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Road Trip!!! Golf 'Down the Shore' 2016

Dave Tutelman -- Nov 2, 2016

( Click on thumbnail photos to see full-size pictures )

Seaview, Bay Course

Our first round was the Bay Course at Seaview Golf Resort. This course has a lot of history. It was built in 1914 and designed by Hugh Wilson and the legendary Donald Ross. It hosted the 1942 PGA Championship, and still plays host to the LPGA Tour annually.

It had a lot of traffic today; we sometimes waited for groups ahead, and in turn were waited on by groups behind. It took about four and a half hours to play it.

Not that I'm complaining. It is a good, challenging course. Even so, it came in third of three in our voting at the end of the weekend.

The view from the first tee is toward the rising sun, with the Atlantic City skyline as part of the background.

The motif is not "sand everywhere", unlike tomorrow's course. This is a Donald Ross course, and he knows how to put bunkers where they will have the most effect. And the mounding around the bunkers is covered with very long grass. If you hit the bunker, you want the ball to stay there. If it scoots through the bunker and into the mound, it's no better than 50:50 that you will find it. Don't ask me how I know. Twice!

Bruce is hitting to a long par three, which may look less long because of the telephoto lens. It was 170 yards, into a headwind that made it play more like 190-200. The good news is we all cleared the pond. But none of us got onto the green. Bruce and I hit into the bunker on the left, and Rich and Warren missed right.

The high point of the round was Bruce's 250-yard drive on the long par-4 #1 handicap hole. Yes, Bruce -- 250 yards; checked by GPS. And he backed it up with an approach shot on the green. He missed a realistic birdie putt (inside 10ft), but easily tapped in his par. A close second for high point would be our four pars (or was it three and a bogey) on #17.

Dinner at Raimondo's, an Italian restaurant on Long Beach Island. Turned out a little more upscale than we had expected. But the food was good and there was plenty of it.

Sand Barrens

When we got to Sand Barrens, it was easy to question whether it was closed for the season. Barely enough cars in the lot to staff the pro shop and snack bar. After the crowd yesterday at Seaview, we wondered if we had made a mistake by coming here.

No mistake! Sand Barrens is a beautiful course with 27 holes. We played the south nine followed by the west nine, never setting foot on the north nine. And it was true that there was not much traffic. I think we saw two other groups the whole day, and never on the same nine we were playing. Three groups, three nines... Makes for an uncrowded course. I just hope they see enough business that they can stay open; I'd like to be able to play it again.

Sand Barrens is aptly named. There is sand everywhere. Every hole has at least one, and usually more, of:

A waste area down the whole left or right side.
A huge cross-bunker somewhere on the hole.
A greenfront bunker the size of a small desert.

The nines are not all that separated. The routing weaves them together so that cart path signage is absolutely essential. It's pretty good in most cases, but we got lost briefly three times. Here's the course map; see for yourself. I've color-coded the nines. While you're at it, look at the pervasiveness of the sand. Sand Barrens indeed!

Bruce tees off on #6-south, a relatively benign hole. There are a bunch of fairway bunkers down the right side, but nothing else threatening the drive. It gets more sandy as you get closer to the green, as you can see from the big trap in the distance..

The tee shot on #5-south is a lot more treacherous. Rich (shown here) and I both put it in the sand. It took me two more shots to get out. I salvaged a double bogey only by making a scary-fast breaking 15-foot putt.

The greenfront bunker on #1-west extends 80-100 yards back into the fairway. Warren and I were both well back in the sand. Very difficult to get to the green from there.

In the middle of the course, there is a quiet little spot where all three nines intermix. Here is the bridge across the pond there; really lovely south Jersey marshland.

And next to the bridge is the tee for #7-south, a par-3 over the marsh/pond. I put it close and made a birdie here.

My score was a Ray-Ray round. (Don't know the term? It refers to two different nines, one Ray Floyd and the other Ray Charles.) I was in the zone for much of the front (south) nine, and shot a 41. I started with a pair of pars and finished birdie-par-par. But I ran into a lot of trouble in the middle, with two double-bogeys.

The back (west) nine I found much harder. It was 200 yards longer, the sand was less avoidable, and by then my back was restricting my swing. I drowned the tee shot on the first hole, and also put one in the huge waste area in front of the green. Took a triple on the hole. The second hole was not quite as disastrous a score, but bad enough; I find it hard to envision ever scoring better than bogey, given all the sand and where it is placed. I wound up with a 52 on the back nine, 11 strokes worse than the front.

After golf, we drove down to Stone Harbor for burgers and beer at Fred's Tavern. Nice place, good food, and clearly in the holiday spirit. Then back to the house; a long drive this time, since Stone Harbor is just this side of Cape May.

We wound up not going out for pizza as originally planned. We were still a little full from the late lunch at Fred's. By the time that passed, the first game of the World Series was on TV. On top of that, we had leftovers from Raimondo's in the fridge, so why go out? Microwave on, and -- yum!

Twisted Dune

This is the third time we have played Twisted Dune, out of our four expeditions. Obviously, we like it. And we agreed on the drive home that this was our favorite of the three courses we played this week. (For me it was a close call; I also loved Sand Barrens.)

The course is a peaceful, pretty sight from the clubhouse early in the morning, whether it's the greenskeeper cutting a hole into the green (left) or the ninth and tenth holes winding around the lake (right).

We did have some wind, but much less than the fierce winds of the first two days. The prediction for cold was fulfilled, but not all that cold; it got to 50°F for most of our round.

Rich got into some trouble on #13, but popped it onto the green. He earned himself a long par putt. Warren put it on the green, and Bruce and I were in the trap on the left. We all had par putts, with Warren and I having a very realistic chance. None of us wound up with the par.

The scariest tee shot on the course is #14. The fairway looks plenty wide (and it is), but short or right will cost at least a stroke and probably more. The best thing that could happen there is the fairway bunker. Short is in the lake, and right of the bunker is very long rough and a slope down into the cattails. A lost ball every time.

And the scariest approach shot is #17. (The picture is #17, but Warren is teeing off; it isn't until the next shot that you have a major decision.) The problem is an approach over a wide gully, and a front bunker from which it is very hard to even put it on the green. Bruce and I laid up to the fairway jsut short of the gully, then put full PW shots on the green and happily 2-putted for our bogeys. Warren and Rich found the bunker and carded higher scores.

The course was not crowded at all. There was a foursome ahead of us, but they stayed ahead of us and we seldom waited for them. Twice a small group caught us from behind (a twosome late on the front and a single on #18). The twosome quit after nine, and the single waited patiently for us to putt out on the final hole; we never felt rushed.

Sunset

OK, here's the obligatory sunset picture. If it weren't expected, I don't think I'd include it. There are better pictures from previous trips.

Last modified 11/5/2016