Van Cortlandt, Front Nine: 56

I've started this blog as a way of keeping track of the courses I play in my quest to get better at this game. My first post comes on the day after I played Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, NYC at twilight.

Yesterday, Friday, I met up with two friends after work (well somewhat towards the end of work) to play as much golf as we could in the twilight of a mid-summer evening. I've been watching the skies each night for the past two weeks to sort of guage how much time we could sneak in before all the good light faded away. My best guess was that if we could get out on the course by 5pm we could probably get three good hours of golf in before sunset. Depending on the course and how it was playing that might mean 9 holes and it might mean more.

As we meandered our way uptown from 21st street, up the FDR Drive, over the Triborough Bridge and on to the Major Deegan I was consumed by thoughts of one thing, the George Washington Bridge. Would my plans for 5pm golf, and ultimately my 5:07 tee time, be foiled by the Friday afternoon hordes fleeing the city for the shore? Would we be crushed by the outgoing tide against the stantions of the span of the GW? Traffic by Yankee Stadium did not bode well for us getting to Van Cortlandt before 5, but we made it to the left and hugged the outside, and squeezed by the entrance to George and were free. We made it the the clubhouse by 4:40. We would be fine.

The car was filled with discussion of the PGA at Baltusrol. Would Tiger Woods survive to make the cut after a terrible first round of 75? Would Phil Mickelson be able to hold on and win it all? My buddy Rob had grown up in Jersey and had actually played high school golf on the course at Baltusrol, and had scored tickets to Sunday's final on Ebay. Mostly, though, we talked tech talk about clubs.

My wife had, the week before, surprised me with a brand new set of Callaway X-16s and Big Bertha woods. Last weekend I had gone to my local Golfsmith and traded my 3 and 5 woods for a couple of hybrids, a Cleveland Halo 3i and a Callaway Seven Heavenwood. I was itching to use them. I'm not much on club technology, its another thing I need to get more knowledge on. I'm 41 and haven't played serious golf for most of my life, I've caddied and I've been out on average about 3 times a year, but I wouldn't consider myself a good or a regular golfer. I'm a duffer.

This year has been different, I've pursued getting out more regularly and I've found that more of my friends are interested as well. My goals are modest for the year, I'd like to shoot a sub-100 round at least once before the snows fall. A couple of weeks back I shot a 46 on the front nine at Lake Isle in Eastchester but I couldn't follow up on the back nine and ended up shooting a 57 for a 103. Ultimately, I like to shoot par for 18. Scratch baby. I've got a lot of golf to go before that.

So we found ourselves at the clubhouse, and ran into a salesman I know from work. He and I had been working on a particularly knotty problem this summer. He had invited me out a few times, but it had been hard to mesh schedules. As luck would have it he offered to buy the round for me and my buds. Nice. Would this mean that we would carry our luck out to the links with us? I began to really anticipate the round.

The walk from the clubhouse to the started at Van Cortlandt is as long as a par 5 on any good course. It was hot and humid and by the time we got to the first tee I already needed a good swig of my bottle of water. Here, we found the most laid back starter I've ever run across. Most of the time starters rule the first tee with a firm hand and a nasty disposition. This guy had just been bullied into letting a single in a cart go out on his own with a threesome in front. The single had wanted to "play alone", this was the first time I'd ever heard of such a thing.

I was feeling hopeful and lucky. A nice guy starter, a free round and and we were teeing off at the scheduled time. I looked at my watch and figured we'd get a good nine plus in before night. I pulled out my driver, which I hadn't swung more than two dozen times yet and I immediately drove two balls through the trees and onto the Major Deegan. I took a drop and concluded that I needed more practice with these clubs.

The second hole is a monster 5 par at 608 yards. Another misapplied driver placed me under the trees where did what I usually do when confronted with a long second shot and trees, I crashed my ball into the branches. I was on in 6 and three putted the green. Not a great beginning.

Van Cortlandt rates out at a relatively short 5918 yards from the blues, but the extra yardage involved in walking from hole to hole, including the stroll from the second green to the third tee, under the Mosholu Parkway, makes this course play long. The third hole through the seventh are sort of set off on their own on the north side of the Mosholu and are neat little set of five with undulating fairways, some water (on 6) and deceiving lengths. I lost a couple of more balls and shot 6-6-6-7-5. Rob and I concluded, walking back from 7 to the eighth tee, that the first two holes killed us. The rush out, the long walk from the clubhouse and the monster 2 had conspired to ruin any shot at getting a good rhythm going.

It was now about 7pm, the light had faded but was still good, and we owned the next two holes. There was nobody on the course at this point besides us, the crickets were singing, the geese flying in formation overhead and the planes were landing at La Guardia. Golf in NYC didn't get much better than these two holes as far as atmosphere is concerned. Another bad drive and a lucky find on 8 and a decent drive and short game on 9 and I was out of the front nine with a 56.

We played the next two holes in dusk. At this point we discovered one of the problems with playing only nine at Van Cortlandt. The front nine leaves you nowhere near the clubhouse and after finishing up on 11 we snuck back to the clubhouse under the cover of darkness and just beat an impending thunderstorm. The walk back was a 15 minute brisk hike. Next time we need to plan our holes better.