Architect: Lindsay Ervin
Web: www.mdgolf.com
Phone: (800) 827-5257
It’s 5:30 in the morning in early February, the temperature gauge reads a cozy comfy 8 degrees (comfortable if you’re a bottle of vodka or …a cadaver) and I’m out here chipping away at a frosted glassy sheet of ice on my windshield. The defroster won’t kick-in until I’m halfway to work so I scrape and I chop with vigor while my neighbors slumber. A lone red fox surreptitiously crosses the street down a ways in search of a hen-house, not realizing this isn’t exactly hen-house country though there’s gotta be a KFC or a Peruvian chicken joint around somewhere. The feeble plastic scraper isn’t making much of a dent and I think of pulling my 6-iron out of the trunk, but that too is sealed-in by an even sturdier ice block. Gambling that there won’t be a lot of traffic on the Beltway I head back inside with the morning paper, which I jackhammered off the driveway, this while I wait for the defroster to loosen up the ice. It’s an old car and the fan barely works but the car won’t fit inside the microwave so I’m basically out of luck. I glance at the front page headlines and more dire economic news is forecast, so crawling back into bed and blowing off work probably isn’t the smart play. And if a red fox, which can hardly have any remotely promising leads in the quest for food and shelter, is out and about, then certainly I suppose I can venture out, as well. Sure, why not me.
I’m finally on the road and for once a gamble of mine pays off – there’s hardly anyone on the road, so I begin to daydream a bit while on autopilot to work. Thinking about the last time I played golf, which was after my boy’s wedding in Jersey and I’m wondering when next I’ll hit the links. I’m also thinking that the way things are going, a lot of local golf courses are going to be hurting big-time, especially the over-blown upscale ones that seemed to all open simultaneously when a) the dot-com boom was in full swing, b) Tiger Woods made golf seem cool, and c) the baby boomers were beginning to contemplate a leisure-filled recreational retirement (as if their entire lives weren’t already an all-you-can-eat buffet at the self-indulgent amusement trough). But to keep things in perspective, the Washington DC area was definitely in need of a golf course upgrade in the mid-to-late 90s – besides the local county and municipal courses, there were only a couple of high-end golfing destinations in the area: the resort at Lansdowne near Leesburg, Virginia and Queenstown Harbor on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Now there are close to fifty within an hour’s drive from DC (over a hundred within 2 hrs) and it’s unlikely there will be enough business to sustain all of them during this economic decline, though there are other factors which had already manifested themselves before the recession:
- Besides being simply expensive, golf takes up a lot of time. A round of golf, between travel time, an hour of practice and warm-up before the round and the round itself takes about 8 hours out of your weekend. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for the kids, the spouse and the honey-do list.
- Once the dot-com bubble blowed-up, a lot of disposable income simply disappeared, especially among the demographic that would be likely to spend a day at the golf course – the young moneyed professionals without kids. These days it's hard for me to imagine anyone without a golden parachute or a 6-figure severance package being able to talk themselves into spending $100 for a round of golf at one of the local upscale venues.
- Golf is just a frustratingly difficult game to play well (or even not so well), end of story. The average weekend golfer shoots over 100, which is close to double-bogey golf, which is, well, not good. It would be like riding a bike or roller-blading and falling every 10 minutes. Or making 35% of your foul shots. Or double-faulting every other service point in tennis. And this while using equipment where every possible performance-enhancing alteration has been developed: from large-face cavity-back irons, graphite shafts, over-sized big-headed drivers, hybrid irons replacing the hard-to-hit low irons, hi-tech steroided golf balls that go straight and far and still...breaking a 100 is unattainable, even with mulligans, do-overs, giving yourself 5-foot putts, tickling in the rough, whatever...
- The new golf courses are simply more difficult than the ones built in the 50s, 60s and 70s. This is partly due to recent environmental concerns, whereby a certain percentage of the land must remain an environmentally protected area - be it marshy wetlands, a scrubby ravine or a field of wildflowers. In the days of yore, these areas would have been simply bulldozed, filled-in, sodded-over and become part of the playing field. Now architects have incorporated these elements as potential hazards in their designs, forcing average golfers to now fly their shot over these areas; whereas in years past they could have just scuttled it along the ground on a mis-hit. So now they've lost their $4 Pro VI in the marsh and have to re-hit with a penalty stroke to add to their frustration. Also, in response to the new hi-tech gear, golf course developers were all caught up in providing the "ultimate test of golf", this while the average golfer could rarely consistently carry the ball off the tee 180 yards, which means more re-hits, which means more waiting, leading to longer rounds, which means...a lot of folks decided this ain't for me. And finally...
