perfectly adequate municipal track, but its location for us Maryland golfers (you had to deal with the absurd traffic from the 8-year Mixing Bowl project in Springfield) makes it a less than desirable destination. In fact, I have returned here exactly once – it was definitely a casualty of the proliferation of course-building in the mid-to-late 90s.

I’ll give it a solid 5.5.

Penderbrook

Year Opened: 1980

Architect: Ed Ault

Web: www.penderbrookgolf.com

Phone: (703) -385-3700

Penderbrook, off Rte. 50 in Fair Oaks, Virginia, was my first experience with the golf/housing development concept and my first foray into the Commonwealth. Houses and condos galore line the drive in, with the clubhouse located below a respectable stand of trees. The houses lining the fairway are by far the most prominent design feature – certainly that doesn’t bode well, now does it? So what in the world can I, staunch defender of all that embodies conformity and homogeneity in our society, find wrong with the bland banal community before me? Hmmm. Staunch defender indeed. It’s bad enough I have to live in a vinyl-sided suburban enclave; when I go out for some recreation, I certainly don’t need to be reminded of this unfortunate predicament.

I can sort of understand the golf course community model in a retirement setting in, let’s say, Florida or Scottsdale, where the residents should probably avoid driving as much as possible. Hey, I’m seeing this with my own father, who used to be a great driver but now seems to drive about half the suggested speed limit. Maybe he’s recalling his European heritage and is using Kilometers Per Hour to gauge his speed – where 65 kph would be 40mph, maybe that’s what’s going on – all I know is this, if he’s driving us to see a movie in Bethesda, we have to leave about an hour and 15 minutes ahead of time from Gaithersburg to avoid sitting in the front row. But Penderbrook is not a retirement destination – though given the fiasco on Wall St. the past week, it just may become one, though I’ll take my chances that this blog will actually lead to some unforeseen financial windfall and I’ll be able to properly retire in the Ciutat Vella (Old City) of Barcelona, although I might have to re-think that since I can’t imagine my insomnia improving with age (why else would I be posting blogs at 5:30 in the morning after hitting the hay around 3am?) and those god-forsaken church bells with their incessant eternal gonging were troublesome a year ago, imagine 20 years from now, when the chickens come home to roost from my decades of daily many-multiple venti French roast coffees, though on the plus side my hearing has deteriorated (that damn rock n roll) to where I need to watch DVDs with the English sub-title feature activated so maybe the gonging will seem like a slight ping on the triangle, which naturally can’t help but evoke fond memories of Martin Short as Ed Grimley …. well ok, then, hello Penderbrook, here we come.

The distinguishing feature here? Obviously, the ubiquitous condos and houses. The first time I played here I sliced a 3-wood into a child’s playpen in the backyard of the condos lining the left side of the 4th hole. Luckily the child was not in the playpen. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great lie, right up against the Mr. Potato-Head. The layout is quite claustrophobic (the houses abutting the fairways certainly contribute to this sensation), with a number of ponds and lakes which are undeniably in play. The conditions are lackluster and it’s crowded, even when the prices shot up when the Palmer group took over. Did I mention that it’s overpriced? (Well, it most certainly was back when I came out here some years back, though I’ve noticed that the prices are now back in line with what you would expect from this track) And let’s not forget that horrible feeling as you descend the clubhouse steps and see 6 groups lined up at the first tee. Still, there are some decent golf holes here, some of which are damn challenging.

There’s no rush to get here before your tee-time since there’s no driving range – just a practice net. Might as well go to one of those indoor places and hit into a screen showing a blurry photo of Pebble Beach. There is, however, a small putting green next to a pretty pond below the clubhouse, the emphasis on small.

The first hole hardly distinguishes itself with one of the uglier tee shots around to a scruffy, muddy landing area and an uphill approach to a green with a large sloppy bunker in front. As an opening experience, it’s pretty dismal. Too long to wait, too much activity around the tee, a sloppy tee-box leading to a shoddy hole. #2 isn’t a bad short par 4 and the next one is a decent pond-fronted par 3 if you don’t mind a road and guard-rail as the scenic backdrop. The eighth hole is a perfectly pleasant short downhill par 4 with water in play left of the fairway off the tee and then again on an all-carry approach to a shallowish green. Shouldn’t be an issue but I’ve dumped my share of balls in the water.

