The Golfchick

That chick blabbing about anything golf related.

Author: golfchick (page 27 of 46)

Interview with Geoff Shackelford – Part One

April 16, 2007 / / 3 Comments

Geoff Shackelford is one of the most prolific golf bloggers out there. His popular blog is a constant source of informed commentary especially when it comes to history and golf course design. He often posts observations on “MBA speak” and I particularly enjoy his hilarious series IM’ing with the Commissioners. SportsIllustrated.com’s Gary Van Sickle named GeoffShackelford.com one of the 10 “essential” golf websites along with the likes of ErnieEls.com, GolfObserver.com and Golfweek.com.

Even when I disagree with him, I find his opinions intelligent and thought provoking and he elicits some of the most engaging discussions you’ll find in the comments section on a golf blog.

But he’s much more than a blogger. He is a golf course architect and has authored multiple books on the subject and he writes for several online and printed golf publications as well. I personally admire his writing, style and career, and figured if I wanted to know more about him, so might others. When he agreed to participate in my e-interview, I went a little crazy with my quantity of questions. Knowing that my friend Scott Tesar (best friend I never met) was also an admirer of Geoff’s, I even threw in a few questions he wanted answered.* I never expected Geoff to answer as many as he did, and I am truly thankful for all his responses and the time he put into them.

Since there are so many questions, I have broken them down by category and will post them in two parts. This part covers his game and golf course architecture. The second part will cover his writing and some personal tidbits, so stay tuned for that!

*Scott’s questions are indicated with “ST“- mine are “KW“.

Geoff Shackelford interview – Part One

Your game

KW: When did you start playing golf and what were the circumstances?

GS: I tagged along with my dad and granddad when they played Valencia, home to the Champions Tour event. That was back when it was private, and not to sound too old, was surrounded by nothing. You could stand on the 14th tee and see nothing but open fields and farmland. Now there’s a Hyatt, movie theaters and a really neat putting course/restaurant called The Greens.

KW: Was it love at first sight or how did it develop?

GS: It developed slowly, more tagging along and then gradually got more into it as I got older and realized I had no jump shot, nor any ability to jump.

KW: What are your top five courses to play and why?

GS: If I had to pick in one of those desert island kind of ways, it’d be Valley Club of Montecito, St. Andrews, Riviera, Royal Dornoch and Armand Hammer. They’re all fun. In fact, I’ve had more fun golf experiences at Armand Hammer, a $2 pitch and putt in Holmby Hills, than just about anywhere else. My Pepperdine teammates and I used to go there after playing Bel-Air and it was by far more fun than the round at Bel-Air!

KW: What’s your favorite local course (in which you’re not personally invested) and why?

GS: Riviera. Masterful design. Though it’s slipping away quickly. I’m glad I got to enjoy it before Tom Marzolf got his hands on it.

KW: What’s your handicap?

GS: No idea. I rarely play. The last handicap I carried I was around a 2 index, which cost me a lot of money. I’d be thrilled to break 80 today. Bum wrist really took the fun out of it, as does the time it takes to play. Though I’ve had some desire lately. I found a chiropractor who adjusted my wrist and have graphite shafted irons that help.

KW: Lowest round score?

GS: 67 twice at Riviera from the white tees.

KW: Any holes-in-one?

GS: One, at Pismo State Beach par-3 when I was about 15. I also double-eagled No. 1 at Riviera with a 2 iron.

KW: Ever compete?

GS: Tried. Played at Pepperdine where I started for a little while, had a whopping two top-10 finishes in a four year career. Also played various amateur events, U.S. Open and Am qualifyings. Don’t miss it even a bit.

KW: Do you belong to a club?

GS: No. Though I’m sure there are many honorary membership committees reading this and wondering how to reconcile their oversights.

KW: What’s in the bag/do you have a favorite club?

