|
 |
Home ⇒ golf ⇒ justgolf ⇒ Current Article |  |
Article
Contents
Road Trip!!! Golf 'Down the Shore' 2017
|
Shore GateNo pictures from the Shore Gate round. In fact, I took only one picture this trip during time I was playing golf. I wanted to focus on the golf. The weather was dull and cloudy anyway, which usually makes for lifeless photos. There was more reason than usual to focus on the golf. My sciatica has been pretty severe the past two months, and I had to find a swing that would not require putting my spine in painful positions.
A few words about that; you can skip the green-shaded stuff if you're
not interested. I have an L5-S1 disk bulging on the right side. That
means I have a lot of pain with either a side bend to the right or an
inward pull exerted by the right foot. The bottom line for that is that
I can't extend from contact into the follow-through. The club will go
through, but my hands and arms won't unless I can avoid side bend and
get all my
weight off the right foot (as in: the right foot is off the ground by
impact, and stays off until late in the follow-through). Not a formula
for any kind of good swing.
So my hands tend to stall at impact. The result, if I don't do something to counter it, is that the clubhead flips and the face closes. And the result of that is usually thin hits and pulls. |
|||||||||
We played in
weather that was warm enough and relatively windless, if a dull,
overcast day. Shore Gate is a lovely course. It was one of my
favorites, based on one round there. This time, there were a couple of
things wrong, but they might be temporary problems:
Warren set the pace, shooting a blistering 81. None of the rest of us broke 90. We all had our disaster holes, but Warren managed to salvage bogeys out of the two disasters I remember; that's good golf! It's always tough playing an unfamiliar course. You don't know where you can't afford to miss. And this course has more than its share of those places. I managed to avoid duplicating any of the mistakes I made three years ago. But I learned a whole new set of "mustn't miss there" locations. After the round, we went for lunch at nearby Dino's Seaville Diner. Three of us had their crab cake sandwich: delicious, and plenty big enough. Later on, nobody had appetite for supper. |
|||||||||
Tuesday MorningWe were supposed to play Twisted Dune at 10am on Tuesday. The forecast was for rain much of the day. In fact, that had been the Tuesday forecast for nearly a week. So Warren canceled the Twisted Dune tee time; the guy at the other end of the phone call agreed it was a wise move. It wasn't raining at the moment, but it had rained hard overnight (both there and in Beach Haven where we were), and more rain was forecast starting around noon. So we had to make do with local amusements, and indoors would be more likely to be successful.Bird carvingI've mentioned before that Warren's hobby is carving wooden birds, in excruciating detail. We got a look at his latest completed creation, a Red-Tail Hawk. We also had the rare opportunity to see him at work. Knowing that Tuesday might be a washout, he had brought along his work in progress, a bald eagle.
Watching Warren work -- and especially listening while he was working -- something became apparent. He hasn't retired from dentistry, just changed his medium. |
|||||||||
WalkaboutThe house is three blocks from the ocean, so we all took a walk there. The day was cloudy and foreboding, with lots of wind. I decided I wanted to try to capture it in photos, so I went back for my camera. A lot of the pictures record LBI's action to avoid repeating the disaster of Superstorm Sandy. 
A couple came down to the beach to walk their dog. The wind made for a rough surf. Since superstorm Sandy, Long Beach Island has built a tall dune the length of the island. The point is to protect the houses and streets from storm surge. It has been controversial, because some ocean-front homeowners would rather keep their view -- as opposed to their safety. |
|||||||||
  Ever before Sandy, the building code for new houses recognized the danger, and required that all living space be at least 9 feet above mean high water. Since most houses are on land already a few feet above MHW, such houses would need to have the living space start only four or five feet above the ground. Although the code applies only to new construction, many owners of existing homes decided it was a good idea, and actually raised their homes more or less intact. The process is to jack up the house a full story, then build garage and storage space (not living space) in the new bottom floor. Outside or inside stairs lead to the living quarters -- and sometimes this means relocating the "front" door. I'm not sure these two houses were raised after construction. They might have been built that way, but there are signs that they had been lifted after the fact. The house on the left has a completely different exterior finish for the [presumably] new first floor: no siding, just painted cinder block. The house on the right also has a different first-floor finish, at least for the sides, plus the raised platform for the air conditioners. |
|||||||||
 
I know this house was raised after it was built -- immediately after Sandy, in fact. That's because I already have pictures from previous years of the raising process. It you want to see what's involved click the link. But there is definitely also new construction that raises living space a full story. Here's a house being built with the whole first floor as garage and storage space. This approach is further motivated by the new code produced after Sandy. The requirement is now a few more feet above MHW, so it almost has to be a full garage height under the living space. |
|||||||||
 
