MD/DC/VA Golfers - Twelve Monkeys Mental Divergence

[thechief16]

Royal New Kent is great. Even as wet as it was this morning. Full review and pics when I get back tomorrow.

[gsrjc]

Happy Easter people.

[dcmidnight]

Had a chance the last few nights to watch the new video that Monte put out - The Efficient Swing. Great stuff as always, just has a way of breaking things down in a really simple and easy to understand way. Nothing too confusing or scientific. Liking the new website too, really easy to find all the videos you've bought and each video is broken up into chapters that are easy to navigate through. 100x better than the videos were a couple years ago.

 

He has a "two elbows together" drill for transition that really helped me this weekend. I definitely have a tendency to let things fly from the top of the swing so this is a really good thing for me to focus on. Anyway, for guys that have his other stuff, this one was really good.

 

Windy AF at the range last night, probably 15-20 steady winds in the hour or so that I was there. Should have done the smart thing and gone home - but I didnt. Burke Lake was moderately better this morning but not much. Hoping to finally get out for a round tomorrow.

[Mizzy45]

Played worthington with Ogre on Friday and only got in 9 before the rain. The rain wasn’t really the issue, I rushed my swing on #7 and jacked up my back. Message yesterday with heat and stretching the rest of yesterday and today. Tomorrow morning chiropractor to truly fix it. So I’m not expecting much from my swing at Trolls on Tuesday. But since I paid and I have a potential new member joining, I must grin and bear it. Gonna be a slow swing, an I allowed to play from the Red Tees???? Damn I’m getting old.

[Ocgolfrick]

Post round photo taken in Rum Pointe Clubhouse on Saturday:

 

[thechief16]

I feel like there has been a lot of interest in the re-opening of Royal New Kent, the Mike Strantz design between Richmond and Williamsburg, so forgive my indulgence for what will probably be a long post.

 

**When**: Saturday morning.

 

**Weather**: 70 and gusting. We got heavy thunderstorms Friday night. On the back side of the front Saturday was a steady 15mph, gusting to 25.

 

**Conditions**: Wet. Pretty much every ball in the fairway picked up mud. Half my drives plugged. Zero Roll. Miraculously, though, they allowed carts on the fairway. Not sure why. Greens, though, were spectacular. Newly grown Championship Bermuda. Fast and true. Made a very satisfying "thunk" when you landed a full iron on them. Very small, easily repaired ballmarks. There was a lot of newly laid sod around the new draininage, but the rest of the fairways were immaculate. Rough was low and playable. Only knock was around the greens. Needs some time for that grass to grow in. Picked up a good number of bare-ish lies.

 

**Facility**: Great big clubhouse. Not much gear in the proshop yet. Good hot dog in the grill, 5 beers on tap. Grass practice facility just on the other side of the parking lot (60 seconds by cart from the 1st tee). Was very wet, but open. Flat with a half dozen targets (though there was no sign of how far the targets were away). Balls were included with the greens fee ($95) Large putting/short game area by the range and another smaller green by the 1st tee. All the staff was friendly and helpful. Saw the beer cart no less than 5 times, if you are into that sort of thing.

 

**Design**: I'd say a tamer version of Tobacco Rd, but significantly more difficult. Lots of mounds and bunkers (not waste areas). Serious elevation changes from tees to fairways and fairways to greens on several holes. HUGE greens with a lot of discrete sections and humps and swales. You had to be on the right level or it was almost a guaranteed 3 putt. Lots of blind shots. I used the Grint GPS feature more than I ever had before. Despite the rain, I didn't feel like it played as long as the card (6800). Only one of the 5s was reachable (#2), and it would have required a perfect drive to the right side and then a 200 yard carry over a fescue waste area that was essentially a hazard to a very narrow green. The others were all 550 plus, into the wind with no ability to run it up. In fact, there were very few holes on the course where you could run it up onto the green, owing to either severely uphill approaches or bunkers/swales/penalty areas fronting the green. The most disappointing thing, from my perspective, was that holes 11-16 brought you through a housing community, though the houses were never in play. The front 9 was so spectacular and secluded, it was just jarring to suddenly be looking at houses. Really took away from the ambiance for me. The threes were tough, either long with perched greens (3 and 15) or shortish with major elevation drops (7 and 12) and a lot of trouble round the green. The fours were a good mix of long and short, very few of them straight or flat. Fairways had some tilt to them, but not a ton. Not at all walkable. Some very long traverses from greens to tees, not to mention the elevation changes.