GS: These days, as it’s been since the first Bush administration, it’s my trusty Ben Crenshaw Cleveland putter, an 8802 knock off. I had one I liked better, but it got stolen out of my car along with my other clubs. I am an all Taylor-Made guy now, with graphite shafts in the irons in hopes that it will take some of the pain out of hitting shots in cold weather. Finally got rid of my lousy Titleist irons and driver. What junk. Just kidding Wally!

Golf course architecture

KW: When and how did you first get interested in course design?

GS: Growing up at Riviera and reading George Thomas’s book as a teenager.

KW: Did you/do you have a mentor?

GS: Ben Crenshaw, Dan Proctor and Dave Axland were very kind to me during the Riviera greens reconstruction in 1993. I learned a lot from them and they encouraged me quite a bit. Bill Coore just thought I was some spoiled brat. Now he tolerates me!

KW: How and how quickly did your involvement grow/What was your first big break?

GS: I’ve had many, but I guess the first real break was doing a redo of Sinaloa with Dan and Dave when my dad operated it. I learned a lot. Meeting Gil Hanse was the next one.

KW: What do you consider the single most important aspect of a good design?

GS: Whether it’s fun and interesting.

KW: Are you a consultant now/what is the state of your business?

GS: I’m consulting at a few older clubs looking to restore some of their old style design character, and doing that either on my own or in one very special case, with Gil Hanse. I’m also hopeful that a few new projects with Gil are going to start soon. We have just gotten a job on Vancouver Island in Canada. The Prairie Club in Nebraska is still on the drawing board and inching toward a start date in 2008, and there are a couple of others we’re hopeful about.

KW: Do you/have you done course “makeovers” or do you stick to new course development?

GS: I’m interested in new stuff and restoring great old designs. Makeovers are tough, but I’d be interested if it’s the right project. There surely is no shortage of bad architecture built in the last 20 years in need of help. I’m just amazed how many courses call back the architect who messed up the first time around!

ST: When you first start a new golf course project, what is your first step?

GS: Routing the course. It sets the stage for everything else in the planning process. It’s all about routing. And that’s the most fun too. Trying to solve all the issues and walking the land, discovering great land forms or interesting quirks in the landscape that you want to build around.

KW: Do you have particular grasses and sands you prefer to use and do they vary based on region and climate?

GS: Varies. But as a lover of links golf and rugged looking courses, fescue grasses are my favorites. I can only imagine what Rustic Canyon would look like with more fescues and less rye. With sand, anything but the blinding white stuff.

KW: When you design a course, do you base playability on the average player or professionals?

GS: Both. I tend to be overly concerned with the average player since they’re the ones who ultimately make or break the course. But the design concepts for a hole start with figuring out a strategy for the good player, then placing tees, bunkers, greens based on that.

ST: What steps do you follow when designing the layout? What is your strategy/thought process for challenging the golfer?

GS: I’m interested in what is going to make them think. What is going to make them stand on the tee and want to place a shot on a certain side of a fairway based on the green design and day’s hole placement. It’s sad how rarely this occurs in golf course design. Yet most of the great holes have some meaning where the player has to take factors like hole location and hazards into account before teeing off.

KW: A lot of the newer courses that are built to challenge the longer hitters and their new equipment have plenty of room for a couple sets of forward tees yet it seems strategies and playability from there are barely considered. How much consideration do you put into how a course will play from the forward tees?

GS: A lot. It’s so tricky now with such a divide between long and average players. And then of course most golfers look at certain numbers on a card to determine the quality of the course, and that usually is just a number with little meaning about what the design has to offer. But you have to address it or else people will write off a course if it doesn’t meet certain “standards.”

KW: Do you see course design mentality starting to reflect the influx of female players?

GS: A little. Alice Dye’s formula for forward tees is really getting used a lot and has helped get some better forward tees in place. But we have a long way to go.

KW: Do you ever consult with/work with female designers when developing a course?

GS: Never have. I’ve talked with Amy Alcott a fair amount about design. But other than her, I’ve met very few women who have even the slightest bit of interest in golf course design. Why that is, I have no idea.

KW: What’s your biggest peeve about modern golf courses? Any peeves with the classics?