If you have enough land to locate the garage not under the living space, then you can build the living area at the minimum required height. That's what Warren did; this is his house, where we stay every year. If you don't, you can make the house a split level, with most of the living space at the minimum required height and only the rooms above the garage being second story height. Not many houses look like this, especially not current construction; as noted above, the post-Sandy codes require almost a full garage height anyway. |
|||||||||
Golden PheasantBefore noon, Warren looked at the weather map and said that it was clearing in the western part of the state. The afternoon looked like little or no rain over towards Philadelphia. He looked up a few courses in that direction, and we decided to try Golden Pheasant. Not exactly a household name, but looked like a decent course about an hour's drive away. We piled into the car and headed cross-state. We drove through an absolute downpour, and it was still drizzling when we got there. But we signed up for nine holes and went to their snack bar to have lunch while we waited for the rain to end.And end it did! By the time we were done with lunch, it had stopped raining and there was even some blue sky and sun in places. The course was sopping wet, and the instructions were "don't go on the fairways". But that was still a lot better than "cart path only"; you could choose which side of the fairway you wanted to drive in the rough, which put you closer to your ball. It was two o'clock, and we expected to get in our nine holes and see then whether we wanted more. The front nine is pretty ordinary golf. The first four holes are flat back-and-forth golf. The rest of the front nine plays back and forth, but up and down a steep slope. That's a steep slope! On most of those holes, the tee shot was blind because you couldn't see over the ridge -- either up or down. Fortunately, the greens fees included a yardage book with detailed diagrams of the holes and hints on where to aim. On most holes, that was a big help, even a necessary aid. I was playing OK, but with some pain. I had little idea where a shot would go, desperately trying to find a swing that would not hurt and be at least marginally predictable. I played the eighth hole really badly, putting two tee shots into the hazard. I decided then I'd stop at nine no matter what the weather. When I managed a nifty birdie on the ninth hole, I figured the golf gods were giving me a message: "Quit while you're ahead!" Turned out the weather and the time were in our favor; there was a lot of sun, and at four o'clock we had enough daylight for at least 5-6 holes. The pro shop accepted money for three of us for the back nine, and was nice enough to let me go out with the others just to take pictures. This is one of the most customer-friendly golf courses I have experienced. If it were in Monmouth County, I think we'd be here pretty frequently. The back nine had much more character than the front. It was still generally very hilly, but more conventionally so. And it wasn't just a back-and-forth design; this nine weaved its way through the woods.
We actually finished all 18 holes before dark. Warren shot an 82, at a course he had never seen before. And he missed a few very makeable putts that could have put him in the 70s. On the drive back, we ran into heavy rain again. We stopped for dinner before LBI, at Calloway's on Route 9. We were here once before a few years ago for a quick lunch. Tasty food and huge portions. You may think of soup and salad as a light lunch. At Calloway's either soup or salad by itself is a full meal. Very interesting soups, and big bowls. I had the other half of my soup as a late night snack, and the other half of my salad as lunch on Thursday. |
|||||||||
Sea OaksWe have played Sea Oaks several times before, as the leadoff course for our trip. This time it was the final course. Nice course. Nothing really special, but an altogether well-varied round of golf. Holes with lots of bunkers, holes with no bunkers, flat, uphill, and downhill. Water very much in play on some holes.Because of all the rain on Tuesday, the whole course was cart path only. This definitely made it take longer to play; I think it was more than four and a half hours, but not too much more. The course was lush and green, but not rolling very far at all. The greens were kind of slow early in the round, but sped up as they dried out. The bad point was the bunkers; they were hard and crusty. (My Friday round at Howell, after we returned, reminded me what bunkers ought to be like; way better than any bunker I was in this year down the shore.)  The sixteenth is my favorite hole on the
course, what I consider the "signature hole". It's a double-dogleg
par-5, with a third shot that has to flirt with the water. You don't
have to be long to par it, but you have to put your shots in the right
place and strike them well. The drive has to be long enough
and/or far enough left to see
around the corner, and the second shot far enough right so it
stays
in the fairway and doesn't roll down in the waste area. If you do
that, you'll have a shot at the green for your third. (Bruce and I,
both short hitters, had a hybrid for the third shot.) But you still
have to hit it to get it over the water. I did, and almost made the
long birdie putt; 30 feet with a 10-foot break, it looked like it was
in until it reached the hole
and missed by less than an inch. Still, a tap-in par on this hole is
very satisfying. Warren also parred it. It can be a disaster if you
don't hit every shot solid or you put them in the wrong place -- and it
was a disaster hole for Rich and Bruce. Again, Warren shot 81. Bruce and I were in
the mid-90s, and Rich just over 100. We all felt pretty good about how
we had played.Here's the car mostly packed for the ride home. On the way, we stopped at Calloway's for a light lunch. (Well, as light as you can have at Calloway's -- we all left with something in a container.) We also made a side trip to the marina where Warren keeps his boar for the winter, just to check on it. We were back in Colts Neck about 5pm. Thanks for another great "down the shore", Warren! |
Last modified 10/31/2017
|
|
|