A Find at Foster Country Club

There are two golf courses within five miles of our campground; the nine-hole Coventry Pines Golf Club and the regulation 18 hole Foster Country Club. Given our druthers, we'd druther play an eighteen hole course any day for the variety.

Located in Foster, Rhode Island Foster Country Club is set among tall trees and gently sloping landscape. This is a walkable course although you would get a workout doing so. There are three sets of tees; blue, white and green. Your scorecard gives two slope/ratings for the white tees and two for the short green tees; one for men and one for women. From the blue tees, your yardage is 6221 yards with a rating/slope of 70.7/116. From the white (men's) the yardage is 5754 yards and 68.8/114. The green tee box yardage is 5130 yards and 69.0/114. There are creeks lined with tall, thick weeds throughout the course as well as a couple of ponds. Some of the sand traps have some pretty high lips for more of a challenge in blasting the ball out of the sand. The fairways and greens are very well maintained with the greens being a lot larger than what Denny and I are used to seeing on public golf courses. Some of the rough is a little dry and burned out but it doesn't really come into play that much as that is the rough that is pretty far off to the sides.

Since we are in Rhode Island where space is at a premium I guess I wasn't too surprised to see a graveyard just off the edge of the fairway on one hole. It is literally in the middle of the golf course.But I WAS a bit surprised to see a second cemetery a little later on, this at the edge of the green.
The pace of play was a bit slow here as the course gets a lot of play. Denny and I played for the senior rate of $38 each to play 18 holes with a riding cart. The golf course also offers special value cards that you can purchase online or at the pro shop for free greens fees and discounts at the club's restaurant.

We didn't mind the slow play too much because of the attractive layout of the course and the fact that the landscaper planted a lot of flowers and flowering bushes throughout the golf course. Denny and I were fortunate to have paired up with a couple of men who played this course a lot because there are a couple of holes that dog leg behind hills and we would have had no clue as to where to aim/hit our balls. It is nice to play with someone who can give you a general idea of distance to the hole or where to aim to lay up for the right line to the green. There is one hole on the course that practically doubles around on itself so having that knowledge was very helpful.
All in all, this is a golf course we'd recommend. And it turns out that there is a campground (Ginny-Bs) that is literally right across the road from the golf course and they offer golf scrambles for their campers. How handy is that?

Bay Pointe Country Club in Buzzard Bay

Many of the reasonably priced golf courses in the area of Rochester, Massachusetts are nine hole courses or very short courses. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with a nine hole golf course, Denny and I prefer to play golf where we get to play a different hole for the entire eighteen holes of golf. Thus our decision to drive to Buzzard Bay, Massachusetts to play the Bay Pointe Country Club course.

On this day, Denny decided to play the men's white tees rather than the "professional" blue tees. I was surprised to find that the red women's tees were on the same tee box tier throughout most of the golf course. Bay Pointe is not a long course, with the blue tee yardage at 6201 with a rating/slope of 70.3/118. The white tees measure out at 5720 yards with a rating/slope of 67.6/113. The red tees yardage is at 5380 with a rating/slope of 71.3/125.

Situated near and in a housing development, the residences really aren't too much of a problem. As I've noted in the past, if there are homes nearby Denny's golf ball normally makes a bee line right to them. The homes really don't come into play that much. Playing the white and/or red tees water comes into play only on the seventh hole which is an extremely short par 3 hitting to an island green.
This particular golf course seems to get a lot of play as we had to wait on every hole for the golfers in front of us. Of course, the two men in front of us started off taking 4 shots each to go 200 yards so it wasn't an auspicious beginning for them. The first hole is an interesting one going uphill to a 90 degree dogleg left to the green. Fortunately our scorecard had a map of the course layout on the back so we could figure out how each hole played because there were a lot of blind areas due to the hilliness of the layout.

Strangely enough we had to dodge sprinklers on a few holes--I'm not quite sure why the maintenance staff was watering the fairways in the middle of a very hot, steamy day. The fairways themselves were mowed but there was a large amount of crabgrass throughout the course. We did see signs that the groundskeepers were applying chemicals today so perhaps they are working on the problem. The greens were in pretty good condition. There are plenty of sand traps but we managed to stay out of all but one.

Denny and I were able to use our Golf Card discount to pay a total of $49 for the two of us to play eighteen holes with a riding cart. Online their prices show as $34 to play during the week if you use a riding cart. The course is hilly but walkable.