The same lake needs to be carried on the closing hole of the front nine and then the fun begins, the queue at #10, one of the hardest par 3s in the area. It’s an all-carry shot over a lake with no bail-out (a heroic shot, if you define heroic by diving onto a hand grenade, because it’s gonna blow-up your scorecard in a similar fashion) and there’s a snack shop which helps pass the time for the unavoidable wait as you watch the preceding groups flail away in vain. But I’ve gotta tell you, you’d better relish your hot dog and chips because you’re in for a long break. Truth be told, they’d be better off putting in a multi-course French restaurant, and depending on the skill level of the golfers, you might want to leave some room for the cheese plate, factor in the obligatory sneery laissez-faire flair of the French waiters, the ones that come to your table about as often as Halley’s Comet, and then the tee box should be all clear by the time the petit-fours arrive. The 12th, with its 175 yard approach over water to a green bound by a railway-tie retaining wall was also on the short list of hardest par 4s but I hear #12 has been redone (they moved the green back to this side of the water – I guess not many weekend golfers have a high, soft 175 yard shot off a tight, patchy fairway) but I have no idea what the new configuration plays like and doubt I ever will, capiche?)

It wouldn’t do at all not to mention that I witnessed that golf rarity - a double eagle. And I do mean rare, like drawing a royal flush (remember that, Scott?) or Bill O’Reilly not starting a sentence by “what say you…Wichita?” or OJ finding Nicole’s killer or Britney Spears wearing panties while hitting the clubs, or me not leaving a rambling pathetically desperate voice mail message, a la “Swingers”…I refer you to the end of the second paragraph above and that is but a half-haiku to the Homerian epic you can expect should I ever leave you a phone message…

So, anyways, about that double eagle, well, it occurred on the 17th hole, a short rolling par 5. The guy I was playing with spent a good 5-10 minutes looking around the green for his ball since we didn’t see his second shot land beyond the knoll in front of us. I mean, we knew he hit it pretty good, we just didn’t know how good. Finally I decided to look at the hole (why not?) and there it was. Wow. Dude was trembling, big-time. Of course I had to have a drink with him and listen to his double-eagle story for the next half-hour or so. Hey pal, remember, I was there.

The back side alternates between hard and easy holes, though there are some testy shots over water and marsh. I always liked the short par five 14th, with a boo-hoo willow jutting alongside a marsh that meanders all the way up to the left of the green. It also might be the one hole where the condos are not really a visual factor. Well, actually, that’s not possible here, but if you squint and look real hard from a particular angle, you might think you were in…Patuxent Greens in Laurel, Md.

After sitting and waiting for the better part of 6 hours, the last few holes become irrelevant. Upon seeing a few groups lined up on the 18th tee box, I have quickly veered to the parking lot, dumped the clubs in the trunk and gotten the hell outta there.

Weird. I have played here many times over the years. When I really sucked, it was an OK place to lose some balls, occasionally pull off a shot over one of the many ponds, and it wasn’t too pricey. Then the Palmer Management Group took over running the place in the early 2000s and it became absurdly overpriced, like double what it should have been. Perhaps they were trying to discourage excessive play by raising prices. Whatever. They sure discouraged me, and I won’t be back, even if the prices have since come down. And so I discourage you, unless you really enjoy eating a bunch of hot dogs at the turn.

5 is the number I’m thinking of between 4 and 6.

Falls Road

Year Opened: 1961

Architect: Ed Ault

Web: www.montgomerycountygolf.com/FR_home.html

Phone: (301) 299-5156

Considering its setting in the midst of some of the wealthiest folks in the country, there used to be an almost in-your-face lowbrow feel to this course: the corrugated roof “pro shop”, the muddy path heading to the equipment shed, the vacant snack bar attached to the pro shop. We would come here quite a bit in the early 90s, mostly because…I guess we were masochists – certainly not because the golf course was hard (it most definitely wasn’t) but due to the aggravatingly slow pace of play. Our spirits (never exactly in a state of grace) would plummet when we’d find ourselves behind a gaggle of visor-wearing soccer moms (perhaps they were moms of soccer moms or wanna-be soccer moms or soccer momdom had passed them by – all I know is they drove mini-vans, thought Reagan was a genial populist bloke and spent more time comparing foyers and granite counter-tops than actually playing golf). Sometimes we’d really get lucky and the bratty kids would join mom in the fun. Yikes. It reminded me of an Ionesco play – repetitive, absurd and too fucking long. They’d hit off the tee and then all four would slowly saunter to the first ball, gather round, maybe balance their checkbook or participate in a ten-minute panel discussion on that week's episode of "Desperate Housewives", watch their partner hit a 20 yard grounder, spend a minute or two consoling her and then off the four would go to the next ball, though a mulligan per hole was certainly an almost mandatory part of the drill.

