Redgate

Year Opened: 1974

Architect: Thurman Donovan

Web: www.redgategolf.com

Phone: (240)314-8730

After chopping and hacking about on the easier courses around DC, my boy decided to take me to Redgate for my first proper test of golf. Even the entrance to the course was pretty special, like going from lowdown White Castle to mid-scale Hamburger Hamlet (my editor, should I ever meet up with such a mythical being, might want to..what is it, blue pencil this or something?) – the wooden semi-rustic (what else) red gate as you enter the facility, the embedded rock-mosaic Redgate sign in the hillside as the driveway curves around the par 3 sixth hole and the tee box of #7 to the narrow shady parking lot. I recall the conditions – the closely mown tee boxes and greens, the distinct fairways and the sculpted sand bunkers – this was an obvious upgrade from what I’d been working with so far. I recall being genuinely jazzed, back when stepping onto a golf course for the first time really got me keyed up. Even the scorecard was cool at the time, with nifty diagrams and tips on playing the hole. Man, was I a greenhorn, not like now when I’m a jaded all-knowing…older sort of..uh...been around the block-head. But before I go completely over-the-top with the gushing, this is Rockville’s municipal course and Rockville, as in REM’s 1984 single “(Don’t go back to) Rockville”, is the poor, dull, gap-toothed, stupid cousin of posh Bethesda, which in turn is the bland, boring, untalented but hard-working and well-mannered step-child of every edgy, cool urban city in the States.

I enjoy the putting and chipping green by the 10th tee, which has a good amount of undulation and is large enough to attempt a variety of putts and chips without being a nuisance to others on the green. There’s a practice bunker by the irons-only mat driving range but I have never ventured over there, preferring to work on my short game rather than scuffing around on the worn-out plastic mats.

There’s one annoying ritual here at Redgate – the starter’s requirement that you show a green-repair tool, sure, like I’m peppering the greens with majestic approach shots. Once this little bit of housekeeping is taken care of, it’s off to the first tee and the downhill tee shot. Back before I really had any semblance of a golf swing I had a pretty untamed lefty slice and the parking lot left of the first hole was right in my wheelhouse and though the hole has a high net fence protecting the parking lot, it wasn’t enough to contain some of my errant drives and then we’d close our eyes and cringe, waiting for the crash into the glass or metal/plastic of the cars in the lot. It’s no way to start your round, let me tell you, but at least now I know where to park with some assurance that my car won’t get pummeled by golf balls, though truth be told, I don’t think my 1993 Corolla would look much worse for the experience.

As you continue your round, you will face a variety of challenges – elevation changes, ponds, creeks, forced carries over ravines and some blind shots to unseen targets. (I guess that’s what a blind shot is, now, isn’t it).

Unfortunately, there’s always a jam-up on the second hole because it’s a 3-par, a nice one, a 160-yarder downhill to a kidney-shaped green with a creek in front and bunkers back and a pretty severe forward sloping green. The 4th used to really intrigue me, a short par 5 with ponds awaiting the downhill tee shot long and left. The second shot is over the pond but you can’t drift too far right or trees will block your semi-blind approach to a lovely downhill green nestled in a hillside and fronted by a creek. Purists complain that one shouldn’t have to lay-up on a par 5 (the pond on the tee shot is merely 220 yards away) but for me it’s a non-issue.

#8 and #9 are testy long pain-in the-ass tree-lined par 4’s that I couldn’t reach in regulation in the best of circumstances. The best chance for a birdie are holes 5 and 6. The sixth is a short par 3 with a deep bunker front right which needs to be carried, and usually is. On the back side, the standouts are 13, 16 and 18. The 13th is a nice par 4, with OB left and a stand of trees down in the lowland which block your approach to the large downhill green. Anything long and you have a difficult bunker shot as the green slopes severely from back to front. Lots of 3-putts here if you find yourself above the hole. 16 is a cool par 5 where you tee off from a chute of trees and need to hit it long and straight to give yourself a reasonable second over two ponds way down the hill. Then it’s a short iron straight up hill to a blind green with bunkers left and a steep fall-off right. Big hitters can carry the ravine and leave themselves a short chip to the hole. The closing hole is a long par 4, featuring a short-carry pond off the tee, with bunkers right of the fairway and then a small pond front left of the green, along with a series of small bunkers to the right of the putting surface. I usually have to lay up because I don’t catch my drive but this is a strong closing hole. Best chances for birdie on the back side are 11, a very short downhill par 4 with lots of room left and 14, a short par 5 off a cliff, where the drive is the key. Put it in the fairway even 210 yards out and you are a cinch to knock it on the green, which like most of the greens here, has some pretty severe undulation.

This course has deeply personal cachet for me. Maybe deeply personal is a bit of hyperbole – any golf course having this much spiritual effect on me would seem to make me appear a bit shallow (or even slightly unhinged) - but years ago I spent 28 days in the county drug and alcohol treatment center across the street (a place that has as much in common with the Betty Ford Center as a Civil War medic does with the Mayo Clinic) and one of the rare rays of light in a bleak and depressing time was being able to look out the cafeteria window while queuing up for some fried foodsticks with a side of canned greens and check out the 14th hole. It kept me going, no question. Some would say love of family and friends and belief in a Higher Power gave them hope; for me it was gazing out at a short, easy, kind of bullshit par 5.