The pro shop has no golf shoes or supplies; I don't know if they were doing inventory or if they no longer bother. The two men golfing ahead of us followed us to a local restaurant for a drink after trying to get a drink at the clubhouse only to find there was no one there staffing the bar. Denny and I were able to get a hot dog on the turn so I don't know if the wait staff just stepped out or what.

Would we play it again? I think so.

Sanford Country Club in Maine

The Sanford Country Club in Sanford, Maine is about a 20 minute drive from the Moody Beach Outdoor World Resort in Wells, ME. While the golf course is a semi-private country club, it is open to the public and Wednesday is Seniors' Day with a reduced rate of $35 for eighteen holes with a riding cart. You have to go online and get the coupon on their website to get that price and you'll also find coupons for Men's days and Ladies' days.

Although Denny and I were second in line to tee off after our arrival, we were in for a long day because this very nice golf course gets a lot of play. After sitting and waiting for the foursome ahead of us to move up a bit, we invited the couple playing behind us to join us in play. Dick and Sue live in the area and play Sanford a lot so they were able to tell Denny and me the best place to play our balls for good angles to the green. Most of the time when Denny and I are out on a golf course it is totally new to us and there are times when we have no clue where the green is if the course is hilly or the hole is a dogleg, so it's nice to have the input from someone who plays the course a lot.
There are four sets of tees on the course and distances and slope/ratings on the seniors and women's tees are given for men and women both on each tee (I hope that makes sense). The yardage from the black tees for the course is 6703 with a rating/slope of 72.8/128. For the blue tees the yardage is 6151 with a rating slope of 66.9/125 . The white tee yardage is 5297 and 66.3/110 and the green tees yardage is 4901 and 70.4/122. The greens are some of the fastest we've played in months with very tricky reads. The course is in really good shape for the amount of play that it receives and it appears that most golfers here fix their divots and their ball marks on the greens. There isn't a lot of water on the course, but the twelfth hole is kind of fun with its double pond/island fairway thing going (the picture above.)
The fairway on the sixteenth hole reminded Denny and me of the golf course we played in Bethlehem, New Hampshire years ago where we came upon a huge granite boulder smack in the middle of a fairway. Here there were three sizable granite boulders in the fairway. Sanford CC is a scenic golf course with views of distant hills and valleys and it is very quiet. While Denny and I were very frustrated by the speed of the greens which caused us to make a lot of three putts, we thoroughly enjoyed the golf course and the company of Dick and Sue.

Majestic Springs Golf Club

Yesterday shortly after lunch Denny suggested we go play golf at the Majestic Springs Golf Course which is just a few miles away from our current campground. I suggested we wait until morning, but after checking the weather forecast for the next few days and seeing that rain and/or thunderstorms were predicted for the remainder of the week we decided to play while we had still had sunshine.

The Majestic Springs Golf Club is located at 1631 Todds Fork Road in Wilmington, Ohio. Probably only a mile or so from the Thousand Trails campground as the crow flies, it's a couple of miles further by country road but it's the closest golf course in the area. Carved out of farmland and built as a links style course, the golf course itself has a surprising number of elevation changes, hills, valleys and slopes to deal with. It's walkable, but on a hot, humid Ohio day I'd definitely take a riding cart. Because Ohio summers are killer humid.
Denny and I paid the surprising amount of $15 per person to play eighteen holes of golf using a riding cart, which is their after 1PM price. Since the golf course just opened after the last few weeks of torrential rains there were quite a few folks out there who had also jumped at the change to play some golf so we ended up joining up with a husband and wife duo who play the course frequently. That was a good thing, because we had only played the course one time previously and that was five years ago. Denny didn't remember playing here at all, but I remembered because the sprinklers had been turned on while we were playing and I got soaked on hole number five. The things you remember, right? But I didn't recall the ins and outs of the golf course and that's why it was nice playing with someone who could point out the hidden dangers on any particular hole. And there are some tricky holes here.