 

**My game**: Stellar. 11/14 fairways, but only 7 greens (4 were just off and puttable). 33 putts, with no bad misses and couple really good lags/2 putts. 39/42 for 81, with 2 doubles off F drives and then a bad stretch on the back nine where I had 3 straight bogeys, which were a combination of the toughest holes on the course, with the wind gusting into. I'm really starting to feel good, result of the work I have put in off my fall lessons and a tip/thought I picked up on Monte's new video, getting my hips moving properly. That's three straight good rounds for me in tough, windy conditions. I'm really pleased, given that I have put a lot of work into getting my swing straightened out, targeting my trip this weekend to PH.

 

Here are some pics, mostly on the front nine, as I was playing alone until a 2some (really good guys) joined me on 12.

Tee shot on 1 (dogleg left, severely uphill approach)

Tee shot 9 (uphill approach towards clubhouse)

Tee shot 6

Approach 18 (hit a 7 iron to 15 feet. Very skinny green).

Tee shot 3 (pin was all the way back, long, angled green)

Tee shot 2 (blind landing area with native area right, which you cant see from the tee)

Tee shot 12 (severely downhill)

Tee shot 7 (severely downhill with a creek front and left. Hit 7i to 5 feet and made my only birdie)

Approach 10 (I was on the upper tier after hitting my 3rd from a washed out fairway bunker. Needless to say, 3 putt)

Approach 5 (hit 4 iron to left fringe 10 feet away)

Tee shot 5

 

 

 

[dcmidnight]

I wish I could have made it down, course looks fantastic. I bet with some more time to grow in too all of those patchy areas will fill in just fine. I remember feeling the same way about the houses though, its a really weird piece of property. Its like you're playing this secluded course and then suddenly you see a housing development. You definitely need a GPS unit of some kind to play there though.

 

Only thing I worry about is the Bermuda greens, that is really unusual for this far north. Independence redid their greens with Bermuda and then last year they had to close for two months in May or so when the winter completely killed them off. You see a lot of places going to Bermuda fairways but almost always they will have bent greens. There was another 9 hole course in Richmond that had to close for the same reason last year after they redid their greens as well.

[TheCityGame]

That's how you do it, Chief. That is a great looking course and definitely looks like something worth keeping in playable condition. There's too much going on there with those sliver greens and mounding. That huge mounding around some of those fairways reminds you of actual dunes and actually gives it a linksy look, even though it's not on the seaside (and I know it's very much NOT linksy). I need to get down there.

 

And, great playing.

[FAbb]

Man, that review was almost as great as Domes' Chambers Bay recap. Keep working at it, Chief. You'll get there.

[FAbb]

It's the eve of the 2019 Edition of Trolls Riding Unicorns. The winning scores in 2018 were

 

Net - 58 (Endless)

Gross - 70 (Drew)

 

Over/under/same on both for this year?

 

Sully did some analysis one year on scoring on each hole, I think. I'd be interested to see that again.

[GooseHook]

> @FAbb said:

> It's the eve of the 2019 Edition of Trolls Riding Unicorns. The winning scores in 2018 were

>

> Net - 58 (Endless)

> Gross - 70 (Drew)

>

> Over/under/same on both for this year?

>

> Sully did some analysis one year on scoring on each hole, I think. I'd be interested to see that again.

 

I'd guess better, only because the warm weather and better overall turf health right now is worth a shot or two over the course of the day.

[TheCityGame]

Rum Pointe, Berlin MD. A Pete Dye design. Played with OCGolfRick, Mikey Five Fingers, and one of Mike's friends for Mike's 40th birthday. 4/20. 9 AM.

 

The Rum Pointe web site refers to itself as "Scottish-style links". It. Is. Not. Think Worthington Manor, but built on the water. In no way is this course a "links" course. It is target golf in a Pete Dye style. The most linksy thing about it is that there was a constant wind and it had to be taken into account on every shot. And that course would play a lot differently if the wind was blowing in a different direction.

 

Or I'd say that it's a bit like Queenstown, but it actually feels like it's on the water and not just that it was built near the water (q-town bugs me). There's a par 5 with water up the left that almost plays like a "cape hole" and then a par 4 coming back with the water along the right.

 

THIS IS QUEENSTOWN "ON THE WATER". . .

 

 

RUM POINTE ON THE WATER. . .

 

 

The web site says 17 holes have a bay view. Actually it says, "no less than 17 holes" have a bay view. I don't know what they mean by that. But, it reminds me of the Holy Hand Grenade. . .then shalt thou count to 17, no more–no less. 17 shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be 17. 18 shalt thou not count, neither count thou 16, excepting that thou then proceed to 17. 19 is right out. Once the number 17, being the 17th number, be reached, thou shall reach the number of bay views.

