147. To New York with da Wifie; Local Play in MA & RI

 147.  To New York with da Wifie; Local Play in MA & RI

 

Given the problems with returning to Massachusetts by air, my choices of where to play to attack outstanding bucket lists were narrowing.  But I did have two courses in the NYC area I needed to play…and possibly a third.  Plus, Pat had mentioned that she would love to go to NY’s Metropolitan Museum to see its exhibit “The Met 150” celebrating the Met’s 150^th Anniversary.  So we planned a two day/one night trip, leaving early Wednesday September 9 and returning late afternoon Thursday.  Pat would spend Wednesday afternoon with an old girlfriend, Nancy K. who lives in NYC (while I would play one course), we would then have drinks with a friend of mine who Pat had never met, Dennis K., then Pat and Nancy would meet for a gal’s dinner while Dennis and I had a guy’s dinner.  Then on Thursday she would go to the Met in the afternoon (when the exhibit opened) and I would play the 2^nd course…then we would drive home together.  Figured I could get in two more tracks…and earn some real brownie points…pretty good deal.

 

We left Milton, MA around 7:30am on Wednesday and experienced almost no traffic until hitting the East Side Drive in Manhattan…and even there is was moving a good 30 mph.  Simply unheard of.  I dropped Pat off at the Palace Hotel in midtown and then headed northwest to northern NJ.

 

Preakness Hills Country Club, September 9, 2020:   I arrived at Preakness Hills around 12:30, met HP Michael Docktor, and was on the first tee by around 12:45.  

 

Preakness Hills was founded in 1926 and construction of its 18-hole course commenced at that time.  The course was about 6400 yards…fairly long for that time in history.  Today it measures 6750 yards (par 72).  It was designed by Willie Tucker, who had emigrated from Scotland in 1895.  Tucker also designed the original 18-hole St Martins course at Philadelphia Cricket (which hosted the 1907 and 1910 US Opens), plus Clearview and Douglaston municipals in Queens, NY.  I probably played Clearview about 20 times in my youth…it sits right next to the southern entrance to the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, and Douglaston just once.  My brother Dave once saw Jackie Robinson playing Clearview in the 1950’s.  Douglaston was the original home of North Hills CC which moved east to Nassau Country in the early 60’s and NY City purchased North Hills CC’s original property (the last private golf club within the NYC limits I believe) which has remained a muni for the last 60 years or so.  

 

In the 1970’s and 1980’s Geoffrey Cornish and Brian Silva oversaw a major refurbishing of Preakness Hills which included extensive tree planting. Ron Forse led an effort to bring the course back to its original design elements in 2005-6, and Andrew Green (see post #146 regarding Oak Hill in Rochester) is developing a master plan.   My sense is that the greens have shrunk considerably over the past 95 years and should be expanded to recapture their original shape and dimensions…and some serious tree pruning would improve soft turf conditions.

 

In 1993 the club hosted the US Women’s Senior Amateur Championship, which was why I playing it.  I played fairly well (40 – 39 = 79), and after thanking Michael Docktor, headed back in to New York.

 

That evening Pat and I had drinks with Dennis K. (a golfing friend who she had not met), then Pat met her friend Nancy K. for dinner and Dennis and I had dinner together.  This was the first visit to NYC for either of us since the COVID pandemic started early this year and the City was of course strangely quiet and frankly somewhat lifeless.  No question that I loved living in Manhattan from 1970 to 1982 (and then in Westchester…primarily Purchase from 1985-1995), but I would have absolutely no desire to live there now.   But that is another topic…

 

I was scheduled to play Cherry Valley Country Club in Garden City NY (in Long Island’s Nassau County) on September 10 but the forecast was looking grim as we went to sleep.  While the forecast the next morning showed a break in the weather between 10am and 2pm, a call to Cherry Valley nixed any hope of playing it this day as the course had standing water from heavy rains, and with their club championship scheduled 2 days hence, they very appropriately advised that the course would not reopen on 9/10.  I could not remember the last time one of my traveling rounds was cancelled due to weather.  But eventually one’s luck runs out.

 

Pat went to the exhibit at the Met with her friend Nancy K. and really loved it.  I then picked her up and we were headed back to Massachusetts…slowly at first as we hit traffic on this Thursday afternoon, and arrived home by 7:30pm.

 

Stow Acres Country Club-North, September 15, 2020:  Within five days I had of course become restless.  But the travel rules under COVID made traveling very difficult.  My quest to play all courses and clubs that had ever hosted a USGA Championship has always been limited to the USGA’s 16 current championships and matches, and hence exclude the US Amateur Public Links, the US Women’s Amateur Public Links, and the  Men’s and Women’s State Team Championships.  As of 9/14/20, the Public Links host venues would have added 78 courses to the task, and the State Team Championships another seven.  Two of the 78 were located in MA within 50 miles of our house, so I figured why not.

 

The North Course at Stow Acres hosted the 1995 US Amateur Public Links and is located near Worchester, MA.  I booked a time on line and was off the first tee around 12:30…and soon understood the wisdom of my original decision to not try to play all the Publinx venues.  There are some great municipal and public courses in this country, but they tend to be few and far between and courses that hosted this USGA event in the past often fall prey to state and local budget reductions, or drops in demand.  I grew into the game in the 1950’s and 1960’s playing mostly munis and other public courses and through some combination of luck and hard work, have been fortunately enough to belong to some of the USA’s and world’s great clubs and play essentially all of the great courses of the world.  I do love the search for “hidden gems” that can be found almost anywhere…but most of these courses (including Stow Acres) do not fall into that classification.  It did get me to 1247 courses played in my lifetime…but hopefully I have learned a lesson…but I won’t put any money on that bet.