There are four sets of tees to play from; championship, men's, seniors' and women's. The yardage from the championship tees is 6464 with a rating/slope of 70.9/129. From the women's tees the yardage is 4487 with a rating/slope of 65.9/106. Par is 71; there are four par 5 holes, nine par 4 holes and five par 3 holes on the course.Because it has been raining in the Midwest for the last six weeks, the fairways weren't cut as carefully as they normally would be, the rough was higher than normal and there were soggy, boggy areas still. At the fifteenth hole which is a par 5 hole we had to stay on the cart path which ran along a ridge line and slip, slide down the muddy hillside on foot to the fairway to play. Normally this would be a fun hole but it was a bit too squishy for my liking on this day. There are nine ponds on the course and a creek wanders back and forth across the grounds, especially on hole number two where the creek crosses the fairway not once but three times. The creek was really high and the current was quite strong as local creeks and rivers are all still flooded here in Ohio so there was no looking for balls when Denny and Dan hooked their balls into the creek. On this hole depending on where you were, you could hit the creek whether you hit a slice or a hook. Fun hole.

Currently the sand traps aren't in play due to the fact that they are filled with water, but the course has 58 of them scattered around so they could be a problem on nice days. The guys clipped a few trees also here and there so there are plenty of challenges on this course. And the noisiest thing we heard was a peacock screeching at the farm next to the golf course; no road noise, no trains, no planes. Nice.
This is definitely a golf course we'd play again.

Holly Hills Golf Course

What happens when your husband trusts the Weather Channel instead of the visual evidence of black clouds? You play golf in the rain. Badly. Goodness knows, we needed more rain in Ohio right now. And yes, that was me being sarcastic.

As we were returning home from a trip to the grocery store we drove past the local Elks Club golf course and noticed that there were golfers on the course. Since Ohio has had rain for the the last three weeks all of the local courses have been closed or not available for play. We stopped in at the course to check the cost (very reasonable with a BOGO free special over Mother's Day weekend) and the pro shop employee told Denny that Holly Hills might be open also.

Well, that's all it took. Holly Hills Golf Course at 4966 N.State Route 42 in Waynesville, Ohio is the first place Denny took me to play golf. We went as a foursome, me and three men. I had never played golf in my life, had never even swung a club so Denny rented a set of clubs from the pro shop. Understand, I am left-handed. What was available to rent were sets of men's right-handed golf clubs, so that's what Denny got for me. He took me to the first tee, handed me the driver and said "swing away!" And that was my introduction to golf. To this day I play right-handed, but last year we finally broke down and bought me some ladies golf clubs.

Since that time, Holly Hills has been on of our favorite golf courses. From the men's blue tees the course is 6785 yards with a slope/rating of 126/71.6. The yardage from the women's tees is 5402 yards with a slope rating of 117/70.3 There are also white and yellow (senior) tees. The golf course is mature, having been built in 1962 and over the years the only real changes have been the height of the trees. When we first started playing here we walked the course which is a terrific workout since the course is aptly named; there are quite a few hills and slopes to climb. Now, we take a golf cart.

There are sand traps here on the course but they are avoidable. A couple of tiny creeks (little more than washes) cross a couple of the holes and there is a small pond to the side of the fifth hole which doesn't shouldn't come into play. With the design of the course, sometimes you are hitting uphill to the green and sometimes you are hitting down to the green and all of the greens are pretty fast, even when sodden with rain.Currently, the course is badly waterlogged but overall for just coming off the winter months it was in surprisingly good shape. Right now the act of the groundskeepers cutting the grass is tearing up the fairways a bit but I'm sure once this area dries out they will be hard at work getting it back into shape.
The sun did finally come out yesterday, but only after we were thoroughly drenched. I would like to think our scores would have been much better had the course not been so boggy and we weren't rather stiff and tense from the cold and wet. The double dog leg at the second hole continues to challenge me with its par 5 length, but this time around I actually conquered my nemesis--hole number thirteen.
Hole number thirteen is a par 3 hole where you have to hit your ball through a small opening in the trees and over a small creek to the green. The tee boxes are on a hill and the green is on a hill with lots of room to lose your ball in between. For the first time in all of our years playing here, I almost parred this hole, which almost made me forget how cold and wet I was.

Prices to play golf at Holly Hills are reasonable. Before noon a senior (age 50+) will pay $25 to play eighteen holes using a riding cart. After twelve, the price drops to $21 for seniors. Not a bad deal for a course that will challenge your playing skills.

Millwood Landing Golf Club

How nice is it to walk outside and have the staff at your campground/golf course pick you up to take you over to the the golf cart barn to grab a golf cart? At which point you drive the golf cart back to your trailer to load up your golf bags and drive onto the course to play 18 holes? Let me tell you it's wonderful! Add to that a ridiculously low price to play golf (a special favor from the pro shop employee) and it was a fun day.