 

IT WAS WINDY. Non stop. Strong wind. All day.

 

But, ya know. . .it just wasn't that great.

 

Take that par 4, for instance. It's great in comparison to that par 4 at Queenstown, but there's 100 yards left of the water to miss and you still have a shot into the green. (and there are houses to the left. Not exactly "scottish style links"). Shoot, you probably have a better angle into the green.

 

Now, HERE'S a hole along the water. This is Pac Dunes #4. You need to play down the water, otherwise you're in huge bunkers, or you have no shot into the green.

 

 

Here's another hole from Rum Pointe that highlights some of the weakness of the course. . .the drive to the middle of the fairway is about 250. It would be an interesting hole. There's a centerline bunker out there, but there's almost NO disincentive to go right at the green. Think driving into the right rough at Worthington manor on hole 1. It's humpy and the rough could be long, but there's no problem with the angle and the drive takes bunkers out of play. You can have a wedge in from over there. It's just not a good hole because of how open it is.

 

 

(note about that hole : My drive was actually short of the FIRST fairway bunker. It was probably a 200 yard drive that I hit center face. I hit driver-4 iron into this hole that should be driver-wedge)

 

But, the course is nice and there are a lot of "fun" shots. I hit driver-4W into one par 4. Two of the par 3's, to get one close, you had to start a ball 20 yards off the green and let the wind bring it back (which OCGolfRick did perfectly on one par 3. He started it way out over the water on a 140 yard hole. I couldn't bring myself to do that.)

 

But, more than anything. . .I can only like a "destination/resort/tourist course" so much. It's a "cart" course and I just have a limit for how much I'm going to like such a course, but I would still recommend it. I bet it's a lot of fun when you get to play it in different wind conditions. There's a lot of risk/reward shots out there and well-contoured greens. Tightly mown chipping areas around the greens. You needed a little imagination. I had some fun lag putts to hit and some tricky chips.

 

I didn't love it, but if you're a person who likes Queenstown, I think you'd really love Rum Pointe.

 

 

 

 

[GooseHook]

Who's all playing B-Team for Woodmore Saturday? I drew an away team position, hopefully the practice round in howling wind was worth it!

[GoldenBellGW]

> @GooseHook said:

> Who's all playing B-Team for Woodmore Saturday? I drew an away team position, hopefully the practice round in howling wind was worth it!

 

In order for Woodmore B-Team, there must first B a team...

[FAbb]

> @GooseHook said:

> > @FAbb said:

> > It's the eve of the 2019 Edition of Trolls Riding Unicorns. The winning scores in 2018 were

> >

> > Net - 58 (Endless)

> > Gross - 70 (Drew)

> >

> > Over/under/same on both for this year?

> >

> > Sully did some analysis one year on scoring on each hole, I think. I'd be interested to see that again.

>

> I'd guess better, only because the warm weather and better overall turf health right now is worth a shot or two over the course of the day.

 

58 seems nuts. I can't recall, but I don't think anybody else broke 60 last year. I'm banking on the net winner not breaking 60 this year.

 

Gross going under 70 could happen, but it won't be easy. There are four sub-3 handicaps in the field, and another 3 mid singles. The birdies are certainly out there to make it happen, but it's gonna hinge on whether people can avoid bogey or worse on the tough holes, at least one of the rounds.

 

I'll go 60/70 for the winning scores.

[2moreTerps]

scores in events like this are never as low as i think they will be. you actually have to get the ball into the hole. i don't magically start making 8 birdies in 2 rounds just because i get to play the course twice

[FAbb]

Whiskey has a lot of gettable holes. There are certainly enough that I think there's potential for non-overlapping gross/net birdie or better holes, round over round. Just gross, you've got all the par 5s, at least 6-7 par 4s that give you a wedge in with a decent drive, and 7 is short. Even if somebody makes 2 birds per round, they have a good chance of not overlapping them. You just can't have overlapping bogey or worse holes.

[FAbb]

And you also have to take into account that everybody playing the blue tees is getting 3 extra strokes, because of the course rating difference between the blue and white tees.

 

I think if you set the O/U at 59.5 for net, you'd get pretty even action in both directions.

[Kent01putt]

I am also playing B team at Woodmore Saturday.

[dcmidnight]

> @FAbb said:

> And you also have to take into account that everybody playing the blue tees is getting 3 extra strokes, because of the course rating difference between the blue and white tees.

>

> I think if you set the O/U at 59.5 for net, you'd get pretty even action in both directions.