Because I played here so often in my early days, this track gets a lot of props from me. It’s in nice condition, it’s a fun lay-out and a good test and it’s a great value. So I give it a 7. Maybe that’s a half point too high because of length (it’s only 6200 from the tips), and there are a few throwaway holes, notably 15, a short par 3 flanked by an ugly cell phone tower. Perhaps years from now cell phone towers will have a quaint nostalgic appeal, the way we now feel about windmills and silos and Civil War cannons, but at present a soaring spiny metallic monstrosity is all it is.

Rock Creek

Year opened: 1923

Architect: William S. Flynn

Web: www.golfdc.com/gc/rc/golfcourse.htm

Phone: (202) 863-4444

The scene: A Takoma Park bungalow circa 1992. An energetic, frenetic former Minnesota Timberwolves apprentice mascot now turned political pundit dances to Prince turned way too loud. I stumble out of my room and grumble, as I am wont to do. My boy lumbers out of his lair and prods his lithesome partner to turn up the music. Sure, he likes them lithe but he’s getting a little envious, watching me, prickly and petulant on the couch, sipping a beer and smoking a cigarette. The lithesome one doesn’t know he drinks and smokes. That’s a tough trick because basically he is always smoking and drinking. My jangly nerves are being tested, no question, and when landlord Jay starts hammering up on the roof I give my boy the air golf swing. We have to be at work by five and it would be nice to sneak in a quick nine. At this juncture, I was beginning to hope a real timber wolf would leap through the window and snatch the euphoric dancer away in its fearsome jaw. Or a feral cat. Or a serial abducting religious cult. Anything. Please, I beg of you, stop with the dancing. Between the bassy, syncopated thumping of Prince and the incessant hammering from above, I was willing to do anything to get away, hell, I’d go back in time and sit on my haunches in a muddy WWI trench with mortars exploding around me, that had to be more peaceful than this. But mostly what I wanted to do was get Dancing Wolf out of the crib, hustle into our ride before Jay asked about the back rent and play nine holes.

And invariably this meant a quick jaunt over to Rock Creek Golf Course, a mere ten minutes away. Situated in Rock Creek Park along 16th street, the golf course was carved out of a hilly forest by the eminent architect William S. Flynn (The Homestead Cascades Course, Shinnecock Hills, The Country Club at Brookline). Pretty cool deal playing a noted architect’s creation for less than a double sawbuck. It’s like those nights at the Stoned Pony in Asbury Park when Springsteen would show up to play a set long after he’d become a mega-star. Well, actually, it’s not really like that at all. I guess it’s more like seeing the Stones and they don’t play anything from their vintage Greatest Rock n Roll Band era – no Brown Sugar, no Gimme Shelter, no Honky-Tonk Woman - just a bunch of 3rd rate twaddle from the 80s and 90s. Nah, that's not quite it, either - you’d still have to pay full freight ... but if I think of anymore analogies my head's gonna explode.

Since the 1st hole is a downhill, virtually drivable par 4, a big, annoying logjam of impatient golfers awaits on the first tee. The front nine is the gentler, more wide-open nine and the highlights are the uphill front-bunkered par 3 third, the downhill par 4 knob-fronted green of the sixth and the attractive tree-bordered dogleg right ninth. It’s slow going here, even after you clear the holdup at the first tee. Since we had to get to work, such as it was, we wouldn’t get to the back nine too often, which is probably a good thing for my early golf psyche since the back nine is a tight ball-swallowing hilly tree-lined affair. After the dull uninspired initiation at Hain’s Point, this was probably too severe a contrast and too harsh for the beginner golfer. Or at least too much for me. There’s a couple of back-to-back holes (15 & 16), that even after becoming a better than average golfer, I wouldn’t want any part of - so visually intimidating with little slivers of fairway between the large stands of trees. It’s a pretty helpless feeling standing on the tee and knowing you have, like, an 8% chance of not losing the ball in the woods.

There are some interesting, thought-provoking shots on the back nine: the blind approach to the semi-punchbowl 10th green, avoiding the overhanging tree limb on the par 3 11th and the downhill dogleg tee shot of #14. The par 3 over-the-gully tee shot of the 17th is not without some thrills. Otherwise just keep the ball in play – lots of bunting drivers rather than full bore grip it and rip it.

So you start with the most basic of golf course designs – a flat field with some flags (Hain’s Pt) and now here you add elevation, green contouring, and trees. I’m slowly beginning to develop a notion of my golf course aesthetic. So while this is a definite step-up from Hain's Pt, it's too short, too busy and too scruffy to give it much more than a 3.5, possibly a 4, but that's about the limit.

But me and my boy need to get to work so we can make enough for tomorrow’s round and the nightly commute to Tic Toc Liquors . And if I hear Prince in the morning, I'll be the one joining a religious cult, preferably one that practices the vow of silence...