- It turned out Tiger Woods wasn't all that cool. A DaVinci genius or Mozart-type prodigy, sure, but cool, no, not really. In fact, he's a bit of an aloof robotic prick among an amalgam of either prissy, whiny country club brats or the recent NASCAR-ization of the PGA Tour, where good ole boy aw-shucks rednecks are suddenly in vogue.
So yeah, the golf industry has to be seriously worried, though I have been wide of the mark before, even as recently as this morning (was that a fox or just a large orange cat?), this as my daydreaming is cut short by a sheet of ice smashing into my front grill. I think of giving the driver the what-for but remember that I’ve got a small iceberg on my own rooftop so I let it slide, plus he’s got an NRA bumper sticker and is probably packing.
While there are many (well, less than many and more than a few), ok, while there are some courses that I wouldn’t miss all that much if they shut down, I would be really bummed if Queenstown Harbor was one of them. Before the proliferation of the upscale daily-fee concept the past 15 years, this was the preeminent golfing destination in this area. A quick jog through Kent Island after crossing the 8-mile Bay Bridge, the course is located opposite the Queenstown Outlet Mall along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. I still recall my first drive into the golf course grounds - a fountain spraying off the clear, crisp lake; tall decorative grasses wafting in the bay breezes, flowery shrubs – no grand, majestic gate - just a simple and sublime drive past a few perfectly manicured golf holes, followed by a canopy of trees to the clubhouse. It reminds me for some reason of the scene in Hitchcock’s “Rebecca”, when Laurence Olivier is bringing his naïve, nervous new bride, Joan Fontaine, to his manor estate, Manderley, which reveals its splendor after a long tree-canopied drive in, except my eyes aren’t limpid and my lips aren’t quivering like Ms. Fontaine’s. At least not noticeably. Queenstown gets most of it just right, even the parking lot has reeds and grasses and a large magnolia to add to the ambience of the clubhouse area. Two old barns were renovated, brightly painted and now house the maintenance equipment and the golf carts.
Aerial view of Queenstown, with Chesapeake Bay in the distanceThe low-key farmhouse clubhouse was renovated years ago, with vaulted ceilings and a bag-drop turnabout in front though it still retains its considerable charm. What do I remember from that initial visit? The fairways were so lush I wanted to immediately kick off my golf shoes and play barefoot. Even the sand traps had that fine-grained talc-like sand you seem to only find in Florida. We chose to walk the course (back then we always walked, before creaky knees and balky backs made that an ordeal), even if it was close to a 100-degrees out, though the breezes off the bay made it seem like oh, about 97. The first 18 holes we were OK, hot and bedraggled, sure, but it was the final 9 holes that just did me in – I felt like Frodo crossing Mordor on his way to Mt.Doom (yes, agreed, a strange reference coming from me, but maybe because of its recent advent in the pop-culture canon, more accessible than citing, say, “Lawrence of Arabia”.) There was this one wooden bridge across a marsh that had to be close to a half-mile long (and you get to cross it coming and going). I was ready to simply give up, toss my heavy clubs into the marsh, lie down in some soft moss under a tree and wait for MediVac assistance, or some truant kid on a skateboard, or a St. Bernard (more with the ice and less with the hot cocoa) …all I know is I was all done with the walking.
