NOVEMBER
Covered Bridge advertised a special $30 deal for Seniors in November. It included 18 holes with cart, lunch, and if you brought the newspaper coupon you also got a bucket of balls. It's a good deal and the old guys flocked over there. The problem I have with their deal is that right after they put out the advertisement they punched big holes in all the greens and quit cutting them. It's a good deal if you don't mind eliminating the putting part of golf. Actually, that should have helped me since I'm pretty bad on real fast greens. Moe, Jim and Roger were the old guys in our group. Covered Bridge let Ron on for $35, but no lunch. That should have tipped Ron off that it wasn't going to be his day. We played Captains. Ron's partner, whichever one of us he chose, always had a bad hole. Jim had a career day by shooting 84 with an 18 handicap! We'd call him a sandbagger but we've seen him play before. He didn't hit just one shot next to the pin, but a whole bunch. The only bad holes he had occurred when unlucky Ron was his partner. In fact, Jim won so much of Ron's money he got embarrassed and gave Ron his free lunch. I thought that was going too far, but I did ride Jim a lot during the day. I'm going to have to call and remind him that he should NEVER apologize for having a good day at golf. You just have to enjoy it and let the losers whine. Of course even with aerated, ultra bumpy, slow greens Covered Bridge turned out to be the PICK OF THE WEEK. Several inches of rain and falling temperatures made sure we stayed home the remainder of November.
It has been the best November for golf I can remember - and I'm old so I can remember a LOT of Novembers. Ron and I celebrated again Thursday with a trip up to Griffin Gate in Lexington. We didn't even need the Lung Card golf book because they have reduced the winter rate to $20 per round with cart. The problem with that is every public course golfer in Lexington is paying the $20 and golfing at a $60 course. Almost all of them were there on the same day we were. We could not find two to join us, so we took pictures and stood around a lot. The other bad part of the heavy play this time of year, is greens full of ball marks...including many unrepaired ball marks. The good news about the day was the fact we were playing golf in mid-November in 70-degree weather and we both made lots of pars. Ron had 78 with no birdies and I had an 80 with 3 double bogies. That means Ron had 12 pars and I had 13. He's just ok with that , but I feel really good about it.
Brian came down from Ohio to visit Ron so we made a rare weekend appearance on the golf links. We wanted him to play a top Kentucky course so we drove all the way up to Old Silo on Sunday. Since the course is difficult, we expected slow play but were pleasantly surprised at how well we moved along. I'm thinking maybe better golfers play on Sunday. We've sure seen some lousy ones on Tuesday and Wednesday. We got to play for the $32 winter rate and the course is still in great shape. There are too many unrepaired ball marks that injure the greens even more this time of year when the grass is not actively growing. I broke 90 for the first time at Old Silo by carding an 82. That won me the skins game and also low net for the day, although all us played just about to our handicaps. It was a fitting end to some wonderful fall golf. The cold front is coming! Old Silo was the MoeRon Pick of the Week.
Jason was coming back to golf after back surgery. He wanted to take a day off work and play a nice course. The MoeRons selected Lafayette since Jason had never played that Top 10 course. They started us on the backside which Ron hates. However, he started with 3 pars while Jason and I were carding 7's and 8's on those holes. Ron built a commanding lead until 18 (our 9th hole). At 18, Ron had a hazard drop, an unplayable lie drop, a tree deflection, and more unpleasantness to total 9 on the hole. That allowed Jason and I back into the competition. He quickly dashed those hopes with 3 birdies on the back. Ron shot 79 with a double bogey and a 9. The greens at Lafayette were fast and smoother than any others we've found this fall. The course is worth the long difficult drive to get there.
It was another beautiful fall day in Kentucky so Ron and I slipped down to Vine Grove to check out Lincoln Trail C.C. This course is basically a nice layout with nice greens. Our main complaint about Lincoln Trail involves holes 14 and 16. They are too short and have very tight landing areas. The greens had recovered nicely from their October aeration. They were not so fast that they scared me (like Lafayette). I avoided any blowup holes, shot 80 and won the $5 back from Ron that I lost the day before.
This was the annual outing of the B&W boys when they tackle a course too tough for any of us. As the years roll by, fewer and fewer golfers turn out. This year we had a foursome, and two threesomes. The MoeRon group was the easy winner. Moe had the low score of the day with 86. It's a very tough course with extremely undulating, ultra fast greens, and some sadistic pin placements. We had several discussions involving the use of the words like "unfair" and "bullshit".
We should mention one rule subversion we use at Persimmon, and we see many people misuse everywhere. The third hole at Persimmon Ridge is a deadly split fairway part 5 with a deep ravine right in front of the green. When a golfer dumps his third shot (or fourth, etc.) into the ravine, we allow him to drop and hit a provisional before we go look for the ball in the ravine. We do this to speed play on a slow hole, but it is clearly a rule violation. A provisional ball may be hit only when a ball may be out of bounds or lost outside a hazard. On Thursday we found my Pro V1 in the ravine but there was no chance I was going to play it after my "provisional" was on the green and 12 feet from the cup. Hence the probable reason for the rule.
Persimmon Ridge was in the best shape it's been in this year and the word at the club is that Lauren Just intends to keep it that way. She appears to be writing the checks necessary to get the course back to the lofty position it enjoyed before the Just family relinquished control. We applaud her efforts and know Elmore would be proud of her. Persimmon Ridge and designer Arthur Hills are always my Pick-Of-The Week.