To be perfectly honest, the golf course here is a little rough. The staff is watering the fairways and greens but they haven't kept up with the grass cutting (as a matter of fact they were cutting the fairways as we were playing today) and the fairways need some reseeding as do the greens. This golf course is set up beautifully for play, however, and with the influx of a little money could be a wonderful little golf course. There are some houses along the back nine but for the most part it's just you and the golf course. There are plenty of mature trees lining the fairways and Denny found a lot of them, but straight shots will get you par easily. Even I made a couple today. There were only five other golfers on the course today which is a shame because the course can be a challenge and it reminded us of one of our favorite courses in the hilly area of northwestern South Carolina.

For the golf course statistics; Denny played the blue tees for a total yardage of 6413 yards. The rating/slope is 70.4/118. I played the ladies red tee at 4731 yards with a rating/slope of 68.4/122. There are sand traps on the course but they didn't come into play much for us (okay, one time for me) and the only troublesome water is the 16th hole which is a par 3 (shown in the picture below.)
This is a pretty, well-laid out course that has tremendous potential if there was a little money invested in its maintenance and upkeep. And it's always nice to play at a leisurely pace (especially when your husband is hitting WAY errant shots into the woods.) We liked it.

The Bluffs Golf Course

Although there is a nine hole golf course near to our campground, we decided to drive ten miles south of Zolfo Springs to the Bluffs Golf Course, 8037 US Hwy 17S, (863) 735-2363 to play its eighteen hole course. I think it was a good decision.

The Bluffs is a shorter course so Denny played the blue tees at a distance of 6254 yards with a slope/rating of 116/69.9. I stayed with the women's tee for a distance of 4809 yards and a slope/rating of 108/67.2. On a bright, dry day we had to remember to play one club longer in distance due to being near sea level, something another golfer told us years ago. It's an easy rule to remember when the weather is humid but harder when the weather is so beautifully dry.

The front nine holes are wide open although there is water along several of the holes. Hole #7 is a par 3 with a green that slopes towards a small lake (and folks playing the blue tee have to hit over the lake.) While the open fairways makes getting to the greens fairly easy, the greens have enough slope and tilt to be tricky. The back nine has several holes that have narrower fairways lined by trees so you can hit into a little more trouble there. It was on the back nine that Denny mentioned that there were no sand traps to which I replied "yes actually there are, you just haven't hit any for once". And of course, on the next hole he ended up in a sand trap. Go figure.

Denny and I had a tee time for 1:11PM and we were the last people on the course although we had to wait on every tee because of all the foursomes ahead of us. We paid $30 each to play 18 holes with a riding cart and to get that price we had to pay cash. The cost would have gone up if we had used a credit card. All in all, I think this is a course we would play again.

Edited 12/17/10: We actually paid $15 each to play 18 holes of golf after 1P for a total of $30. My error.

A Terrific Municipal Golf Course--Indian Canyon

I wasn't anticipating a good day at the golf course since the high temperature for the day was supposed to be 90 degrees and I tend to suffer from heat exhaustion if not careful. Thankfully, the skies were overcast which made for a much cooler day and so we were able to really enjoy playing at the Indian Canyon Golf Course in Spokane.

Recommended to us by two different golfers, we decided to give it a try and we're glad we did. Indian Canyon is hilly but water hazard-free and the sand bunkers aren't too evil nor too many. Denny played from the blue tees at 6255 yards with a rating/slope of 69.8/124 while I played the reds at 5336 yards with a rating/slope of 70.2/125. I have to say I was amazed at the number of hardy golfers walking this course because it is not but hills, slopes and inclines the entire eighteen holes and there were times I found myself huffing and puffing as I walked up to a green to putt out.


The par 3 fourth hole.The ninth hole. And no, my camera wasn't tilted, that's the actual slope of the fairway.The tenth hole.Of course, there were a few visual distractions, like deer and the fact that the golf course seems to be in the flight path of the Spokane airport, but that just added interest. The city of Spokane maintains four municipal golf courses, plus there are many others in the area. When we played with Mike, a Spokane native two weeks ago he was kind enough to list some of his favorites with comments so I've listed them below in case some day you'd be in the area and want to enjoy some great golf.