Back when we first came here there were the three 9-hole tracks: the Lakes, the River and I forget what, the Bay, the Marsh, maybe the Estuary (mayhap not); but now Queenstown boasts 2 eighteen-hole courses - the Lakes and the River - and the drive in has been diminished by the construction of some houses around the 2nd hole of the Lakes course, not exactly the most scenic sector of the property - with no views of the bay, no artificial pond, no majestic trees, nothing really; though it is within strolling distance of the outlet mall across heavily trafficked route 301, if that’s your thing, and why wouldn’t it be – getting last year’s rejects and factory seconds and irregulars (like pillow-cases with the opening sewn shut or shoes with mismatched laces or the leopard-motif plate set – hmm, that’s got to make my grilled gnu-steak a tad jumpy)
Again, I am probably not the most reliable arbiter of what passes for entertainment or recreation in our society. Because for me, spending time of any significance in a shopping mall is simply not an option. Even as teenager I didn’t care for it, well except for maybe going to Spencer’s Gifts and checking out the posters of Linda Carter or Marcia Brady or the gals from "Charlie’s Angels". Yeah I know, different time, before the Internet or 1-900 numbers or Girls Gone Wild videos…I mean, for us, there wasn’t anything hotter than "Summer of '42", the original cougar film. Or was she a MILF? No, she was definitely a cougar. I reckon now it would be about as titillating as “My Name is Earl”. Mall shopping is just wrong on so many levels – the homogenization factor (is there any noticeable difference between Old Navy, the Gap, and the Banana Republic? Actually, no, there isn’t; they’re all owned by the Gap, they’re just targeted to different market segments: business casual, preppy casual and slacker-stoner casual. But isn’t it all just Ts, hoodies, jeans and chinos? And Barnes & Noble and Borders are different how? Staples vs. Office Depot vs. Office Max vs.Dunder Mifflin? (just seeing if you’re paying attention. You might need a double tall Red Bull to get through this bit)); the shopping-as-entertainment phenomenon (the loud upbeat music, the flashing lights, the balloons and streamers - all you’re missing is the hot chick in the bikini dancing in a cage with the fog machine set on full-bore Golden Gate Bridge); the mediocrity of merchandise (it’s the contra-artisan movement, though you know the marketing boys will embrace this new buzzword, “our new artisan-made Air Jordans,” even if they’re still stitched by 11-yr old children in a Malaysian sweatshop. I guess 11-yr olds can be sneaker artisans; me, when I was eleven, I was trying to figure out how you could have two different Darrins on "Bewitched").
I’ve always steadfastly maintained that you don’t become a delinquent because of movies or images or TV shows or song lyrics (though reading “Tuned Out” in 6th grade didn’t help) but now…now I have to reconsider, what with “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and “Confessions of a Shopaholic” raking it in at the box office. See, shopping is fun. And funny.
Queenstown could certainly do with a better driving range - it’s completely lacking in targets and visual appeal (plus you’re hitting off an Astroturf mat, not grass) – simply a big field with some flags stuck in the ground. The putting green is adequate and allows chipping. The gazebo behind the range doesn’t hurt a bit, but then I’m always OK with any gazebo, be it where it may. Any discussion of the range would be deficient without mentioning that we saw former Maryland Terrapin and NBA star Buck Williams taking a few swipes with the driver. Strong rebounder, not much of a golfer…
Set along the Chesapeake Bay, many of the holes on the River Course have wonderful views of the bay, sailboats and the majestic steel suspension bridge beyond. There are a number of lovely lakes and ponds, all kept in pristine condition with not a pesky goose in sight. Marshes meander through-out the course, with the cattails and reeds and grasses swaying innocently in the breeze, while herons and egrets stand one-legged in the shallows.
View of the Lakes course: #1 on the left, the 9th in the centerand the heavily bunkered #18 across the road
The Lakes starts out fairly benignly with two relatively straight-forward par fours, though there is a pond to the right of the first fairway and a narrow carry over a marsh on the tee shot of the second hole. It’s the fourth, a lovely classic cape hole wrapping itself around the lake on the right, which begins a maddening 3-hole stretch. The tee shot is visually daunting: you’ve got the lake in front of you and woods behind a seemingly narrow sliver of fairway which you can barely see beyond the lake. The water, oh, that you can see, all the way up to the green perched above the end of the lake. The tendency is to hit farther right than necessary on the tee shot because you’re somewhat concerned that you’ll knock it into the trees if you get a good piece. Ok, easy, cowboy. First off, the carry over the lake is not that big a deal, probably 180 yards. Second, there’s plenty of fairway before you hit the treeline. Third, it’s a par 5, and a fairly short one at that. Still, the tee shot here is one of those shots that seem to be made for the SkyCaddie, an electronic GPS gizmo which is supposed to give you distances to various trouble spots on the golf course, but mostly gives you green depth and that’s about it. Cool concept, lousy implementation. Well, Greg, if it’s such an easy hole, why have you never parred it? Hey, I’ll blame it on the mooks that yell “Fore” from route 301, just left of the teeing area. High-larious.
