Where are you playing tomorrow - Chicago (Round 3)

[MountainKing]

3 hours ago, DavePelz4 said:

Played at Springbrook yesterday. First time there since the course was redone. One of the issues I thought they were planning to address were the fairways that flooded when there was any decent amount of rain. Not sure that mission was accomplished as there were several fairways that had collections of water. Mud balls continue to be a theme.

 

They've also changed multiple holes, some for the better and some for the not so better. Guessing 10-15 bunkers were added in strategic places as there were holes, like 16, where you could play as far left as you wanted which was safe while offering a good angle to the green. Now there are bunkers in that area and it requires a much more thoughtful thought. Hole 10 has been cleaned out of any danger with the big tree on the left gone, the evergreen gone, and all the junk on the right is gone. It's a huge fairway that also takes driver out of your hands. What was also unusual on that hole is there is 1 OOB stake long. How exactly do you determine if your OB with only 1 stake?

 

The course is beat up more than I ever remember seeing and I've probably played 100 round there over the years. Some of the tee boxes had hundreds of divots, can't understand that. The greens, which have always been good were below average with tons of ball marks. The bunkers were very good and had a nice amount of sand. They were quick, guessing 11ish. 

 

Being a cold day meant only diehards were playing, so pace was mostly solid. Finished in 3:15 which included waiting on a 2some for most of the back 9. At $26 senior/walking it's priced about right.

 

Our comp group plays there Saturday so it'll be interesting to see what others think of the conditions. Personally, I'm guessing St. Andrews is probably in much better condition than SB.

 

That's a bit shocking to hear considering last year it was easily one of the best conditioned courses I played.  I don't believe the renovation did anything for drainage outside of the tee boxes and bunkers.  I also know we've been so saturated lately that I don't think any drainage at the moment will help.  We were getting plugged balls/mud balls at Prairie Landing which is one of the best draining course in the area.  I'm not going to know what to do once it dries out.   I'm playing there in two weeks so hopefully it'll turn around a bit before then. 

[braincramp52]

Going to try to get out and play my first 18 hole round of the year Sunday. Supposed to be 69° with very little wind. I live an hour or two west of Chicago and the weather has sucked so far. Gonna have to listen to The Masters on my phone because if it's that nice I'm not sitting in my man cave, I'm playing. League at Wolf Hollow starts in 3 weeks and I'm not ready for it.

[mikes919]

Gonna play somewhere early Saturday morning and freeze my butt off. Gives me a good excuse to buy that push cart that I've been eyeing for a while, walking will save me $22 and keep me warmer.

 

Thinking Heritage Oaks, or maybe making the trek to Steeple Chase. I drove past HO yesterday and conditions looked fantastic for early season.

[TheBear95]

1 hour ago, mikes919 said:

Gonna play somewhere early Saturday morning and freeze my butt off. Gives me a good excuse to buy that push cart that I've been eyeing for a while, walking will save me $22 and keep me warmer.

 

Thinking Heritage Oaks, or maybe making the trek to Steeple Chase. I drove past HO yesterday and conditions looked fantastic for early season.

 

FYI... No walking rate at Steeple Chase now until 1:00 p.m. on weekends. Lame stuff. But, even park district facilities are cash grabbing under the guise of pace of play.

Edited April 10 by TheBear95

[mikes919]

15 minutes ago, TheBear95 said:

 

FYI... No walking rate at Steeple Chase now until 1:00 p.m. on weekends. Lame stuff. But, even park district facilities are cash grabbing under the guise of place of play.

good to know, I didn’t want to wake up an extra 40 minutes earlier anyways!

[MountainKing]

27 minutes ago, TheBear95 said:

 

FYI... No walking rate at Steeple Chase now until 1:00 p.m. on weekends. Lame stuff. But, even park district facilities are cash grabbing under the guise of pace of play.

 

Wonder how this works with the tax - if you pay the rate, but don't take the cart,

[DavePelz4]

8 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

 

Wonder how this works with the tax - if you pay the rate, but don't take the cart,

 

JB is getting his cut, regardless.

[braincramp52]

8 hours ago, DavePelz4 said:

 

JB is getting his cut, regardless.

Hey! A man's gotta eat!!😅

[Symphonize]

4 minutes ago, braincramp52 said:

Hey! A man's gotta eat!!😅

Can’t take a dump though. 

[ldchristopher]

10 hours ago, Symphonize said:

Can’t take a dump though. 

Lay off JB. He’s taxing the cart users. Doing the Lord’s work there. 

[mikes919]

Played Heritage Oaks this morning. Incredible day for golf, we had a ~40 minute frost delay but by the 7th hole or so, I had shed all my layers and was just playing in a polo shirt.

