by Rick Vogel

 

        Arriving at the club for a round of golf, you meet your buddy in the parking lot, and as the two of you are headed for the clubhouse, he stops, pulls a black cigarillo out of his top shirt pocket, cups a lit match in both hands, and then affixes you with a squinty stare.  He says, "You've got to ask yourself one question:  'Do I feel lucky?'  Well, do ya punk?"

        If you are a golfer in Carmel, CA, you might just be at Tehama Golf Club, Clint Eastwood's Carmel bayside course designed by Jay Moorish. Getting a tee time is problematic since the club's membership is by invitation only, and should you choose the path of home ownership to achieve membership, lots start at $2.5 million.

        To walk the fairways of the rich and/or famous, other choices abound.  If you are of a certain age, you might recall the exploits of those

who played Kino Springs Golf Course on the 5,280-acre Yerba Buena Ranch near Nogales AZ.   A half century ago, the course was designed by Red Lawrence, the "Desert Fox, " and owned by actors Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons.  It played host to such guests as Elizabeth Taylor and John Wayne; the "Duke" owned a bungalow on the course and played there regularly.  Thoughts of Eastwood and Wayne recall the advice from 1965 PGA champ Dave Marr, "Never bet with anyone you meet on the first tee who has a deep suntan, a one-iron in his bag and squinty eyes."

        If you like your martinis shaken, not stirred, you could try a round at The Stoke Park Club in Buckinghamshire, England where James Bond teed it up against Goldfinger and his lethal caddy Oddjob.  Bond inventor and author Ian Fleming had a passion for golf.  If not any old Brit will do as your partner for a round of golf on native soil, there's The Royal Household Golf Club.  Sited on the grounds of Windsor Castle, it is veddy British and very, very private.  For an early tee time, you had better know Queen Elizabeth II or her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh!

        Should AOL founder Steve Case invite you to play 18 holes, get ready for a treat at Case’s own private Robin Nelson designed course in Puakea, Hawaii.  The golf course was used as a setting in the movie Jurassic Park so beware of raptors if you chase your ball too far into the thicket surrounding the layout.

        Enjoy rubbing elbows with the rich and famous in the world of politics and sports?  Liberty National Golf Club, Jersey City, NJ, and Shadow Creek Golf Club in Las Vegas just might fill the bill.  At Liberty National, the Cupp/Kite design that cost $250 million to build and will set you back a cool $500K for initiation fees, you might find yourself teeing off with the likes of Rudolph Giuliani, Phil Mickelson or Eli Manning with the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline as a backdrop.  The Tom Fazio designed Shadow Creek won’t charge you an initiation fee, especially if you are a high roller at one of Steve Wynn's casinos, but at $500, the green fees are rich enough.   For some, the price may be reasonable for a chance to see the likes of Dubya Bush, Michael Jordan, or John Elway on an adjoining fairway.  When he wasn’t otherwise engaged, the late Wilt Chamberlain walked the Shadow Creek fairways as well.

        "Gentlemen, start your engines!"  Motor racing and golf combine at Brickyard Crossing in Indianapolis.  In 1929 it was called "The Speedway Golf Course" but took on the new name after a Pete Dye redesign in 1991.  Most of the course plays adjacent to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but holes 7 thru 10 play on the racecourse’s infield.   Things get a little crowded on Memorial Day during the running of the Indianapolis 500.

        You probably won’t see too many Jeep Cherokees in the parking lot of Cherokee Plantation in Yemassee SC.  Annual dues compare with the cost of a Porsche, and joining fees equal a Bentley or two.  What do you expect from a course whose designer, Donald Steel, is the only one permitted to tweak the Old Course at St. Andrews?  Cherokee Plantation was once owned by RB Evens, president of American Motors and, yes, your Jeep Cherokee was named after the Plantation.

        Golf is an international game, and if you would like to capture its worldwide nature in just one round, head for Portal, ND, and the Gateway Cities Golf Club.  The clubhouse and first hole start in the U.S. and the remaining eight holes play north of the border in Canada.  We trust they serve Molson at the 19th hole (actually the 10th at Gateway Cities).

 

Rick Vogel is a resident of golf community Wolf Laurel north of Asheville, NC where he lives with wife Lynne and retriever Goldie (who has as much golf ball retriever as Golden Retriever in her).  Rick has written for us before, most notably a popular piece on how he and Goldie have rescued thousands of golf balls from the weeds and creeks at Wolf Laurel.

 

        Who are you, and what have you done with Pete Dye?  This was the question I silently asked as I made my way around the front nine at the Windermere Country Club course in Blythewood, SC, near Columbia.  The course design is credited to Pete and P.B. Dye and, naturally, I was expecting fairway moguls, some pot bunkers and maybe a few railroad ties thrown in for good measure.  Instead, the front nine played as if it were designed by, oh, George Cobb, or Clyde Johnston, or Willard Byrd -– which is to say quite competent and enjoyable, but not exactly a feast for the eyes or a challenge to club selection.

        The layout takes a dramatic turn on the back nine, as if someone slipped P.B. a hallucinatory drug and he metamorphosed into Seth Raynor or Mike Strantz.  Hints at the revolutionary turn begin at the par 4 8^th, with a pond at the right front of the green, simple enough to maneuver around but the first true hazard of the round.  At the par 3 #9, water is in full regalia from tee to green but there is nothing dramatic or revolutionary about its positioning.

        Then, at the turn, things indeed turn, with the earth gouged from the middle of the fairway at the 10th, the sandy bottom waiting to catch a slightly thinned shot (I obliged) and turn a short par 5 into a large headache. The elevated green, with a nearly two-story cliff along its right side, bunker at bottom, adds to the misery index.  The hole is a real jolt after such a mild front nine.

        At #11, a large waste bunker extends from tee to even with the 150-yard post, the largest waste area to this point.  It seems utterly disharmonious with what has come before (but not what comes after).  Pot bunkers guard the front of the green at #12, but the eye goes to the huge mounds that, from the tee box, appear to front the green but, in reality, are background to it.  And so it goes in terms of design variety and eye appeal the rest of the way –- pot bunker directly in front of the green at the par 3 13^th; huge mound blocking most of the green from the right half of the fairway at #14; hard dogleg right around a lake at #15; a blind, straight-up-the-hill tee shot at #16, with a nasty tall pine tree guarding the right side of the green; all carry over water to a crowned green at #17; and then the par 5 18^th, which mimics so many finishing holes at professional tournaments (Harbour Town, Pebble Beach) with water down the entire left side to the edge of the green.

        Columbia is about the hottest spot in all of South Carolina in summer, and I played in 100-degree heat.  I was tempted to head for the air-conditioned safety of the car after nine.  I am glad I didn’t.

*

        The community that surrounds the private Windermere Country Club is mature, well organized and landscaped, with mostly large brick homes priced in the mid-six figures.  It is part of the larger Longcreek Plantation, which comprises the 27-hole Ellis Maples designed Columbia Country Club as well (a very nice traditional layout that was totally renovated in the early 2000s).  Many of the Windermere homes feature nice views of fairways and greens but, with few exceptions, they are set well back on well-treed lots.  If you would like more information on Windermere or the Columbia, SC, area, please contact me.

 

The bunkers fronting #8 at Windermere are about as tough as it gets on the front nine.

 

From the tee box at #12, it appears the large mounds might be in the fairway and blocking the approach to the green.  However, they form the background for the green.

 

Somehow we never tire of those finishing holes around water that demand caution but reward prudent risk.