The next two holes are just pain-in the-ass scorecard-tarnishing difficult . At the fifth hole you get to cross the swamp twice while on the next one you need to cross the marshland off the tee, go past the trees on the right and then face a ridiculous approach to a peninsular green which juts out into another lake. You’ll be fortunate indeed to play the same golf ball through this trio of holes – they are that challenging.
The back nine of the Lakes is easier – besides the back-and-forth par 3s over the same pond, the lakes and ponds are all lateral hazards and really aren’t in play except for the most egregious misfires. As a bonus, you get a quaint covered bridge next to the pair of water-bound par 3s. Unfortunately, the closing hole of the Lakes course is a lackluster mundane offering, though one of the few legitimate chances for a birdie. The nicest hole on the back nine is the par 5 fifteenth, kind of reminiscent of a Pete Dye hole, with the lake on the right and a series of bunkers lining the sloped bank left of the fairway. All that’s missing is the trademark Dye waste bunker adjacent to the water. Pretty hole. I wish I had a photo. Oh well, my remarkably descriptive prose will have to suffice.
Between rounds, we grab a quick bite at the clubhouse, where you can get one of your better golf course hot dogs (or even a half-smoke, a local sausage/hot dog with some kick to it) – grilled until the skin is basically charred, the way it should be.
The River Course starts off with an attractive hole towards the bay with nary a bunker. For some reason the serpentine lake on the right gets a ton of action though there is plenty of room off the tee. A huge wide-crowned maple blocks the left side and there is OB up beyond, near the fence of the grand old farmhouse behind the oak. (Did I say maple before? Well it’s either that or an elm or a… well, it’s big and it has leaves) Up by the green you can see the bay right over the mounds. It was here that my buddy, Scott, holed out from the fairway with a 9-iron and without a hint of irony, asked Irish Denny if it was the right club. Gee, you think?
Then you come to just about the prettiest hole on the property, River #2 – an island-type par 3 surrounded and fronted by a collection of sand bunkers, with beautiful views of the bay. So why is the River course so friggin’ hard? I direct your attention to #4 – a dogleg right with not one, but two carries over water; #7 – a tree-lined par 5 with marshes affecting each shot to a wide green with tree limbs hanging over the opening; the 10th – a 440-yd monster typically into wind with a swamp jutting into the fairway just about where your second shot will land; #11 – a lake-lined par 5 with a nice approach over water to the tiered green; the scenic 14th with its views of the bay on the left, a lake on your right and a marshy estuary beyond the green and #16 – a peninsula par 3 over water from an elevated tee.
Your best chance for birdie is the wide-open shortish par 5 fifth, another hole with tremendous views of the bay from its lovely raised green complex.
And then we have the 18th – a great (and I mean great) par 5 with serious carries over marshes on your first two shots and featuring a lovely wildly undulating green tucked in a corner of the trees, with bunkers all around it. I have come to this tee, mentally and physically worn-out after 35 holes on two difficult golf courses, facing a long drive over the marsh and I have not exactly come up large. In fact, after dumping a couple of weak drives into the swamp I essentially turn into Johnny Fontane, blubbering that I can’t do it, I don’t know what to do. My boy slaps me like Don Corleone and says: You can act like a man! What’s the matter with you?
I end up dropping on the other side of the hazard after a few more feeble attempts because the groups behind us are becoming restless. The Don cuts me some slack when he deposits his 2nd shot into the next swampy ditch. Marshial law has been declared.
When it opened, Queenstown justified their higher prices by doing a great job spacing out tee times, meaning less foursomes per hour, which was definitely worth the extra few bucks - less waiting for the group ahead of you to clear and you didn't have the group behind you on your ass all day. But some bean counter realized that they could boost sales by squeezing in an extra 4-some per hour so it was golf per usual, with the typical waiting and hurrying along. Too bad, because it was a noticeable improvement in pace of play. It reminded me when basic cable first came out. Remember that? It was all going to be paid for by subscriber fees with no commercials. Hmm. Some suit said, "Well, what’re they gonna do, go back to rabbit ears and 4 channels? Eff em", and just like that, commercials we got.
The course has lost some cachet – partly by the arrival of grander competition – partly by subtle neglect. It’s not what it once was but it’s still really first-rate and a great way to while away 9-10 hours. Just don't expect to shoot a low score here because Queenstown will wear you down, even if you're in top form. Kudos to Lindsay Ervin for a thoughtful, attractive and challenging design.
River: 8
Lakes: 7
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