 

Course conditions were terrible. The grass is completely shot, all over the place. The strange thing is the greens and bunkers are in great shape, but tee boxes and fairways are all ripped apart. I don’t know if it’s disease, or frost damage, or something else, but I can’t imagine it will recover anytime soon. Multiple tee boxes were practically sand traps. Lots of mud balls, due to drives landing in patches of bare ground with zero grass. Bummer.

[MountainKing]

Back to Naperbrook for the 2 man best ball.   Course has dried up nicely from last week,  and the weather was excellent.   Fun event.   2 birdies and 2 bogies for me for a 72, my playing partner put up 2 birdies on his card for a team 68.   Unfortunately its a handicap event and neither of us get strokes, so we really had no shot. It's generally the bogey golfer that cleans up at this thing.  Fun day regardless.  

[DavePelz4]

Our comp group started the 24th season at Springbrook. Because of "frost" the tee times were delayed for 2 hours. Ironically, I called a couple of other courses in the area and they had 15-30 minute delays.  Naperville, um, eh, think this was why I left and moved into a less pretentious area as there was zero need for 2 hour delays.

 

The course was much drier than 3 days earlier. Bunkers still with plenty of sand. Greens carried enough ball marks to make you think it was July. Pace was less than tidy. We pushed 4:45 and that's just sloppy slow.

 

We were in threesomes today and our group was paired up with a gentleman who at first, seemed to have the worst alignment, and ball position, imaginable. His driver ball position was just ahead of his back foot. Thinking about a clockface with a normal target of 12, his alignment was around 2:30. His practice swing made you want to insure you were protected if you were to his right.  BUT...and having seen unusual swings forever, he played, and managed his swing amazingly well. Again using 12 on the clockface as being straight, he came underneath the plane, and to quote Johnny Miller, hit a trap draw. And, he was long. Guessing he averaged 275, easily. He was amazingly consistent and did that with all aspect of his game. Oh, he shot 73 which only validated to play your own swing. Kudos to him, and he was as nice as he was accurate. Hit 16 greens. Just wonderful to watch.

 

So I've shared that last year I sucked beyond belief, based on a number of factors with an index that became my all time high. After today, the exceptional score factor of the handicap system is being appropriately applied to my index which will result in a 4 stroke reduction. Oh, and that includes having a ESC adjusted 8 on the card, too. 

 

Played Friday at Silver Lake in a tournament. Out of 96 players, finished 18th, and 4 back from winning. Finished 4th in my flight, with the top 3 places paid. It was possibly the worst putting round of my life. Not in terms of 3 putts, but from the perspective of missing putts inside 6 feet. Of course, the only 1 I made was on 18. Had 7 birdie putts inside 5 feet. Converted exactly ZERO of them. 

 

The good news between these rounds is the comparative differential of 25 vs 24. Still tons of places to improve and seeing a path towards think I can play at a respectable level.

 

Go Rory, want to see him win Sunday!

[psygolf]

Marovitz tomorrow afternoon…

”Augusta North”

[Holy Moses]

We need some warmer weather to get the greens growing. Been a cold spring so far. 

[ldchristopher]

Stonehenge this morning. We dealt with really strong winds throughout the round and I found a ton of bunkers. In general, it just wasn’t a particularly enjoyable round. Even though we played in 4 hours we waited on every shot and it felt like a slog. Every hole except the par 3’s had three groups on them. Stonehenge is looking like it will strictly be a weekday course for me. 

[MountainKing]

4 hours ago, ldchristopher said:

Stonehenge this morning. We dealt with really strong winds throughout the round and I found a ton of bunkers. In general, it just wasn’t a particularly enjoyable round. Even though we played in 4 hours we waited on every shot and it felt like a slog. Every hole except the par 3’s had three groups on them. Stonehenge is looking like it will strictly be a weekday course for me. 

 

That's wild, when I was a member there 4 hours would get you called out hard.    3 hours if you teed off early morning,  3:30 if you teed off late morning, anything beyond that wasn't acceptable

[ldchristopher]

29 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

 

That's wild, when I was a member there 4 hours would get you called out hard.    3 hours if you teed off early morning,  3:30 if you teed off late morning, anything beyond that wasn't acceptable

The guys in front of us said it was abnormal for it to take as long as it did. The guys in front of them were hitting ground balls which…whatever. They’d probably be better off playing a different sport. That can’t be an enjoyable use of a Sunday morning. But definitely let the groups behind you go through. 

[MountainKing]

37 minutes ago, ldchristopher said:

The guys in front of us said it was abnormal for it to take as long as it did. The guys in front of them were hitting ground balls which…whatever. They’d probably be better off playing a different sport. That can’t be an enjoyable use of a Sunday morning. But definitely let the groups behind you go through. 