GS: With modern courses, they’re boring, overbuilt, ugly, drain poorly and little thought is put into the actual placement of hazards. Classics? Not really. They did some amazing things with horses and road scrapers!

To be continued…

And that concludes part one of the interview. Geoff really gave some interesting answers and I wish the interview could have been in person so I could have followed up on some of them! Thanks to Scott for for providing some great questions and of course to Geoff for his responses. And again, stay tuned for part two about Geoff’s writing and personal tidbits!

Skip to part two of this interview.

Next post.

Updating my golf bag – Golf Research in Play

April 12, 2007 / / 3 Comments

The contents of my bag have been changing lately. Of course, the bag itself has been as well, but I’ll talk about that in a future post. I’m also not talking about the crushed chips & crackers, tees I’ll never use, gadgets I forget about or the orgy of heterogeneous golf balls I have collected from my forays into the weeds to find my originals.

No, this long post is about the guests of honor in the bag – my golf clubs.

Brand and designer names

I have mentioned in several previous posts that I’m a Taylor Made girl. Despite TaylorMade’s apparent lack of interest in my endorsement of their products, I continue to give it. I draw the line at pimping, though, and don’t wear or carry items advertising their logo. Or would that be whoring? Either way, I never saw the point or taste in wearing a designer item with the designer’s name emblazoned on it and why would I do it for golf gear manufacturers? Unless, of course, they paid sponsored me. That being said, I’m still quite happy with my now nearly three-year old set of Taylor Made irons, wedges, fairway woods and driver.

New clubs, golf research

I have TM’s RAC OS Pitching (45 deg) and Sand (55 deg) wedges. Awhile back, I decided to try out some new wedges because so much of my game is played from 100 yards and in and I wondered if carrying a couple more wedges might improve my precision. So I ordered some wedges from GRIP, or Golf Research in Play, which is exactly what I intended to conduct. I went with the Gap wedge (52 deg) – to fill the Gap between the P and W, and the Lob (60 deg) looking for a 75 yard club.


The dilemma that shouldn’t have been

The trouble was, in order to really conduct this research out on a golf course, I’d have to remove two clubs from my bag (following the 14 club rule) in order to carry all four wedges to get a good comparison. Then, to add to my dilemma, GRIP threw a hybrid in the shipment for me to try. Well, I removed my left-handed club without a blink, but to remove two more would be difficult! The hybrid is a 5-H, which should theoretically replace my 5-iron, probably my favorite iron of all. See, the 5-I is my ~160 club, and I find myself in a lot of situations that require that yardage. I wasn’t about to remove it for an untested replacement. I decided to take them all to the range, where the 14-club rule doesn’t matter. I know, I’m such a stickler. Like I couldn’t have just taken them all out and played a few rounds that I didn’t post, right? Or replaced some clubs and played a test round and posted whatever the results were. That score would have been thrown out anyway. Stickler or idiot. You decide. ANYWAY…

Experimenting – the plan

Not that kind of experimenting, you dirty, dirty chipmunks! That’s supposed to be done in college and I skipped that semester. Of course I’m talking about experimenting with new golf clubs.

I was excited to try my new wedges but not so much about the hybrid. (I bought a TM 3H over a year ago and hardly ever use it. I’ve thought about going back to my 3-iron.) For the wedges, my plan was ambitious and was meant to determine exact yardages for each and had something to do with vectors. As for the 5H, I was just going to take a few swings and kind of get a feel for it.

I need to find a better practice range. Tom Barber is a fine establishment and a quick stop on the way from anywhere, just off the road. Plus, I just load up my micro-key with credits, keep in on my key chain so I can just pull up, grab my clubs, pop it in the ball machine and go straight to a station. Trouble is, the stations are all mats. I hate mats. And it’s almost always super windy there so it’s hard to get an accurate read on distance. That and the fact that it’s all downhill. I never said my plan wasn’t faulty.

