Golfing at a muni in Puerto Rico can be an experience

[Tupperwolf]

Just go with it!

Well, it's been a couple of months that I've been playing at a new home course in Puerto Rico. It's a muni that was originally a military golf course, built in the 1940s for the Army base Ft. Ramey, and was Eisenhower's favorite. The course is located in the northwest corner of the island, overlooking the Atlantic ocean, and all 18 holes have a view of the ocean - try finding another course that can boast that for around $30 with a cart!

The course is in decent shape, although nobody would confuse it with one of the resort courses on the island. The greens are pretty patchy and rough around the edges, but the speed is fine, albeit with a very strong Bermuda grain. The Bermuda rough is thick and challenging, and I have actually lost quite a few balls because they just disappear in the rough. Fairways are a different kind of grass, very firm and tight. My best score here so far is a one over par 73 from the white tees.

Well, playing golf here is a whole new experience. It's a ton of fun, but you have to just accept anything and everything that you might see. There are large signs posted at the entrance to the course that say "No running, no bicycling, no motorcyles". There's actually a public road that cuts through the middle of the course which leads to some of the area's more popular beaches, and a large parking lot there. Cars are in constant danger of being hit and often beep their horns as they pass through the course.

On any given afternoon that I play, I see about a dozen different people running on the course, usually around the perimiter. They stop in the clubhouse to fill up their water bottles and chat with the staff. I have seen guys on mountain bikes, scooters, bicycles, and quads. Many of them enter the course from the beach road, but many live in a low-income housing area which is next to the course. The 30 minutes before it gets dark are usually full of the sound of kids on dirt bikes and quads blasting up and down the fairways.

The area of the course which butts up next to the housing project is used by the locals as a picnic ground, public park, and a place to raise horses. Not kidding.... there are at least a half-dozen horses tied up along holes 4 and 5. Often a teen will arrive on a scooter with a bucket of water or some grooming implements to keep their horses happy.

There are a few ball-hawks in residence on the course, and they sell the balls they find to players, or to the range. The range at the course has everything from Nike Mojos to Pro V1s, all with a red stripe marked on them to turn them into range balls!

The bunkers are in bad shape. None of them have rakes, because whenever the staff puts rakes out, they disappear overnight (because to someone living nearby, hey, free rake!) Many of the plastic tee markers have also disappeared, for unknown reasons, and been replaced by whatever's handy - paper cups full of concrete sprayed blue are on one of the tee boxes near the projects.

Once I got caught up in a sudden thunderstorm and took shelter for about 30 minutes in one of the pastel-colored concrete huts that dot the course... each hole has one or two. I had wondered what they were for until the rain hit and I dashed to make use of one. When the rain started to slack, there were 6-inch deep puddles in areas, and everything was soaked. A group of 15-20 young kids appeared with bodyboards and were running and sliding down the hills like snow-sledding, shouting with laughter and having a great time.

All in all, it's a very laid-back, relaxed place. I have had plenty of moments of indignation, especially when people are riding four-wheelers around, but I remember that they have been doing that for years and I haven't yet seen any true signs of damage. Despite the signs, the runners are welcome, and shady areas along the perimiter of the course make a comfortable picnic area on weekends. The staff are friendly with the locals whose horses bed down in the rough. When I first started playing here, being a gringo, I was pretty uncomfortable, but I've come to accept that this golf course is almost like St. Andrews - it's a public place, where people are free to treat it like a park, except they do it every day, not just Sundays.

Here are a couple of guard cats, keeping an eye on my sticks so nobody makes off with them.

[GatorNate11]

Wow. The course looks beautiful from the pics. Those are some interesting stories I have to say. The course a couple minutes from me has a road that runs all around it, so cars driving around wouldn't bother me, nor would dirtbikes as they're ridden down the road all day, but if I saw someone riding through the fairway I would probably have to just stare and laugh in a "you have to be kidding me" moment lol.