 

Brutal.

 

Make sure to get in on their match play event,  its a good time.   You have the game to go pretty deep.

[orange14]

7 hours ago, ldchristopher said:

Stonehenge this morning. We dealt with really strong winds throughout the round and I found a ton of bunkers. In general, it just wasn’t a particularly enjoyable round. Even though we played in 4 hours we waited on every shot and it felt like a slog. Every hole except the par 3’s had three groups on them. Stonehenge is looking like it will strictly be a weekday course for me. 

 

Yeah, that seems a bit abnormal for the place, but it's pre-dominantly a weekday spot for me as well. Weekend afternoons are usually pretty open though.

[DavePelz4]

Finished up the week yesterday with another event at Silver Lake. Conditions continue to improve and really becoming a fan of the greens. Very quick yesterday. Wish the same could be said for pace of play, it was nearly 5 hours and that's just too long. Ironically, one of the rangers came over to the group and said they identified the sloggers who were holding everything up. That's wonderful to identify them, but did you do anything about it?  Apparently not.

 

What started out as a beautiful sunny morning became extremely windy. Getting tired of playing in the winds. Thankfully the putting problem of Friday is gone. Placed 20th of 64 in the field, my worst finish of 6 events now. 

 

Interesting start to the day. Two of the other members of the group, who were good guys, were at the first tee on time. After we all hit, up comes a 21-25 year old young man, from California and moved to Chicago as our 4th. The first hole is a straight 385 yard par 4. Without having hit a range ball, he goes to the tee box and proceeds to hit a 1 iron. Dude striped it. The longest person I've ever played with in person was ChicagoLefty, who can get it out there 300-325 plus, easy. This guy was even longer.

 

The 5th hole is a short par 4, my GPS said it was 305, also uphill, into a 15-20 MPH wind. That green is over 50 yards long and the pin was as far back and right as possible. He confidently announces that he's going for it, yeah, sure. Well, he didn't make it but put it in the greenside bunker. Amazing. The only negative is his game was his personal pace. Always hit last off the tee and from the time the 3rd player teed off until he hit was around 2 minutes. And he did that on every shot. Didn't put his glove on until starting his PSR. Nice enough young man, with a serious game but let's use the pedal on the right please.

 

Interesting past 8 days, 5 rounds including 3 days in a row, just over 37 miles walking in total, going to take a day or two off and recover. Comp rounds Friday and Sunday of this week.

[DavePelz4]

Our smaller comp group is playing on 4-26. Booked Foxford which NO LONGER allows walking before 4P on weekends. Total BS money grab. The unfortunate person who took the tee times tried to give me a line about they never allowed walkers on weekend....um, no, I haven't rode at Foxford in 15 years.

[TheBear95]

40 minutes ago, DavePelz4 said:

Our smaller comp group is playing on 4-26. Booked Foxford which NO LONGER allows walking before 4P on weekends. Total BS money grab. The unfortunate person who took the tee times tried to give me a line about they never allowed walkers on weekend....um, no, I haven't rode at Foxford in 15 years.

 

Pathetic, but unsurprising. 

[psygolf]

When Chalet & Foxford were both on life support, I always thought it would be a great idea for them to offer a 50% discount on a replay at the other course if you had played one earlier in the day.

[DavePelz4]

Casual round yesterday at Prairie Bluff. They recently filled all the bunkers with sand, and it's plentiful. That's a positive, but like unrepaired ball marks, it seems, at least at PB, there is a new trend of not raking bunkers after you are in them. Was in 2 yesterday with one being where someone played a shot from earlier in the day. Have never played from a "divot" in a bunker before. After you get off my lawn, please rake the bunker you were in, OK?

 

Tee to green, PB is in good shape and yesterday the wind had to be less than 5MPH. Not sure I've ever played PB with such benign winds. Not sure what's up with the greens but they were discolored and didn't look like normal PB greens. The starter said they'd been cut/rolled that day, and they held approaches nicely, they were just a funky series of colors.

 

Think I'm becoming a pace of play ho. There was no one in front of our foursome, we let a twosome play through, yet still finished the round well under 4 hours. It just seemed like we were playing slow, though.

 

Back to Silver Lake for comp rounds Fri/Sun. Liking the direction of the temps as next week looks solid 60's plus for the majority of the week. Base on the rate of play, sometime in mid to late May, I'll pass the total number of rounds played in 2024 and should hopefully hit 3 digits.

 

 

[MountainKing]

In the spring that keeps on giving, looks like we'll be playing in the hurricane tomorrow at Prairie Landing, followed by playing a chilly round at Springbrook on Saturday.    With the kid now being one, and getting a few years out from school year, this weather is sure motivating us to look seriously at making a move to California before that happens.   Every winter gets more and more draining on us.