This used to be a mediocre offering. A big hilly field with some tees, some trees and some flags. Too many hacks, too slow, very little to look forward to, though admittedly there were a few holes on the backside that warranted a look-see.

Now then, fast forward 15 years. I’d heard that there had been significant upgrades in the course and despite my better judgment, I decided to check it out. And you know what, improvements had been made. The clubhouse is sunny, airy and pleasant and they even offer micro-brewed beer – great, where was that gimmick back when me and my boy would be detoxing while waiting to get off?

The entire front side has been re-routed and decorative wheat grasses have been planted, and while the changes have definitely enhanced the playability and aesthetics, pace of play remains a problem. When I returned, there was a dearth of soccer moms (I guess the Container Store was running a sale) but you still had the hack factor and the grasses lining the first and second holes were prime searching-for-lost-balls real estate. Oh, and they will search, like clueless kids at a scavenger hunt. The original Ed Ault routing started off where the current driving range is located and at least had a respectable green site at the top of the hill, followed by a featureless par 5 and then back to back drive-and-pitch 285-yard par 4s on the northern edge of the property. Ault’s son’s firm, Ault & Clark, did a respectable job of altering the routing – blowing up the two weak par 4 shorties and replacing them with an OK 3-par (#3) and the best hole on the front side – the serpentine par 5 fourth, which utilizes the rolling topography adeptly and features a large oak tree which poses some problems for the big boppers who decide to have a go at the green in two. The rest of us can pop it over a gully to the fairway right of the tree, leaving a pretty testy approach to the recessed green well below the fairway. Mostly what Ed’s boy has done is bring some fairway bunkering into the mix, a concept the old man just wasn’t comfortable with.

The hardest hole is unquestionably the twelfth, a narrow long par 4 with a substantially raised green sloping from a mound on the right. As you stand on the tee, on your left you see some seriously hooked-up property, with swimming pools, tennis courts, gazebos, like that. 13 through the retooled 18th are the strength of the course, but again, by this time you’ve been out there 5 hours, tired of yet again looking at the visored crew reloading on the tee after a weak slice grounder into the woods. There’s a lake on the short par 5 sixteenth which requires a minimal carry of the tee with some new fairway bunkers planted into the hillside left but beyond that there isn’t much to say, though the completely new finishing hole utilizes fairway cross- bunkering in a strategic thoughtful manner, something unseen back in Ed Ault’s day – well, it was seen, just not by him or his obvious mentoring influence, Robert Trent Jones.

It used to be a 2.5 but after the renovations it’s about like Needwood – a 4.5.

Poolesville

Year Opened: 1959

Architect: Edmund B. Ault

Phone: (301) 428-8143

Web: www.montgomerycountygolf.com/PV_home.html

Me and my boy had ourselves an off day so he suggested a mini-road trip out to Poolesville. I could see by his packing a cooler with some cold ones and the remnants of last night’s Absolut (c’mon, there’s like a jigger or two left – let’s just kill that and stop off for another fifth) that he wasn’t kidding around about the distance out there. This course is off in the western lands of Montgomery County, about 45 minutes from the Beltway, closer to Leesburg, Virginia than it is to Rockville. The drive down River Road is pleasant enough -- past vaunted Congressional Country Club and the much-panned TPC at Avenel (to the point that they’re basically blowing it up and rebuilding it) and the mansions of Potomac and then the area becomes distinctly rural as you approach Poolesville. When I come out here I get the sense of a club, not exactly deal-making corporate-raider captain-of-industry Macallan single-malt scotch and Cohiba Cubans but pick-up truck huntin’ ‘n’ fishin’ git ‘er done BBQ and beer. It always amazes me that not even an hour outside the Nation’s Capital you feel like you could be in Appalachia: old washing machines, rusted car-casses and heaps of old tires strewn about on the dusty front lawn, all kinds of dilapidated sheds and ragamuffin kids and three-legged hound dawgs scrabbling about on the property. It’s eerie. To me, anyway. But Poolesville itself has a decent salt-of-the-earth feel, kind of a “Cheers” golf course, with lots of regulars, like a neighborhood bar. My boy, back in the bad old days, used to come here because of the full-service bar; in fact it wasn’t a problem waiting for the first tee because you could get yourself liquored-up but quick at the friendly, though obviously rednecky clubhouse bar.

What practice? Gimme an Absolut and a Bud and a dog and it’s all good. Of course we haven’t been back since we got the booze monkey of our backs; it might just be a good idea to stay away.