Indian Canyon * (* means favored by Mike) Hills. $28 Municipal course.
MeadowWood * Water. $28
Liberty Lake * Water. $28
Hangman * Hard. Water. $28
Circling Raven *** Best in area. $80 (leaves us out!)
Qualchan Hard. Water. $25 Municipal course.
Downriver Shady. Small greens. $25 Municipal course.
Esmeralda Easy. Open. $25 Municipal course.
Fairways Links style. Fast $25 See my post.
Coeur D'Alene Resort (Idaho) Resort style. $150 (yeah, let's play a couple of rounds!)
Wandermere Resort style. $25

There you have it--enjoy!

Playing at The Fairways-West Terrace Golf Course

Seeing that there was a golf course within about 2 miles of our campground and adding to the mix that is was in our discount Golf Card book, Denny and I decided to give The Fairways Golf Course in Cheney, Washington a try.

A links-style course, the fairways are slightly rolling but mostly open. There are a few ponds and some bunkers but for the most part the course is pretty open and fairly easy IF you stay in the fairways. But isn't that the way of most golf courses? Denny played the blue tees at 6546 yards with a rating/slope of 71.3/120. I played the red tees at 5168 yards with a rating slope of 69.5/123.

Our cost with the golf card (2 free rounds with the rental of an electric cart) was $26.00 and our only complaint would have been that there were no water coolers on the course, nor did they have a snack cart driving around with beverages and it was a very hot day. We did have a small insulated water bottle with us fortunately, otherwise I might have been in trouble since I get heat exhaustion easily. Someone we played golf with in Blanchard, Idaho had told us that a lot of courses in Washington no longer provide water coolers on the course due to health risks, so it's something to keep in mind if you are going to play golf in this state.

A Birthday Outing at the Stoneridge Resort Golf Course

That's the first hole of the Stoneridge Golf Course in Blanchard, Idaho located 13 miles from our campground in Newport, Washington.  A sign near the white tees warns of a landing area 220 yards down, but doesn't tell what's down there.  The score card has no map of the holes of the course as most score cards do, so we shoot and cross our fingers.  Turns out, there's a pond on the far side of the green so if you shoot too far you may end up there.  That's how the course went all day--no idea whether the fairways turned gently or sharply into a dogleg past the trees so you crossed your fingers and tried to hit the ball where you thought it would be safe.

At the first tee we were teamed up with Mike and Karen who live in Spokane, Washington.  Right off the bat, native Alaskan Karen told us it was her birthday.  Bright and bubbly, she was a joy to play golf with because as a beginner she was relaxed about her game as I always am so we had fun.  Mike wasn't one of those competitive types of golfers, so he and Denny could try to outhit each other, but it wasn't cut-throat.

The golf course was challenging without being killer, although we all could have used a few less sand traps because one or the other of us was always in one.  Rolling hillsides, uphill fairways, fast greens and scenery to die for; it doesn't get any better than this.

We did note a bit of discrimination however; a motorcoach only rv park within the resort where you owned/leased the lots.  No fifth wheels, class Cs or travel trailers allowed.  Sigh.  They did it right when creating this space right on the golf course.

At the end of the round Mike and Karen had to leave since they had planned the entire day around her birthday, but as we were playing Mike had been writing down all his favorite golf courses in the Spokane area since Denny and I are going to be near there next week.  So we have a heads up on the best places to play--bonus!

Since we were playing on the "Senior Special" day (Monday, Wednesday and Fridays) we played 18 holes of golf with a riding cart and then had a free lunch at the clubhouse grill all for $40 each.  After our round was finished, Denny and I each had the bleu cheese/bacon burgers with the thinnest shoestring french fries I had ever seen along with some good, strong iced tea.  Our day was complete.

This is a place to return to someday.

An Afternoon at Arrowhead Meadows Golf Course

Graced with a break in the storm clouds on Tuesday, Denny and I decided to try the small golf course located on Hwy.89 in White Sulphur Springs, just a hop, skip and jump from our campground.  First, however, we had to locate one of the town's two ATM machines, but a lot of places here don't take credit or debit cards, the golf course included.  The price for two of us to play 18 holes with a riding cart was $54 total.

