"Drink
it," your mother used to say.
"It's good for you." She
was right, of course, but it tasted awful. That's a little like the way I feel about one of my favorite
golf courses ever, Oyster Harbors.
Your score may leave a lousy taste in your mouth, but the experience is
good for you and your golf game.
I was invited to the 28th
annual Fall Frolic at Oyster Harbors Golf Club in Osterville, MA. The company of 46 fellow golfers, many
of them from the Hartford (CT) Golf Club, the gentlemanly stewardship of Frolic
organizer Dick Farr, the perfect fall weather, and the classic, stunning golf
course made for two days of sheer delight. As we teed off in balmy weather this morning, I was tempted
to ask my golfing partner, "Is this heaven?" "Nah," he most likely would have responded, "it's just
Oyster Harbors."
I
know what you're thinking. This
kind of sentimentality is unbecoming of someone who touts his objectivity about
the courses he plays and reviews.
There is no out of bounds
on the entire island surrounding Oyster Harbors. You play from wherever you land.
This is my third go-round at Oyster
Harbors, and if I sound sloppy drunk, well, so be it. The golf course transports you back to the early part of the
20th Century when golf architects didn't plow up the land into
unnatural moguls or force fit the course between a group of homes. Mother Nature did much of the work for
Donald Ross at Oyster Harbors, bending and shaping the terrain into pleasant
slopes and valleys that are not too high or too deep or out of place. Mr. Ross just added a dab of color (and
challenge) in the form of some good-sized bunkers, and he sculpted those
amazing greens.
Oyster Harbors is both fair and, at
times, brutal. There is not a
single out of bounds stake on the course...or on the entire surrounding
island. Skitter your shot across a
road onto someone's front yard, and go ahead and take your swing. I played one from beside a row of
hedges on one hole and saved a couple of strokes. The course's generous fairways keep you in the game off most
tees, and the amply endowed greens are typically wide and inviting also. But like an old fool smitten by a young
beauty, be careful what you wish for when you go at the pin. Once you arrive greenside, vertigo can
set in. As one of the presenters
at dinner remarked, if you have not played Pinehurst #2, a tour around Oyster
Harbors gives you a good idea of what that is like.
No
chip shot is straight to the hole, and neither are virtually all the
putts. Just a couple of greens are
severely elevated, but most have false fronts and, in too many cases when you
forget to play short, you'll be faced with false backs as well. Short is always better than long at
Oyster Harbors, and on most holes I preferred a 20-yard pitch shot up to the
hole to a 30-foot putt from pin high.
None of the breaks on the greens are dramatic like, say, from rear right
to the final-day pin position at The Masters. But every putt at Oyster Harbors from outside three feet
must be worked over, looked at from all angles and never ever taken for
granted.
Oyster Harbors can pick you up and
drop you down, and not necessarily in that order. I was despondent after I carded an 8 on the par 4 9th
on our first day (we started at #5). But generously wide fairways beckoned on the following
holes, and I am an okay putter, and my partner was counting on me to snap back. I carried an 11 handicap into my rounds
at Oyster Harbors, shot 86 and 84 and thought I played those two rounds better
than any others in the last year.
The 86 included the snowman, and the 84 included four missed putts from
inside five feet, but that was not because I over-read or under-read any of
them. It was more the worry about
the following putt if I missed and whether a too-aggressive stroke would result
in a three putt from five feet.
(Two of my three playing partners today, also 11 handicappers, four
putted.) If you worry about the
following putt before you stroke a five-footer, you will surely miss.
But Oyster Harbors is good for your
golf game. The green complexes
force you to think on every approach shot and, in many cases, to dial back your
notions about getting the ball to the hole from 150 yards away. When the wind kicked up today, I was
channeled back to Scotland, where punch shots into or beneath the wind work
best. Thirty feet below the hole
is much better than 10 feet above.
Great golf courses challenge and teach and revise our laziest notions
about the game.
Note:
In a month, Tom Doak will commence some tweaking of all the holes at
Oyster Harbors. Doak has great
respect for the classic architects and their work, and he likely will do no
harm. But how do you improve on
heaven? If I am lucky enough to be
invited back next year -- Oyster Harbors is private -- I will let you know how the tweaking worked out.
The dogleg right 9th at Oyster Harbors is one of the few that features a water hazard. But the customary Ross bunkers and elevated green are more worrisome, especially into the prevailing winds.