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.