"Scruffy golf courses"

The Wall St. Journal had a quirky piece today in defense of the poorly maintained golf course. WSJ Link

It's a short read and worth a few laughs.

So name your top "scruffy golf course".

For me it is the course on Dauphin Island...front 9.

The first time we went to the island, I was expecting some resort golf. Kids were on high-school and college teams and had their names on the bags. We knew it was ridiculous when we pulled in the parking lot, but holy crap, had no idea what was in store.

Pine trees sprouting in the fairway. Practically sand greens. Pristine bunkers...almost as if you were on the beach.

So we played it. Laughed a lot...and then it became a thing. We play some great courses, but we invariably make the trek to play the front 9 at Dauphin and drink at Pirates when it is done.

It's the most redneck thing I do, but it's flipping awesome.


A snippet:

quote:

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I’m a scruffy golf course guy.

Let me explain. I admire a well-maintained lap just as much as the next hacker, but I prefer a golf course that resembles my game: a little rough, a little abandoned, a little unclear if anyone’s done anything to it for at least a few years.

I like a course which may or may not own a lawn mower. I like a course with trees they mean to have there, and trees that have just grown 50-feet tall without anyone noticing. It has tall grasses and short grasses, Bermuda and Rye, wildflowers and weeds, and those are just the greens. There’s a palm tree right in the middle of a fairway. No one knows why. It just showed up.

Have you ever driven past a golf course and asked yourself: Hey, is that a golf course, or is that a place where you can toss a broken dishwasher? If you have, let me know where it is. I want to play there.

You might like to play the same courses that Tiger and Phil play. Not me. I want a course where a pro wouldn’t walk a dog. I want sand traps that haven’t been raked since the Ford administration. I want water hazards that might contain Titleists, 7 irons, shopping carts, and maybe someone who knew where Jimmy Hoffa went.

I like a course where the only noises you can hear are the birds, the wind in the trees, and the jackhammers repairing a 10-lane highway. I like a course where, if you show up in cargo shorts, flip-flops and a Judas Priest T-shirt, someone might pull you aside and tell you you’re overdressed.

(All you have to do is take off the flip-flops, and you’re fine.)

I don’t need to pull into a course and see a lot full of Audis and Bimmers. I like a course where a round costs less than dinner at Arby’s, and, when you ask to pay, the clerk acts like it’s a big hassle to get up from the TV. When you ask what the food options are, they point to a box of Snickers. They have two kinds of beer: Old Milwaukee, and also Old Milwaukee.

Oh wait, they have another kind of beer: Old Milwaukee.

To me, that’s the ideal place to golf. It isn’t fussy. It isn’t rules-y. Nobody minds if you start on the 1st tee, or the 17th, or don’t start at all. Nobody cares if you’re playing with a fancy new driver or swinging your grandfather’s broken woods. You can walk, crawl, or take a cart. At a course like this, there’s the cart that works pretty well…and then there are the other carts.

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