[Argonne69]

11 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

In the spring that keeps on giving, looks like we'll be playing in the hurricane tomorrow at Prairie Landing, followed by playing a chilly round at Springbrook on Saturday.    With the kid now being one, and getting a few years out from school year, this weather is sure motivating us to look seriously at making a move to California before that happens.   Every winter gets more and more draining on us.

 

Can't imagine moving to the "Golden" state. Illinois is certainly no picnic, but the cost of living, including the "donate a vital organ" taxes in CA scare the Bejesus out of me. I sold my condo in Chicago 3 years ago. If I had 100 percent equity I'd still barely have enough to cover the down payment on a similar condo in CA. 

 

[MountainKing]

51 minutes ago, Argonne69 said:

 

Can't imagine moving to the "Golden" state. Illinois is certainly no picnic, but the cost of living, including the "donate a vital organ" taxes in CA scare the Bejesus out of me. I sold my condo in Chicago 3 years ago. If I had 100 percent equity I'd still barely have enough to cover the down payment on a similar condo in CA. 

 

 

My girl is from California so that plays a bit of a role in it being in consideration.  The southeastern states are pretty much out of the question between their piss poor education systems and politics.  My parents are immigrants, my girl and daughter are minorities (well daughters half but most won't ever view her as the white half), we don't want to move anywhere we don't feel welcome or safe.   We're extremely lucky that we make a good enough living to where a place like California is an option for us, and it'll help that I probably won't ever fully retire so I can hand down our investments to my daughter so she can live life how she wants without having to worry about money....but yeah I totally get the thoughts on the costs of that move.

Edited April 17 by MountainKing

[MountainKing]

2nd round this year at Prairie Landing.   It's starting to come into form for the season.  Greem speed were up,  but they were a bit bumpy, but hopefully a week or two they'll be prime.   Wind really made it a tough day in that it was gusty and not steady.   More than once had a gust come up mid flight pulling the ball into a bad spot, or the wind just dropped leaving the ball on a bad line.  Pace wa 4 hours, but the front took us 90 minutes.   We caught a group of really bad on the back who managed to check all the slow play boxes....tips, driving to each other's balls,  waiting for greens to clear com 250+,  etc.   I doubt anybody in that group shot under 60 on the back.   I don't get how that's fun to pay $115 for that,  it's sure not fun to watch.   It's never good when you get to know the group behind you well.

 

 

Had a solid front coming in at even,  left a few out there to boot.  Back was a mess between the slow play and wind struggles, bunker struggles and bumpy greens.  Managed an easy 2 putt birdie on 18 for a 44 and 80 on the day.   Its been almost a year since I last shot north of 80, so hard to be mad, and still an enjoyable day with friends. 

 

Also of note, my 10th round this year, and I've yet to ride in a cart.  Don't really miss riding.

Edited April 18 by MountainKing

[DavePelz4]

Comp round at Silver Lake today on the North Course. 136 players. Terrible warm up, the worst of the year. Nothing consistent with any club in the bag, except the wedges. The greens are really turning out nice, and fast, and you can see that when, or if, summer ever comes they could be extremely quick and there's a fair amount on undulation as well.

 

Kudos to the 79 year old guy who shot 74. Played with him 2 weeks ago and you could see he still has some serious ability. 

 

Paired up with 2 really nice young guys, guessing 40's, and the "chef" of the club at SL. What a trip. First of all, there is a "no outside alcohol" policy, of course. In the middle of the first fairway, he opened his golf bag and popped his initial Miller Lite and guessing he had at least 11 more. Dude would literally pee in the middle of the fairway, ewwww. On the 15th tee, with 2 porta-potties about 25 feet away, he decided to take a whiz just out in the open. On the 18 tee, I asked him if he had any idea of how many times he said f*** or some derivation of f*** during the round. I honestly think it was at least 500, if not more. His response to my interrogatory was, "well I think you are a MF sandbagger. You're going to beat everyone in the group and that's not right." He was partially attempting to be funny, but he actually wasn't wrong.

 

Dave Pelz would have given me a silver star today for getting up and down. It would have been a gold star but totally missed a 4 foot very makeable putt that I'd been making all day. Individually, finished 22nd of the 136 and considering how inconsistent I was tee to 100 yards, not going to complain. The worst place I've finished in any individual round is still in the top 25, ok with that. Found out when I checked in that last Sunday, I finished second in my flight, so a bit of cash hit the wallet. In the team best ball, and all the comps are net, my partner and I shot a 62, with 11 of my scores counting...and we finished 7th. Yikes.

 

Really looking forward to not playing in 20MPH winds. Back at it Sunday on the South course, and the weather doesn't look too good at this point.