Arrowhead Meadows is what I call a farm golf course--it looks like it was created from a farmer's field; flat, wide open, little water, few sand traps, few trees.  Which makes it a perfect course for practicing your golf games without having to worry about obstructions and out of bounds.  It's a short course, playing at 5894 yards from the men's tees (there's only one) and 5304 yards from the women's tees.  The slope/rating for the men's is 67.3/107 and 68.7/114 for the ladies. For the only golf course around for miles, it's in decent shape and at nine holes you can play a really quick round.  We finished 18 holes in two hours and we were taking extra shots just to hone our games a bit, simply because there was no one in front of us and no one behind us.  Nice.  I have to say, we did stop at the turn to beg mosquito spray from the lady at the counter--they were ferocious and I was covered in welts.  Between the spray and the fact that the storm started coming in with some good breezes made the second nine much more pleasant to play.

And the scenery isn't bad either.

Lander Golf Club

Normally I don't like to go golfing if there is a chance of thunderstorms, but since thunderstorms were forecast for our entire week here at Lander, Wyoming, we decided to give it a try.

Lander Golf Club is a municipal golf course and the only game in town, other than a semi-private golf course in Riverton which is 25 miles away.  Lander's golf course is an eighteen hole course with the first nine being a tree lined, carefully mowed course and the back nine being a newer, rougher, still undergoing work links style course.

Denny played the blue or longest tees at 6574 yards with the course rating/slope of 71.5/129.  I played the red or senior tees at 5191 yards with a course rates/slope of 69.6/127.  Conditions were a little rough on the course although the fairways and greens were being mowed as we played.  I think the delayed spring had a lot to do with the course condition.  I must say the staff was very friendly and helpful, even putting a cart cover on our golf cart knowing the rain was inevitable.

As evidenced by the photos, we were practically the only people on the golf course, which allowed us to take the time to look for lost balls in the creeks and rough and to take practice shots when our first attempts were ugly.  And there were a few of those also.

The scenery was a bit distracting also; this view from the eleventh hole shows the Wind River Mountains in the distance.  Certainly the course was convenient to us from the campground--we pulled out of the campground, turned right, drove a half block, turned right and followed the driveway to the clubhouse.  On the tee box of the ninth hole, you not only are making the turn, you could walk down to your rig for lunch.  That's us in the middle of the picture, partially hidden behind the tree.  Hi Beast!

I have to say that this is the most expensive golf course we've played in a lot of years (like since Hawaii in 1992?), especially considering the condition of the golf course itself, however it is a challenging golf course and we enjoyed our round.  Despite the rain, despite the roughness of the back nine, despite the occasional ugly, ugly golf shot.  Yep, had fun.

A Day at the Rochelle Ranch Golf Course

As any golfer could see from this first picture, the Rochelle Ranch Golf Course is a links-type course.  Located at 2808 E. Rochelle Drive in Rawlins, Wyoming it's advertised as being the 29th hardest course in the country per Golf Digest Magazine.  Denny and I agree that that claim just may be true, certainly according to our play that day.

I don't think the course has been open long this season as there are four holes that have large areas of ground under repair.  And when I say large, I mean 125 yards deep large.  Since you can't retrieve your balls from the ground under repair area, we lost a few balls to the course.  But that was about the only bad thing we could say about this course.

There are five different tee boxes, the longest making the course 7925 yards long with a rating/slope of 75.9/182 and the shortest at 5763 yards with a rating/slope of 70.9/124.  I was tickled by the tee box markers, which were cast iron horse shoes, brands, spurs and silhouetted images of antelope and coyotes.  The price during the week to play 18 holes is $30 for golf, $15/person for an electric cart.  And this is a long, long course to walk.  As Golf Card members, we were able to get the 2 for 1 greens fees price, which was nice.

The skies were threatening to rain all day but it was the wind that got to us in the long run.  This course would be challenging at any time, but coupled with high winds it was a tough, tough course to play.  However, the scenery was wonderful and we were surrounded by wildlife.

This pair of pronghorn antelope were lying on the course watching us and prairie dogs were constantly popping up out of their burrows to check us out, but they were too quick to be photographed.

This American Avocet was a new breed to us and there were several pairs on the various lakes on the golf course. He is actually wading here, not swimming.  Other than some seagulls and red wing black birds, there were surprising few birds to be seen around the course, but of course there weren't any trees around for perching, either, just a lot of sagebrush.  We saw several large dens which I assumed were fox holes so there's a possibility of a large number of critter sightings here when you play.

This is definitely a course we'd play again.  When gale force winds aren't predicted for the entire darned week.