Rating Scale

I’ve always been more comfortable with numbers rather than stars, so this will be simply be a number on the 1-10 scale.

1-3 Pretty Darn Poor. Bad layout, poor conditioning, few redeeming factors, crowded

4-5 Mediocre. Some redeeming qualities, a few decent holes

6-7 Decent A fun, challenging course without a lot of awe or wow factor

8-9 First-Rate Among the best in the region

10 Perfect The best golf experience imaginable

Hain’s Point

Year opened: early 1900’s

Architect: Walter Travis

Web: www.golfdc.com/gc/ep/gc.htm

Phone: (202) 863-4444

This is where I played my first round of golf (besides the two rounds where I went along aimlessly with a few college buddies at Rutgers). Set on the peninsula jutting out behind the Jefferson Memorial, it was a pleasant drive through Washington - past the Washington Monument obelisk, yep, paddle boats in the Tidal Basin, watch out for the catatonic tourists photographing the impermanence the grace the splendor of the cherry trees, the fish and crab hawkers across the inlet on Maine Avenue, the occasional john looking for a quickie noon blow-job, weirdies fishing in the Anacostia (like what’re you gonna catch, an old can of tuna fish?), and busy National Airport across the Potomac River. Down at the end of the peninsula there was this pretty awesome sculpture of a 100’ Greco-style giant embedded in the earth, struggling to break free from the Hain’s Point soil. (Unbeknownst to me, the sculpture was relocated downriver recently, after a quarter-century run in East Potomac Park – now how am I gonna impress my dates après dinner, wait a second, I stopped dating when I quit drinking… hey, shouldn’t I be working on my Match.com profile instead of writing this blogbit and was the sculpture really that critical, was I bringing so little of myself, sure it was always a go-to move, like Bryan Ferry on the audio track or the blue-neon poster in my hallway once the deal was virtually sealed…but still...)

What’s pretty cool about this place is that it’s cheap, it’s easy and did I mention… it’s cheap and easy? Also, the dress code was…what’s the opposite of stringent? Accomodating? There were many times we’d swap our frayed-collared polos for tank-tops once we broke free from the starter shack. Else what? You have to really work at losing a golf ball and if the big boy course is packed, there are a couple of other 9-hole options available.

Strolling up to the rec center pro shop you pass the old black dudes passing the time betting on putts while nipping at 40s, and then you take your chances getting your name on the starter’s chalkboard and since it’s cheap and easy, there can be an annoying wait time and we don’t do lines, certainly not since college when Irish Denny blew through his late father’s inheritance on a coke spree. The last time me and my boy waited in line for anything was in the early 70s, staying overnight at the mall Ticketron for George Harrison tickets…right…the less said about that the better. I avoided getting a car for years because of the lines at Motor Vehicles. When we cruised Manhattan in the gogo 80s, you would find us invariably in some bucket of blood old man alcoholic dive rather than being herded into a stanchioned line at some happening club du jour. Hell, I’d take my chances on the odds-on heart attack climbing the Washington Monument’s thousand+ stairs rather than wait in line for the elevator to the top. But sometimes one must wait - so depending on the previous night’s revelry (well truth be told, it didn’t really matter one way or the other), we’d grab a couple of cold ones, park ourselves on the steps and check out the old timers wagering on putts while occasionally stumbling over to the green to smooth our stroke or poke a peek at the starter’s chalkboard.

The course was apparently laid out by the venerable Walter Travis, one of golf’s seminal figures - as writer, amateur champion and course designer – but whatever remains of his influence seems to have been squandered by the uninspired imagination of his wastrel grandson, Walter Travesty. Purportedly links style, I guess, but the mounds of dirt strewn around the course hardly invoke Ballybunion and the course conditions varied from swampy to patchy since drainage was non-existent on the flat field. The greens are smallish so skull chipping became an acquired skill out of the surrounding areas of dirt, clay and clumpy rough. The tee boxes are just a few markers staked in the ground. And with nary a water hazard, this was the ideal place to perfect my chop, chop, chop, up-down bogey style of golf.

Since the time I frequented this course in the early 90s, a double-decker driving range has been erected, filled at lunch-time with young shirt and tie clad bureaucrats hitting balls towards the Potomac; the hookers have moved on to another stroll and the Maine Avenue crab fisherman are selling crabs from the Gulf of Mexico since the Chesapeake Bay’s crabs have been essentially depleted. The mounds of dirt have been used to build-up a few distinct tee boxes. The starter still has his chalkboard and I haven’t had the desire to flaunt the dress code since I quit drinking.

It gets a single point for its location and another point for having views of the Washington Monument. Otherwise, this is strictly for folks just starting out. So it barely earns its rating of 2.

Rating Scale

I’ve always been more comfortable with numbers rather than stars, so this will be simply be a number on the 1-10 scale.

1-3 Pretty Darn Poor. Bad layout, poor conditioning, few redeeming factors, crowded

4-5 Mediocre. Some redeeming qualities, a few decent holes

6-7 Decent A fun, challenging course without a lot of awe or wow factor

8-9 First-Rate Among the best in the region

10 Perfect The best golf experience imaginable