Funny how things turn around

The GRIP wedges felt okay – at least as good as any iron can feel off a stupid mat. Difficult as it was to judge distance, I went ahead and decided that the 52 degree Gap wedge was too similar to my SW in distance to justify its place in my bag. And I guess I have to face facts – I’m just not that precise. The jury was still out on the 60 degree Lob wedge, and I clearly needed some grass time with it.

What really surprised me was the GRIP 5-Hybrid. I was immediately impressed with its feel. It has a weight and balance that is extremely comfortable – natural, even. Every shot felt pure, even when my execution wasn’t. Still, I felt that way about my TaylorMade 3 rescue at first, too, so I knew to take a wait-and-see attitude with this one.

The real test and the results

I went ahead and exchanged my 5-iron for the hybrid and the left-handed club for the Lob wedge in my bag for a few rounds. Of course I never had even one 75 yard attempt, let alone several in order to determine if the Lob wedge was the club. I usually use my PW for 100-115 yard shots and my SW for everything inside 100. In order to give the LW a chance, I decided to use it in place of my SW for everything under 75. I think it was all psychological, but I just couldn’t get comfortable with it. I guess I’m just too loyal to my SW.

The wedges will probably get another shot at a place in my bag, but for now they’re resting quietly. I have to say, they look really sharp. I like the smoke plating (even though I could do without the big white logo on the back) and the sharpness is also literal. The bottom edge is a lot sharper than the edges on my TM wedges, which might be why I couldn’t get comfortable with them right away. The grip feels great and the shafts have a strong, confident feel (I got the men’s clubs because I’m used to playing with steel shafts).

And now the good news

This all took place in January. My first round out with the clubs was in the bitter cold at Los Robles Greens. The new GRIP hybrid made its debut on the #1 handicap 3rd hole. A good drive would have left me with less than 100 yards to the flag, but good drives were scarce that day. So, after a less than great drive, I was in some ugly rough on the right, about 155 from the green which was guarded by a bunker from that angle. In the past, I’d probably have used my 4 iron in that situation because of the rough and the bunker at the end. From the fairway, it would have been 5 iron all the way. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try the new 5 Hybrid. Blammo. Nailed it clean, sailed over the bunker and ended up about 12 feet from the pin, whereupon I made the birdie putt. That was the beginning of my love affair with this new club that is still going strong.

Physically, it’s not exactly my type with its blue color and its bumpy lines, but love isn’t all about looks. Besides, as our relationship matures, I’m even starting to find it attractive. I use it from the rough, I use it from fairways, I use it from fairway bunkers and I’ll use it off the tees on the right par 3’s. After my initial skepticism, it has become my “go-to” club. Yardage-wise, it replaced my 4-iron instead of my 5 (probably because I hit it cleaner more consistently), so my 5 is back in the bag. I keep my 4-iron for low punch shots, but maybe if I get kinky creative with my 5H, it will handle those, too.

It’s not like this is my first square-dance, either. Many people have great responses the first time they try a hybrid club. I did with my TM 3 rescue but it faded. I guess it’s all in the design of the club. I think maybe that bulgy slot on the bottom – if you’ll pardon my technical jargon – helps keep the club in its groove through the swing no matter the lie and provides the forgiveness that allows me to keep hitting good shots with it more than any other. As for the weights, I’m sure they play a part as well. Maybe I’m supposed to adjust them or something but it seems to be working for me the way it is. Anyway, I don’t need to know how an engine works as long as I like the way the car handles.

Ironically, the amazing forgiveness also concerns me, because I can get sloppy with my swing and not worry about it. The rest of my clubs aren’t that forgiving and I worry that I’ll get sloppy with the rest of my game. Maybe I’ll have to get as many GRIP hybrids as possible!

And to think the whole idea was to get new wedges. Why am I always wookin’ pa nub in all the wrong places?

Next post.

Commentary on The Masters and a proposed new PGA Tour slogan

April 9, 2007 / / 3 Comments

These Guys are Good Pretty Good Better than You.

Whether it’s all part of the hoax or not, Tiger Woods looked almost human at The Masters.