What I remember from this course, and I must have played it about ten times or so back in the early 90’s, is that it played long. Of course when you ground it off the tee, miniature golf seems long. The land is flat and there are some trees lining the fairways, but sparsely. There’s lots of action playing from neighboring fairways. Back in the days of the Concorde, about 3 pm or so, you could check out (and hear) this space-age plane landing across the river at Dulles Airport. Other than that, it’s a pretty laid-back place.

After spending an hour in the clubhouse bar getting loose and limber, as it were, the idea of teeing off in front of a line of carts can be humbling. Heck, just standing without weaving and wobbling was a trick. The first hole is a dogleg right over a small creek and a stand of trees on the right. You can go over the trees without a problem with a big left to right ball. This is a wide-open hole on a wide-open course.

Hardest hole: the second hole is a real 600-yard par 5, straight –ahead, no-nonsense, though the green has a bit of bunkering. After that it’s all a bit blurry. There is a decent-length par 3 over water, hole #8, that used to create all kinds of difficulties for me. Then hole 11 was a nice dogleg right par 5 with a pond on the right (which is definitely in play, especially if you try to cut the corner on the dogleg), a bucolic stand of trees beyond the pond and then a creek crossing in front of a nice uphill green. Hole 16 is a rolling par 4 with a cornfield left and the pond right, which needs to be avoided from tee to green. It’s a pretty hole. It helps that the pond has a natural look and is tree-lined and filled with geese sauntering in the water. I’m perfectly fine with geese in the water (no really, I am), it’s when they take their business out on the golf course that we’ve got some problems. I thought we had a deal with the geese – we don’t go in the water and they don’t shit on the greens, though I sort of violated that unspoken pact when I flung some recalcitrant club into the lake, definitely the first time I’d worked that particular cliché of golf frustration.

I guess I must’ve been really out of sorts when I wrote the Northwest Park review because in retrospect it’s hard to imagine I didn’t mention the name of the architect, Ed Ault, the John Grisham of local golf course architects (sure you’ll turn the page but it won’t exactly nourish your soul), whose bland, monotonous handiwork is visible throughout the DC area. Anyways, he designed this one, too. You can always tell you’re playing an Ed Ault course when you step on the tee and find exactly nothing exhilarating about the experience. His greens are typically large without a hint of undulation, protected by a bunker left and a bunker right. Fortunately, his son, Brian Ault, teamed with Tom Clark, has created some rather enjoyable thought-provoking courses over the last dozen years or so.

Like I’ve said, I haven’t been back here in years, and with the recent golf course development in Maryland, I doubt I will return. It’s too far out of the way with too little to intrigue. And if I’m going to fall off the wagon, I’d rather it be somewhere other than Poolesville. Still, it has its place. If nothing else, the folks that live out there seem to enjoy it quite a bit and that’s fine by me. Another 4.

Northwest Park

Year Opened: 1964

Architect: Ed Ault

Web: www.montgomerycountygolf.com/NO_home.html

Phone: (301) 598-6100

A pleasant meandering drive in Northeast Montgomery County, hence the name, oh wait, it’s called Northwest Park (apparently there’s a local watershed, the Northwest Branch, which empties into the Anacostia, if you’re into that sort of thing, which I, by the way, am not, gee what a shock); well then, ok, the drive into the course is essentially the highlight of the afternoon (by a lot), with pretty pine trees lining the tarmac. The clubhouse is purely function over form and not much of that.

There is a flat putting green and a lit driving range and a decent instructor where I took my first lesson years ago, though naturally my contrarian nature thwarted that clearly quite proper swing-maturation process and wayward self-tinkering became my chosen method of development. Well, strictly speaking, that’s not altogether the case. First there was the Ben Hogan book – the one with the plate of glass illustrating the concept of the swing plane and the whole wrist supinating at impact deal. That didn’t take. Go figure. Then the countless Golf Digest lesson tips with completely contradictory theories – first swing shallow, then attack steeply, hinge the wrists early, keep wrists stiff, stand tall to the ball – by the time I was through I had like 17 swing thoughts to organize, all while trying to get my cigarette lit in the wafting breeze. Here’s a tip – don’t start playing golf in your 30s. So anyways, me and my boy and Irish Denny and another chap jetted off to Arizona for golf school. The setting in Sedona, red rock vista-ed land of mystics and crystalline healers and aroma-therapists, was suitably awe-inspiring and transcendentally serene. What wasn’t so peaceful was our delayed flight to Phoenix and the inevitable hold-up at the car rental, necessitating Irish Denny driving 95 mph to make our tee-time at the Sedona Country Club, where we’re lacing up our golf cleats in the pro shop as we hear the pro shop attendant’s pronouncement: “Gentlemen, you’re on the tee”, words we’ll hear pretty much any time we go on a golf trip. Sure, wake-up before dawn, pack (that’s a given, what, pack the day before, are you effin’ kiddin’ me?), drive to the airport, 6 hour flight, drive 110 miles in 70 minutes and off to the first tee we go. Nice relaxing way to start your round.

