18 of 70: PGA Golf Club, Pete Dye Course, Port St. Lucie, FL

Fairway bunkers.

The Pete Dye course is one of the most scenic and one of the most difficult we have played so far. Dye designed a links course reminiscent of the British courses but without the ocean breeze and familiar dunes. The course was built on wetlands and that natural environment still comes into play on many holes. The water hazards are mostly lateral. The fairways are bordered on each side by waste areas that also serve as cart paths from which there is no relief, the ball being in play as it lies. Playing from there is like playing from a cement pad.  To achieve the links style and feel, Dye peppered the fairways with bunkers that can be penalizing. The Bermuda grass greens are often multi-tiered. The scenery is so appealing that, at times, you can lose focus on the game.

The opening hole.

I started my round with a bang, making par on the first two holes. I did come back to earth in a hurry though, shooting double and triple bogeys back to back. A rare birdie on the par 3 sixth hole helped me finish the front nine in bogey golf. The back nine promised to be very good until I got ahead of myself, a mortal sin in golf. Anticipating a round in the 80's, I blew the last two holes with a triple and a double bogey respectively. And yes, Sterling, I finished in the 90's again. A 93, to be exact. Another lesson learned : stay in the moment on a golf course. I guess I must have signed up for "continuing education".

Brenda and I played teeter totter for most of the round. We both exchanged positions in bad and good holes until the very end when Brenda missed a winning putt on 18 by a few inches. Had she made that putt, we would have finished the match all sqare. She had a very impressive skill out of the bunkers as evidence by this picture : a perfect follow through that leads to a classic explosion were we can see the little pink ball in the sand cloud. Well done!

That ends our Florida adventure as we are returning home this weekend. Our golf experience will be in a long frost delay but we are looking forward to being with family and friends in Edmonton. In parting, I would like to express our gratitude to Jean and Yvette, our hosts in Florida. To my faithful readers I promise to return ASAP, after all, there are still 52 games to go. Au revoir!

17 of 70: Heritage Ridge Golf Club, Hobe Sound, FL





Heritage Ridge is one of Tom Fazio's early course designs dating back to 1981. The course is rather short by today's standards and, for that very reason, doesn't qualify as a championship golf course. It is, however, more difficult than many of the championship courses we have played to date and the slope rating does make that pretty clear. From the back tees it plays at 6014 yards and boasts a slope rating of 129. Many holes offer quite a challenge due to difficult water hazards, wetlands,numerous waste bunkers and green-side sand traps. The bermuda greens are undulated and fast and the breaks often imperceptible to the naked eye. As most courses we have played in Florida, it is also routed around a housing development.





First par 3, playing 175 yards from the blue today

   For the most part I was pleased with my game at Heritage Ridge. I had a rough beginning with a triple on the first hole and a difficult last hole where I found the water for the first time and posted another triple bogey. The par threes were not friendly and I didn't par a single one of them. I scored well on most par fives and some of the par fours. I particularly enjoyed the "signature hole" 8th which is a par five where you have to play over water hazards three times before reaching the green in regulation. I had three perfect shots to the green but managed to miss the par putt by an inch or two. It was still a satisfying moment. Thanks to that water ball on 18, I finished with an even 90. Such is life on a golf course.



Ibis convention

 Brenda's golf game has not yet recovered from the cold spell that hit Florida early in the New Year and she is still hoping for a return to form for our last game of this trip, this coming Thursday. We did have a gorgeous day and also enjoyed our side trip to Port Salerno where we visited the Fish House Gallery and some artists studios before having supper on the terrace of the local marina. As we say in French, "nous avons fait d'une pierre deux coups". The English, being more concrete, translates as "we killed two birds with one stone". Personnaly, I prefer the French version since given the choice, I would rather shoot birdies on the golf course.

16 of 70: PGA Ryder Course, Port St. Lucie FL

On Sunday January 8th, after a one week frost delay, we played our first game of the New Year. No kidding, one of our friends here in Florida lost some potted plants during the cold spell. People walked around in winter coats and boots. Not us Canadians, of course. However, we had no intentions of impersonating Tommy "Two Gloves" Gainey so we stayed away from golf courses for a while.

As we had moved to the PGA Village, we enjoyed playing the Ryder course with Jean and Armand who had played the first two rounds with us back in November. The Ryder Course is another Tom Fazio design and it was so named in honour of Samuel Ryder who was the founder of the much coveted Ryder Cup tournament which is fought for on alternate years by American and British teams. The course is visually very attractive and appears to be player friendly, and is player friendly provided you stay out of the water hazards and numerous sand traps. I was lucky enough to find no water and only one bunker, but more on that later. The Ryder course, designed in rolling hills, is quite undulated, and the greens, large for the most part, are often multi-tiered and elevated.

As mentionned previously, I only found one bunker but it did cost me dearly. It was on the par 3 twelfth where first I missed the green on the right then I faced a downhill chip shot which flew past the pin and rolled to the back of the pot bunker on the left, tight against the back lip. Behind the bunker ran the river so there was no escaping that way. Three sand shots and a conceded putt later, I walked away with a triple bogey 6; however, I still managed a respectable 88 for the round. Both Jean and Armand seemd to have balls that preferred the beach to the fairway on this beautiful sunny day and Armand probably set a new course record in that respect, but he managed it with grace and good humour. The course was appreciated by every member of our foursome. Yes Brenda did play with us, enjoyed the course and the wild life and was particularly delighted to get more bird pictures, especially the limpkin, which is a fairly rare sighting we are told.

15 of 70 : West Palm Beach Municipal Golf Course, Florida

The original West Palm Beach Golf Club was built in 1921, as a private club,on the North West border of the air force field. The club went through many ups and downs until the Second World War when it was taken over to enlarge the airport. The course was then rebuilt in its present location in 1947. West Palm Beach Municipal Golf Course was designed by Dick Wilson, one of America's foremost golf architects, the same guy who designed The Royal Montreal Golf Club, and the Blue Monster at Doral (Miami). The course was strong enough to host PGA tournaments during the 50's and 60's. Arnold Palmer, whose first professional victory was the 1955 Canadian Open (in his rookie year) also won the West Palm Beach Open Invitational on this course in 1959.

This course is different from all other courses we have played in Florida. It is waterless. That's right, not a single water feature on the West Palm Beach Municipal. But let's not get too excited as there are seas of sand. Yes, waste bunkers as far as the eye can see, and fairway bunkers, and, of course, green side bunkers. This day was all about sand. And rolling hills. And elevated greens which always required one or two clubs more than you would normally play. The course was both fun to play and yet demanding enough. My game was almost on and I managed an 89 in spite of two balls lost in the waste bunkers (therefore  a 4 stroke cost) and a penalizing greenside bunker out of  which I needed 3 strokes before I made it to the dance floor. Brenda found some challenges on the par 3's, for no apparent reason, which didn't do much for her score. Perhaps she was just too busy chasing the wild life found in the waste bunkers. This being the last game of 2011, we will meet again in 2012. Happy New Year to all and may all your dreams come true.

Racoon in waste bunker

Further distraction