In fact, Augusta National Golf Club made a bunch of professional golfers look silly this year. The combination of the weather, the rock hard course conditions, insanely slick greens and magnitude of the event made for unprecedented high scores at The Masters this year. The more it gets to you, the more it’ll get to you.

The shot that doesn’t fly as far as you’d expect and spins back into the water starts you thinking.

Now that you’re thinking, you miss a putt by less than an inch and it ends up 10 feet away from the hole which makes you nervous.

Now that you’re nervous, your next tee shot finds the trees and forces you to lay up (if you can get out) and now you’re scared.

Now that you’re scared, you remember where you are and you try too hard instead of just playing your game.

Now that you’ve abandoned your game, you’ll be lucky to shoot even par.

Don’t try to tell me these guys made bad swings, poor decisions and squeaky putts because their skill sets weren’t strong enough. They should be able to adapt to difficult course conditions, formulate sound strategies, club up and calm down. They got rattled on that first demanding day and their mental games failed them.

The strangest thing about it all for me is that every golf writer or blogger I’ve read is complaining that it was no fun to watch! Au contraire!

Now it’s not that I enjoy watching people suffer (not that anyone who gets invited to play at Augusta – in The Masters, no less – should be considered to be suffering at any time) but watching them struggle a bit allowed me to relate a little better to the players.

Of course, if in some parallel universe I actually got to play that course in those conditions from a special set of tees at a reasonable distance even without the added pressure of the event, I’d be lucky to break 100. But the point is, their struggles were recognizable. I am very familiar with punching out from the trees and hitting from drop areas and three putting. I could practically feel myself there doing it.

Unlike Zach Johnson whose dream of playing in The Masters was realistic, most of us will have to settle for watching others do it. Perhaps a realistic dream for mere mortals is to watch them do it in a recognizable fashion.

For me, this tournament was not only not boring, it took entertainment to a new level for golf. Even if my skills could improve enough so I could play more like the pros, this may have been the closest I’ll ever get to playing Augusta.

Next post.

Latest submission up at worldgolf

April 3, 2007 / / 0 Comments

My latest column is up at worldgolf.com. Well, most of it is.

In light of my recent circumstances and the strong feelings I have about my personalized golf gear, I thought it would be nice to do a column on the personal nature of such items and the impact they can have on a person’s golf game.

I wanted to bolster the article with some thoughts from someone in the business. Since Scott at Tartan Golf Grips provides such comfort items (including my putter grip) and knows a little bit about what they can mean to a golfer, I included a quote from him in my original submission. Worldgolf removed that portion of the article, probably because it was essentially free advertising and they make their living on selling advertising. Can’t blame them, plus I tend to come in over the desired word count anyway. They were also nice enough to retrieve the photo of my gear from my site (I didn’t submit it with the article) and include it in the story, so I give ’em props for that. However, the cut paragraph lended itself to summarizing my thoughts on the topic and segued nicely into my closing sentence.

So if you read it, please mentally insert this blurb in the article right before the closing line:

Scott Tesar, owner of TartanGolfGrips.com, finds it rewarding to provide such a distinctive product that enhances people’s enjoyment of the game on such a personal level. Speaking about his Artan(TM) grip designs and feedback he has received from customers, he says “Many people derive a sense of identity, pride and comfort from their family heritage and history… It’s just basic human nature to enjoy seeing your name and when it’s incorporated into a piece of golf equipment that you use on every hole, and it looks attractive, it creates positive energy and differentiation that contributes to a feeling of confidence on the course.”

Next post.

New putter grip

March 31, 2007 / / 2 Comments

I mentioned in my last post the grip I received from Scott at Time Fore Tee (also www.tartangolfgrips.com). I just installed it on my putter and it looks great! I’m psyched to use it in my round tomorrow. The thrill I got in slicing off that heinous red Cameron grip with the stupid lettering and crown design was a bonus. I couldn’t stand that grip and now I have the perfect grip to replace it!

Now I have The Goose represented on my big stick AND my little stick.