The next morning we met our instructors, Ralph and Tom. Ralph was the epitome of the southwest golfer: sunswept hair set off just-so by a jaunty visor, a natty taupe/mauve sweatervest/polo combo that tapered down to his pleated twill trousers and a copper bracelet encircling his tanned wrists. Yeah so, OK, I had a bit of a man-crush on Ralph. During that morning’s initial tutorial on the golf grip and posture, Ralph was demonstrating the proper location of the hands during set-up and for some reason (perhaps he was hip to my uncomfortable feelings of sexual disorientation) he asked: “Greg, where are my hands?” Well, Ralph, I don’t want to talk out of school, but it looks like you’re about a centimeter or two from fondling your crank. After that, Ralph pretty much focused on this one single-digit handicapper while our gang got learned by Tom, the jean-shorts wearing, untucked shirt, porn-mustached, acid-trippy goofy dude that Irish Denny repeatedly pummeled in match play. I gotta tell you, it broke my heart. I even adopted Ralph’s visor-wearing until I remembered that I’m bald. So we didn’t learn much, though years later, “Greg, where are my hands?” will still pretty much crack us up.

Once gain, an offering from the folks at the Montgomery County Revenue Authority. I don’t understand why, but this course gets more play than any other in the area. The staff is surly and the course is kind of a yawn. Sure it’s longish but I don’t get it. And don’t even get me going on the starter, who must’ve been a former high school vice principal or a Bobby Knight disciple (think Soup Nazi from “Seinfeld”). There’s a whole procedure here about checking in, which color copy of the receipt to give him, when you can go to the putting green, lining up three groups deep at the first tee, having your club pulled, where you can take a practice swing before teeing off, and well, me and my boy knocking off a pitcher or two before the round while waiting to be called wasn’t quite standard operating procedure, especially with me fumbling through my pockets to find my receipt, tees and ball markers tumbling to the ground. So we’d tee off “slightly buzzed” (as if) with this dick glaring and barking out orders in the middle of our backswing. Good times.

I suppose I should mention the golf course at some point in this treatise, though I really ain’t feeling it, in case you haven’t noticed. You definitely get a sense of what’s ahead here on the first tee. A longish par 4, not exactly defined or anything, grip it (but be quick about it, damn it), try and ignore Joan Crawford bitching over by the starter shack and away you go. You will be spending lots of time waiting in between shots, not only because of the unwarranted popularity of the place but also because it’s popular with really bad, as in not good, golfers.

The second is a challenging long downhill par 4, but it’s not exactly attractive. The area in front of the green is in a lowland and always seems to be either torn up or just slopped-up and muddy. #13 and #14 are decent enough, but the whole course lacks delineation between fairways and rough and the conditioning is pretty beat. But I can overlook all that (I can, really) but I can’t ignore the utter lack of variety. Every hole basically plays the same. Forget about using every club in your bag – hit the driver, pull out a wood, chip-on (if necessary) and repeat this ritual 18 times while waiting 10-15 minutes between shots. I guess #18 is kind of a fun hole, a dogleg right uphill to a well bunkered green but there are just too few shots of any redeeming value and too long a time between those shots. There is also an executive 9 which is OK, but not by much.

I guess I’ve had some unpleasant experiences here, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps it’s because I was such a hack when I played here but whatever, I don’t like this course. I genuinely can’t think of one hole that I can even somewhat admire. To me, it’s Hain’s Pt. with an extra 1000 yards, larger greens and no monuments or Potomac River. I can’t explain its popularity but then again, I’m confounded by how Keannu Reeves still holds onto his SAG card (he’s not acting, hell, he’s not even behaving) and I’m perpetually perplexed (and aghast) how the stupidiotic Bushes became America’s political dynasty. I will never, ever come back to this golf course. Because I might be moving to Canada if the Republicans win again and I’ll have to rant about…oh I don’t know…curling.

In the words of Richard Dawson, survey says: 3.