Sandy Hook Golf Course

For years, I've known little more than the name of the Sandy Hook Golf Course. Today, Norm and I played this neat little course, located in the heart of the Interlake cottage country.

I had my best round of the season so far, 90, which could have easily been a few strokes better. Norm shot 94. We were both pleased to break 100.

The course didn't feel as long as many of the other places that we have played. The par 5s aren't terribly long. The round took us 4.5 hours, mostly because of the number of slow moving senior citizens playing ahead of us. That and the fact that they also had a tournament in front of us. The rough is mostly forest, but it is full of natural pathways, and it was fairly easy to find our balls. I didn't spend too much time ball hunting, though, due to the groups behind us.

One of the guys at work mentioned how a co-worker bought a Jazz 3-wood at the pro shop for around $20. After we paid for our green fees, I noticed a rack of Jazz woods and enquired about the price of a 5-wood. It was only $19.99 and soon, it was mine. I only managed to take one shot with it, an approach shot which flew about 200 yards. It felt great. Unfortunately, I did not have much luck with my three-wood. I typically sliced it badly. My approach shots with the pitching wedge once again, typically fell short of the green. On most of my iron shots, however, I decided to take a regular, full swing, as opposed to letting the club drop by its own weight. The shots went further, which was no surprise, but they also felt a bit better. I hope to abandon the experiment of always taking really gentle swings with the irons.

Sandy Hook is a fairly easy course. It's not a championship course like Bridges, Pinawa or Morden's Minnewasta. It's a pleasant place to play and is no doubt very popular with the cottagers. One thing that we both noticed was the number of people in power carts travelling on the cart paths, in the direction opposite to ours. These were the locals, driving from their cottages, many of which border the course, to the first hole. Only in cottage country.