Scott does a great job designing these gorgeous grips and I’m honored that he designed this one just for us in Kess’ memory. It is one of the nicest, most thoughtful gifts I have ever received and I can’t thank him enough. He also writes an interesting and detailed golf blog, so check him out at the links above!Bring on the one-putts, Kessy!

Next post.

Breaking the silence

March 30, 2007 / / 3 Comments

It has been a month since I lost my best friend.

I will always miss her and while I think I’ve gotten through the hardest time, I’m sure the tears will continue to spring up, just fewer and farther between as time goes on. It was necessary for me to take almost a week off from work but since then it has kept me busy and I think that helped. My grief clouded my thoughts and I’m afraid I produced some of the worst work in my life, but it all worked out and my contribution to the project proved successful anyway. Work was required, blogging was not, so I focused my attention where I needed to.

I put together a memorial tribute to Kess which I think also helped in the healing process by consolidating and sharing memories and getting out a lot of my tears.

Thank you all for the comments you posted and emails you sent. Please know that your kind and caring words are much appreciated even though I didn’t respond to you all individually.

Special thanks to Jay Flemma at A Walk in the Park and Mulligan Stu at The Waggle Room for the thoughtful posts and Scott at Time Fore Tee for the beautiful grip design and donations in her honor. Scott sent me the gorgeous Artan grip he designed based on the MacKessock tartan. It will become my new putter grip so that I can have a symbol of her with me on every golf hole I play (though I will continue to try to hole out from off the green).

My moment of silence is now officially over and I’ll get back to the business of blogging about golf. The “Ask the Goose” feature will continue in Kess’ honor, and I hope she will channel through me to continue to answer the mailbag and that I can do her column justice.

Again, thank you all for your patience and support.

Kess “The Goose” Williams – the day before her last on Earth.

Next post.

Kess “The Goose” Williams – 1995-2007

March 1, 2007 / / 20 Comments


Life was better yesterday.

Because I got to hold her.
Because I got to smell her.
Because I got to kiss her.
Because she was here to kiss my tears away.
Because she was here.I miss you, Kess.
You were my best friend.
You made my world so sweet.
There isn’t anything better than you.
I will always love you and you’ll always be here with me in my heart.

Hello, see you later.

Kess “The Goose” Williams 1995-2007
Rest in peace, peanut butter cup.

To know her was to love her. Everyone loves The Goose.

This blog will now be observing a moment of silence for The Goose. I don’t know how long the moment will last. E-mails and comments may go unanswered because words are too hard.

Next post.

All riled up and groovy at Worldgolf.com

February 26, 2007 / / 6 Comments

Golf chick gets her groove on?

The possibility of a rule change regarding the grooves on golf clubs has me all riled up. Check out my latest column at worldgolf.com and see why the USGA and golf club manufacturers might not think I’m a groovy chick.

Next post.

Donald Trump invades my happy place at Cap Cana

February 23, 2007 / / 15 Comments

The public beach at Cap Cana.

Cap Cana – the home of my happy place – is a massive, beautiful, upscale resort in the Punta Cana area on the coast of the Dominican Republic overlooking the Caribbean Sea.

They just announced that a deal was made with Donald Trump to develop a new resort on a portion of the property to include a golf course, golf villas, golf lots, estate lots, a beach club, a condo hotel and residences with ocean views. And of course he has to put his name on it so it will collectively be called “Trump at Cap Cana.” No word yet on what they will call the golf course. Maybe Punta Trump?

Naturally, it will be a luxury resort. I toured the Cap Cana property including finished products and some of the developments under construction and even the lowest priced condos are luxury. The golf villas and beach club attached to Punta Espada are gorgeous and elegant and I felt like a princess just being there. The design and amenities are classy and understated but leave no doubt that you are in a special place where your every whim has been considered and attended to.

Here is the bungalow where I stayed. Just off the 12th hole of Punta Espada. That’s “my” bungalow on the right and my own little path down to the water. That path in the previous photo is just to the left of the screen. This is part of the wraparound patio of the bungalow. Here’s the view from the other side of the patio with the screens down. Here’s another view with the screens open.

