# 6813-17 / travel • golf ~ I apologize

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

my 1st tee practice swing

looking back to 1st tee from 1st green

well protected flag

hummocks, swales, elevation changes everywhere

I was gonna try to fool ya, with the barn and old pickup picture, into thinking this is not a golf entry. But, quite obviously, it is. I apologize.

Yesterday, I played the most brutal golf course-Tot Hill Farm GC-I have ever played. A course designed by Mike Strantz, the enfant terrrible of golf course design. His propensity is to create courses where every thing is “over the top”. Or, in other words, to take standard golf course features to extremes.

In the case of Tot Hill Farm, it’s extreme elevation changes together with exaggerated swales and hummocks that create a multitude of uneven lies. To put it bluntly, in 18 holes of golf I did not have a single level lie. As an example, re; the massive elevation changes: simply put, the uphill elevation changes, tee to green, turn a 495 yard (as indicated on the score card), par 5 to playing like a 600+ yard hole. Add uneven lies on every shot and you have a recipe for brutal.

Lest it read as I am whining, it should be noted the the grandson and I are having fun.

FYI, the old pickup picture was made on the golf course. The scene was behind the clubhouse which is, true the to course name, a restored old farm house.