 

Wollaston Golf Club, September 24, 2020:  Since marrying Pat in 2008, we have spent our summers in Milton, MA, a suburb of Boston located about 8-9 miles south of downtown Boston.  In 1895, some residents of Quincy, MA (which lies immediately east of Milton) banded together to form a golf club (”Wollaston”) and built an 18 hole golf course in Quincy.   After some 80 years, Wollaston Golf Club sold its original course to Norfolk County (which has operated it as President’s Golf Course since then) and retained George and Tom Fazio to design and oversee construction of a new course in Milton which opened for play in 1976.  In 1992 the new Wollaston hosted the US Junior Amateur Championship which was won by a young man by the name of Tiger Woods (this was Tiger’s second of three consecutive Junior Championships which were immediately followed by three straight US Amateur Championships in 1994-96).   Wollaston lies about a mile from our house (as the crow flies), but until this day, I had never set foot on the property.

 

I was playing with Mike N., the president of nearby Milton-Hoosic (Post #142), Wollaston member Ed D., and Wollaston president Jim F.  (whose nephew works at Brookline).  The course winds its ways through the trees for the first nine holes and is more open for the incoming nine.  In recent years the club has started to prune back the trees lining most fairways and this has opened up some very fine vistas as well as promoting good air flow and healthy turf.  As you might guess I strongly encouraged more of this.  Best holes IMO are the par 4 5^th  and 18^th.  The former is 394 yards, doglegs sharply right and is very downhill from about 150 to 75 yards short of the green.  Good risk/reward hole as long hitters can take their chances trying to blow it over the trees on the right but risk ending up with a severe downhill lie.  The 18^th is a slight dogleg right and uphill all the way making its 435 yards play more like 490 yards (especially into the wind we faced).  Overall the course plays 6889 yards (par 72), and is a good solid course…with the potential of being much better with further tree work, increased width, and more “options” and “angles” for players to think through and negotiate.

 

My game was poor on the front and OK on the back (46 – 42 = 88).

 

Wanumetonomy Golf & Country Club, October 1, 2020:  Regular readers of this blog are all too aware of my quest to play every course that has ever hosted one of the 16 current USGA Championships/Matches…which are the following:

 

US Open                                                       US Women’s Open                

US Senior Open                                        US Senior Women’s Open

US Amateur                                                US Women’s Amateur

US Mid-Amateur                                      US Women’s Mid-Amateur

US Senior Amateur                                  US Senior Women’s Amateur

US Junior Amateur                                  US Girl’s Junior

US Amateur Four-Ball                            US Women’s Amateur Four-Ball

Walker Cup                                                 Curtis Cup

 

I think I have typed each of these correctly but who knows.  For sure dozens of folks at the USGA have spent hundreds of hours deciding the exact name of each and the order of the words in the name (but…why does “Senior” come before “Women’s”, but “Junior” comes after “Girl’s”???).  There are four championships that have been discontinued and venues which hosted these four are not on my bucket lists:

 

US Amateur Public Links                       US Women’s Amateur Public Links

Men’s State Team                                   Women’s State Team

 

Additionally, with the growth of Championship fields, some of the current events required a “co-host”, which was played along with the host venue for the two rounds of stroke play used to qualify for match play. 

 

USGA Championships that have required/will require co-host courses have been:

 

US Amateur 1980 and forward

US Mid-Amateur 1994 and forward

US Amateur Four Ball 2015 and forward (since inception)

US Junior Amateur 2021 forward

 

Sometimes the co-host course was part of the club or resort that hosted the Championship (for example, Pinehurst #2 and Pinehurst #4 for last year’s US Amateur), and other times the USGA selects a nearby course of high caliber.  When the US Amateur was played at Newport Country Club (RI) in 1996 and was won by Tiger Woods (his third straight which was followed by his turning professional the next week), Wanumetonomy served as the co-host course.  It sits just east of Narragansett Bay about 7 miles north of Newport CC.

 

I was originally scheduled to play it on September 30 with Peter H. (one of our “outlaws”…you can figure that one out) but heavy rain and 30mph winds nixed that thought.  When the next day looked clear and bright (albeit with 15-20mph winds) I made a go of it (Peter could not).  

 

Wanumtonomy is an interesting course.  The club was founded in 1922 and has been in its present location since.  The course was designed and built by Seth Raynor…which was confirmed when I played the 15^th which has a great Double Plateau green.  While Raynor’s work has not been altered over the past 95 years by other architects, time does its thing and greens shrink, bunkers lose their shape, etc.  Ron Prichard has brought back parts of the course but more should be done.

 

After the round I went to the web to look at the full list of Raynor designs.  In total, he designed or substantially reconfigured 51 courses.  Of those, seven no longer exist, and of the remaining 44 I have played 13 multiple times and 16 once, leaving another 15 to play (note: this is as of 10/11/2020, after a trip to NY this past week to be covered in my next Post).

 

And Wanumetonomy was my 1249^th course…so my next new one would mean hitting 1250.  I will keep you in deep suspense until the next Post is published!!