Enter Donald Trump. I can only hope Cap Cana has design standards they will enforce or that Trump’s involvement will primarily be the usage of his name and the investors he brought in. It would be such a shame to see this place spoiled by the brash and gaudy style that Trump considers classy.


I have submitted some questions regarding more specifics on the golf course and I’ll post an update once I get them answered.

Update: Here is a portion of the Master Plan of Cap Cana. “Trump at Cap Cana” is circled in red. Looks like 36 holes up on the bluff.

Here it is pre-development. You can see the bluff where the new resort will be.


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World record hole-in-one at Ko’olau!

February 9, 2007 / / 11 Comments


Ko’olau is considered by many the toughest golf course in the United States. I have a Ko’olau shirt that boasts the rating right on the sleeve. It’s also one of the most beautiful golf courses I have ever played.

The number 1 handicap hole at Ko’olau (for the handicap handicapped challenged that means the hardest hole) is number 18.

So, you’re on the most difficult hole of the most challenging course in the country. What do you do? If you’re Bret Melson, you ace it! Sure, he’s part of the San Diego Golf Academy: Hawaii campus, it’s his home course and he has probably played that hole hundreds of times, but none of that makes it any less of an amazing feat. And yes, a new world record for the longest ace. Congratulations, Bret! You can read (and hear) the whole story on the SDGA website. For most people, acing a par-3 is enough of an accomplishment. Acing any old par-4 would be absolutely incredible. I guess for Bret, that just wouldn’t have done it.

It really is challenging!

I have played this golf course twice. The first time was three months after my very first round of golf. I played the forward tees which only have course and slope ratings of 72.9/129. I actually managed to make par on 18. The second time I played there was 7 months later so I’d been playing for 10 whole months and thought I should really experience the difficulty so I played from the blue tees (the next set back from the forwards – equivalent to white tees on average courses) with course/slope ratings of 78.7/153 for women (when I played the ratings from the tips for men weren’t even that high but it looks like the course has been re-rated since then). And… I experienced the difficulty. I carded a 9 on 18. Yes, a 9. And I recorded the whole bittersweet experience on digital media.

My 18th hole experience at Ko’olau


From the tees at 18. The first of two forced carries (unless you’re like Bret and decide to cross the rain forest on the right with your teeshot).

My first shot actually ended up here, near the drop area. (Local rules indicate that balls lost in ravines are a one stroke penalty, then played from the drop area on the other side on holes 1,5,6,7,8,10,11,12,14,16,18. Gotta speed up play somehow on this monster.) No penalty for me. Only one stroke so far. What could go so wrong now? Well, there’s another forced carry up there but I’m no hero. I’ll lay up…


…to here. Perfect – so far so good. Two strokes so far, I still have my golf ball and at this point I’d be happy to get a bogey. Forced carries off a tee aren’t as daunting to me as danger on the deck. My hacking around commences with my 3 wood from here, which, when struck well would have been on the green. But alas, it finds the ravine.


I decided this was the drop area. Hitting 5 from here. Coincidentally, that patient man waiting on the green was also named Bret. Just some guy that joined on the back nine. There was no one behind us and I told him he could play ahead without me because I’d be taking lots of photos. But there he is… just waiting and waiting.

Two sand wedges later, I’m on the green in 6. Then I proceed to three putt. Yes, from here. I know, but I guess this course just rattled me. 5 over on one hole. Ouch.

Here’s the overhead view. If I played this course every day, I might try carrying it all in one at some point like Bret Melson did. I wonder: if you go that way and it goes in the forest, do you get to drop over there instead of on the fairway on the left? That would save a few strokes. 🙂

gc at koolauHere I am attempting to cross yet another ravine on #6. Failed here, too, but only took a triple bogey on this hole. Damn you, Ko’olau! I’ll be coming back for you!


Update: thought I should show the damaging evidence. Here’s what you can’t see in the previous photo.

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