 

Completely agree that there are a lot of getable holes there - especially playing twice in one day. You'll learn the first time around how to do things differently on a few holes that you might not have done in round 1.

 

Would definitely take an under 59.5 net.

[FAbb]

Last year's top scores

 

58

60

61

62

63 (4 of them, I think)

 

That was with 32 players, versus 24 this year. Conditions are almost certain to be better this year, from what I understand of last year's event.

[2moreTerps]

HBD how does zurich work in our pool? In my pool you have to have both players and you get the money they both earn. so nailing a winner is right over 2 million

[dcmidnight]

Bridgestone:


 

Eagle:


 

 

[ceejay81]

> @2moreTerps said:

> HBD how does zurich work in our pool? In my pool you have to have both players and you get the money they both earn. so nailing a winner is right over 2 million

 

 

[bayrat88]

My initial pick is off the top 160 list, need to go outside the box to start making up some ground in this thing.

[TheCityGame]

Fun week to try to pick in the pool. You can get brooks keopka but pick chase koepka? Nice.

[TheCityGame]

So, follow up to my "marginal" disappointed in Rum Pointe (and I say "marginal". It's a good course. Good holes. Scenic, windy. Good greens. I did like it. You just play a "seaside" course like that and if you've played "real" one like Bandon, or I'm sure Scotland, it's like, "why can't we have that here of all places?)

 

Anyway. . . the follow up is how much I liked Ocean City Golf and Yacht club Newport. First of all. . .I like the place. Mike and I sit down in the grill and there's a couple dudes at the next table. Rick came over and sat down with us. The one dude goes, "I should have figured they were with you, Rick. They looked like nerds." Welcome to Ocean City Golf Club. LOL.

 

We found a guy to play with who was doing a "phone dance" with his wife trying to figure out just how ticked off she'd be when he got home if he played more holes. He left after 9. She was "bored". He and Rick told us many stories. Like of the toilet seat screwed over the hole in the tree for a make-shift urinal. Or poo-in-al for all I know.

 

You know the 4th at Queenstown. . .the par 5 where the green looks like it falls off to infinity with the bay behind that. They have several holes like that at OC, except the "bay" really is right behind them. You can just look at this snippet of the back at OC and tell you're getting into something good. . .

 

 

You've got a couple par 3's over the marsh, holes going back into it and away from it.

 

The 12th hole is a real humdinger. An S-shaped 3-shotter unless you tickle the back end of the fairway. Yellow is the line I took. White is the line Mike took. Rick took a special route. We thought my tee shot splashed. Turns out it was just casual water.

 

The 18th is a left to right Cape Hole (how much do you want to bite off?) much like the 18th at Rum Pointe except it's WAY better. Here's the 18th at Rum Pointe. . .

 

 

Basically, it's a Cape Hole in name only. Sure, you can get closer to the green taking on the water, but it's the difference between 120 and 150. And the bail out left is completely wide open. There's no fear, and no problems.

 

In contrast, here's the 18th at OC. . .

 

 

One major difference is that it's a real carry over water. If the wind is into you, you need to think the wide short area, but if the wind is with you, it's DRIVEABLE. It's SO ENTICING standing on that tee to look at that green and know it's "only" 250. From way back on that tee box, it also looks like an incredible hole. I drove into that long catch bunker and had 67 to a back pin. I hit one of my favorite shots of the day to about 10 feet to a pin on a back tier.

 

Over all, the greens there are great. Tons of slope. Tons of tiers. There are MULTIPLE par 4's that in range off the tee, but you need to take kind of crazy angles (like the 11th, which I almost drove). There's a "double landing area" par 5. There's a dog leg right par 4 where you can't see the fairway and it looks like you're just driving a ball into the marsh. There's just enough trees there to keep you honest, but nothing where you lose balls. Great sight lines all over. Smart bunkering off the tee and into greens. THere's a couple straight forward back and forth holes, but they work in conjunction with the rest of the course and the winds make everything interesting somehow.

 

From their website, the 18th looking back. . .

 


 

This is the approach shot on that S-shaped par 5. If your drive doesn't go far enough, you lay up left of those trees. If you go far enough, it's GO TIME right over that beach.

 


 

Typical green laying gently on a rise around the marshes.

 


 

 

 

 

[baddomes]

This should be the graphic we use for the Hive Match Play. The picture is not out of focus. The flyer itself in the locker room is out of focus:

 


 

 

[FAbb]

What locker room is that picture hanging in?

[baddomes]

> @FAbb said:

> What locker room is that picture hanging in?

 

Oakmont