I've been playing the game so long that my handicap is in Roman numerals ...

OK. Now that you've gotten past all the gory details about my health, details which my wife says would have been better left out of the last entry, it's time to recount our golf trials and tribulations.

We selected two courses to play on this trip: The Reynolds course at Tanglewood, and Salem Glen County Club. The Reynolds Course is a Dye course, so I knew it would feature tight fairways and lots of traps and elevation changes. The Salem Glen club was a Nicklaus course, so I knew it would be long, with multi-layered greens, lots of traps and water. But as we kept saying all the way down, bring 'em on. This entry will deal with the Reynolds Course because the other one is a whole story in itself!!
I first saw the Reynolds course when our son and daughter-in-law had their wedding reception at the Manor House on the Park Grounds. This place is really a very nice layout, and when we saw it that first time, I promised myself that I would come back and play it some time. The overall design is really challenging, but it sure is a pretty layout, and I think I play golf sometimes more for the walk in a beautiful nature setting than for a good score. Of course, there are those who would say since I can't score well and spend most of my time in the fringe areas, I had better like nature. They're just jealous -- anyone can hit it down the middle! How boring is that?!?

The biggest problem with the course this time was our timing -- they had just aerated the greens the week before so they were really bumpy and almost a guaranteed two put, if not more. One other thing I noticed was how "slick" the grass was. If we hit shots that were just a little right or left of being down the middle, the ball would take off on that slick grass and shoot out on tangents. We play badly enough without help from the slick grass. As you can see from the pictures, the tee boxes, fairways and greens were nice and green, and all the rough and fringe areas were still brown (dormant).

Now, let me recount one of our more memorable moments from this day's play. Dave M. had a real nice birdie on one of the par-3s. He hit his tee shot and it flew the green, but fortunately for him, there was a huge hill behind the green so his ball hit it and came rolling back down to just a few feet from being on the green. He then bladed his second shot, it shot across the green, hit a rock pile on the other side of the green, ricocheted back toward the hole and rolled right into the cup. Birdie for Dave!! And high-fives all around. Other than the fact that it was warm, fairly sunny, and we were with good company, Dave's birdie was pretty much the highlight of the round. There were a number of pars and the scores were pretty representative of our ability. But later that evening we all drank a round courtesy of Dave, and that made it special.

Oh, yeah, one other thing. When we finished our 18 hole round, we thought we would see if it was very expensive to play another 9 holes. The guy at the desk at the pro shop said "for you guys, it's free." What a deal. Our replay was much better scoring-wise for everyone, and 27 holes was a good way to start our trip.

The best kinds of friends are the ones you could play a round of golf with, never having to say a word about a lack of skill, and walk away feeling like that was the best round you've had.

Hooah