used to play at about 15 years ago right by the Delaware Water Gap.
The course was called Cherry Valley but we always refers to it as
Round Girl Valley because playing it was like trying to unclamp the
brassier of a very round girl, lots of work with very little payoff.
We'd go out there a few times a year and hack it up while putting down
a case of Milwaukee's Best.
Anyway, the first couple of holes were like any other public course,
badly manicured greens, a bunch of divots in the pin box and a couple
of sand-traps which were hard as clay. I'd usually shoot a nine on
the first hole and follow it up with an 11 on the next one. You
could blame the wind, the conditions or the fact I was hungover but at
the end of the day, I was a pretty horrible golfer.
Well if the first couple of holes weren't bad enough you'd get to the
third one which had an odd layout. It was a par 4 but only like 240
yards, so it sounded easy. The thing was that when the developers
bought the property they didn't realize that there were a bunch of
huge power-lines running over the course. I'm guessing they didn't
want to ask the weekend warrior to expose himself to ball cancer as it
would be bad for business so they decided to cut that hole off and
make a sharp right hand turn instead. I'm not talking a dogleg, this
was a 90 degree turn after 140 yard and from there it was another 100
yards as an approach to the green. It was like playing a couple of par
3's because they had these huge pine trees blocking the hole, so there
was just no way to clear them with so little space in front of you.
Plus it would be completely blind shot to the hole
Anyway, I'd usually shoot a 10 on that hole as I'd shotgun my third
beer and I'd not remember much from that point forward.
The rest of the course was less memorable with us dodging a bunch of
geese poop and avoiding a bunch spitunes which were left by the
locals. There was one part on the back nine where the particular
hole splayed directly over the road leading to the clubhouse. I am
not talking a golf path but a full blown road. it was ridiculous
because the road would mean a ton of drops because nobody wanted to
wreck their clubs on asphalt.
The most memorable part was that we always stop at Hot Dog Johnny's
for a dog topped with mustard, kraut and a pickle. I love that place
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My summer camp on Catalina Island when I was in the Boy Scouts was called Cherry Valley. I did the 20-mile hike to Silver Peak there 3 out of 4 summers.
ReplyDeleteThe 4th summer, I got punished with weeklong kitchen duty when our scout troop "kidnapped" another troop's member and held him to a trial for trespassing on our campground. Supposedly, the adult leaders got pissed because we brandished Swiss army knives at the trespassing kid during the trial. Jerks,