man & nature # 127 ~ Spring has sprung # 13
Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 12:42PM 
Frost heaves and aeration holes on the 17th fairway • click to embiggenIt's a sure sign of Spring in the Adirondacks when the golf courses start to open and yesterday it was opening day at the course at which I am a member - the Lake Placid Club.
Only one of the two 18 holes courses opened - my favorite, The Links/Lower Course. It is a true Scottish-style links course - mounds and swales, fescue, fairway and green-side bunkering, undulating greens, and a handful of blind tee shots (can't see the fairway or the part of the fairway where your ball should land). Strangely enough for this neck of the woods, there are no tree-lined fairways. All of the trees are on the perimeter of the course.
In any event, the weather gods gave us a somewhat balmy 60˚ day albeit cloudy and very windy. The wind was constant with gusts in the 30-40 mph range which, as one golf magazine opined about the course, made it "just like playing golf in Scotland without the airfare".
Much of the course's grass was crispy brown and the greens looked like hell but they were cut and rolled and putted very smooth, true, and moderately fast. However, the course evidenced something that I had never seen before - some large areas of severe frost heaves on a few fairways. It will be interesting to see if this stuff settles down or not.
All of that said, I managed a very satisfying opening day round of 79.
Reader Comments (2)
Check out the great article on Askernish in the latest edition of the New Yorker. Slideshow here, too.
thanks for the heads-up Joe - that's definitely my kind of golf course. Give me a seaside shanty, a local pub and a pension and I'm set for life.