Triple Play

8/9/2014

We love our day trips!   6AM seems to be the standard take off time and off we go.    This time we headed East to get in some more stragglers we missed.    What a beautiful sunrise we saw heading out.  

Traveling 70 and taking the pic through the windshield doesn't do it justice though.




First stop Vinton Country Club in Benton County.   Very nice course and friendly people.   It was a great start to our day.   

 

We liked the wood art.  

 

There were a few fareways that had been damaged by flooding earlier in the spring but other than that, this was a great course.   Jim was really on his game.

Things start to go downhill from here.    
We got to Linn County and golfed at St Andrews Golf Course.   

 


From the nostalgia of the name and the first glimpse of the clubhouse we thought we were in for a real treat.  


It soon took a turn as we navigated through the course, getting worse as we went along.    We have never seen a course so 'dirty', if that would be the right word.   There was garbage blowing around and broken T's everywhere, on and off the T boxes.   We were hit into 3 times and not once did anyone holler four.   

This was their idea of decorating I guess

Course was not manicured at all, either they don't have a weed eater or they don't know how to use one.    Dead limbs were hanging out of trees and some limbs were hanging so low across the cart paths we had to duck to get through. 



Playing in the sprinklers was not too fun either, why they would do that on a Saturday afternoon when they were busy, we will never know.     This was not just on one fareway either.    Several fareways and sometime 3 and 4 sprinklers.  Maybe if it was 100 and I golfed in swimwear.

This course has lots of potential. With a driving range and very nice club house, they could really clean it up and make it a beautiful course.   

Will we go back to this course?   Absolutely NOT, our first clue should have been that it was a walk on course only and no problem getting on.  

 I think this was Shirley's best score for the day though.  Wonder what that means?

So, off to better things?   

Getting to the next course was a road trip in itself.   All gravel roads lead to Cedar Valley Golf Course in Tipton, which is in Cedar County in the middle of nowhere.

 

Another pretty sight, but check out the scummy water. Yuck!

"The hills were alive" with the stench of water and hogs that is.   We weren't sure if the challenge of this course was the course itself or holding our breath.   After the first few holes the smell of the hogs dwindled and the stenchy water took over. There were several water areas and they all were scum covered and stunk.   A few fountains could have taken care of this problem.   The cart paths in some areas had been washed out which was understandable with all the rain we have had this year, but I think a few of them were probably unsafe.    

This was actually a pretty hole if we could have taken a breath.

The day was not a total loss, we got 3 counties crossed off our list, and dinner at Papa Georgio's in Colfax on the way home was a treat.   Love that place!

I'll end with a little something for St. Andrews.