matt.heitto

Eagles Landing’s sister course (if you will), Evergreen is also located in Dryden.  Not something I usually frequent, this par 32 is the location of my dad’s men’s league and I was fortunate enough to partake in the festivities.   Even as I described Eagles Landing as being pretty open and “simple”, this is one that takes it simple a bit further.

It’s something you would commonly refer to as a “pitch and putt” course.  Pitching with your driver of that is.  You’re able to bomb it off the tee without too much worry that trouble will rear it’s head.  However, I must admit, hitting your target isn’t all that easy.  One of the biggest challenges at this executive course is it’s greens.  Most of them are mounded (like a turtle shell) and sloping front to back or back to front (most of the time).   It also doesn’t help that they are quite small, somewhere in the 1200 sq feet range if we’re lucky.  It’s not often a matter of hitting the green, it’s where you hit the green.

That’s it in a nutshell and I think it serves its purpose quite well.  It’s a nice course to get started on, and in fact was the first course I ever played.   So, even though it holds some sentimental value, it’s not something I often get excited about visiting.  Maybe I should have referred it to as the red headed step-child of Eagles Landing?

One of the stops during my vacation, was to my old home course, Eagles Landing.  This is where I held a membership for a number of years as a junior and through my college years.   I can’t think of the number of rounds I must have put throughout the years, but it’s always been my home course.

The course itself would be considered very basic in the realm of Southern Ontario.  However, for a small town in the middle of nowhere, it does just fine.  A 9 hole course that can stretch to about 6700 yards has a pretty forgiving layout.  Holes 1-6 are quite wide open, minus the out of bounds that runs along the sides of some of the holes, but are largely out of play most of the time.

I feel the course, although simple, has a great variety of holes.  Each hole carries its unique flavour of bunkers, water , out of bounds and occasionally bush.  It has both short and long par 3’s, 4’s and 5’s that run primarily east and west, in and out of the prevailing westerly wind.  One thing that remains consistent is the size of the greens.  They are large and often are slower than average, with my visit no exception to this.  I would say it’s pretty easy to get some 60-80 ft putts if you’re not quite accurate.

I suppose one of the knocks has always been the quality of the course.  This year it seemed to be in great shape, but that shouldn’t be surprising considering the summer Canada has had.  The bunkers are often filled with rocks and you’re hoping you don’t damage your club instead of thinking about your follow through.

But all of that aside, one thing that was a pleasant surprise was some of the maturation that has occurred.  Having only been able to play once a year if I’m lucky, it’s nice to see how things once planted several years ago are starting to bloom and take affect.  The trees on holes 5 and 7 have started to take the short cuts away and might make people think a half second about making the big shot.

Hopefully I’ll get to play her again next year!

Well, this is a little past due, but here it is.

Despite having some last second thoughts about a last minute seat sale WestJet started, Laura and I still drove our butts up to Dryden.  When it comes down to it, the drive wasn’t actually all that bad.  Heading up, we stopped in Longlac for the first night, which was about an 11 hour drive.  We stayed with my aunt and uncle, who invited us over to some of their friends for a party, which ended up going into the early hours of the morning.

Our second day was delayed a bit by our ensuing hangovers, but we eventually made the rest of the 7′ish hour drive to Dryden.  The next few days were spent visiting friends and family.  I was also able to sneak in a couple rounds with friends and my dad and his crew of friends.  I’ll be sure to post the course reviews separately.  The last day we were there, Laura and I also went fishing at “government dock”.  Fortunately, we had some luck catching some walleye keepers, which we had for lunch later that day.  Laura seemed to have caught a trophy pike, even though she originally mistook it as a snag.  Unfortunately the Ugly Stick and 6lbs test was no match and it was only a matter of time before it snapped the line.  For anyone who was interested, we were using pink jigs and medium sized minnows.

We soon embarked on our 2nd leg of the trip, back east to Thunder Bay, where we went to see my college buddy Josh and Christine get married.  It was great to catch up with everyone there and meet another couple who actually lives close to us in Barrie.  The day of the wedding, I was also able to fit in a quick 9 holes at Thunder Bay Golf and Curling Club with the guys in the wedding party.  We were also able to spend some time with my grandmother (Mummu) as she made us some Finn pancakes for breakfast after the reception.  It’s tough to get in and try all of those homemade delicacies, but we made the best of it.

Saturday night was also intended to be a party night, however Laura and I just seemed partied out.  We ended up convoying back to southern Ontario with the Barrie couple.   Initially hoping to make the trip in one attempt was an afterthought when bouts of pouring rain west of Sault Ste Marie ended our night.   Luckily, it wasn’t hard finding a little motel to crash for a few hours before concluding our journey.

Even though we found ourselves home a day early, it wasn’t all that bad.  Within an hour of getting home, I found myself playing in the semi-finals and eventually winning the finals of the Slo Pitch league I play in throughout the summer.  So the vacation ended on a bit of a high note!

The drive is nice every once in awhile, but not something you want to do on a regular basis.  It’s just too long, and too boring.  However, it’s hard to argue considering the convenience of having all of the luggage, clubs and misc crap with you.