(June 7th) Day 2 – Burley, ID, drove 412 miles

In the morning Margaret headed back to Clarkston and I drove off to Burley, ID. We had lived in Burley back in 1977/78 for about a year between stints in Sandpoint, ID. I played a little golf there with some guys I played softball with and a drunken dentist. I remember how his hands shook before he had a drink & I was always glad I didn’t have to have him as MY dentist. BTW, this golf course and Wine Valley will be the ONLY two golf courses I had ever played before on the entire trip. Everything else was new to me, and I hadn't played Burley for about 43 years and didn't remember much of it.

It was a long drive, but I did it with one short break in Mountain Home, ID. I also lost an hour to Mountain Time Zone when I got Ontario, OR. I headed directly to the golf course when I got into town.   I recognized nothing about Burley, it has grown a lot and the place I used to work when we lived there is now a shopping complex, and after 43 years one loses some recollection of a place. The main thing to remember about Burley was this is where we acquired our first dog, an Afghan Hound we named Tina. This was the first of three Afghan hounds we had (the other two we adopted from other people) and the first dog Margaret had ever owned in her life! Tina was also the only purebred pedigreed dog we ever had. I THINK her papered name was "Tina Bojangles of Sultana" or something close to that. 

River’s Edge Golf Club at Burley looked great. BIG clubhouse, which wasn’t there when we were, and I don’t know when it was built. I had booked a tee time, but was able to get going about 10 minutes after I pulled into the parking lot. They have a late afternoon Monday league, so all play started on the back nine. Oh yeah, $35 for green fee, including cart.  BARGAIN! (When I lived there, I think the course was simply called The Burley Municipal Golf Course, but I’m a bit hazy on that!) The course does sit on the edge of the Snake River, just like my golf course (Red Wolf) at home.

The course was in good condition. Forty-some years ago a lot of small trees were newly planted between the fairways. They’re not small anymore. They give the fairways better definition and get in the way when you are not in the short grass. The rough was long, but not thick and the fairways needed mowing, but maybe that is on their Tuesday maintenance schedule. The greens are small, firm (too firm?), contoured with (mostly) reasonable slopes & FAST! There were four pin placements that were on knobs that were very hard to get the ball to stop on if you missed the cup. The bunkers have really good sand in them & there are water hazards in various places on the course. It is a fairly flay course and very walkable, but like Clarkston, Burley is HOT in the summer. I rate the course a 3 for layout & condition and would bump it up to a 3.5 considering bargain price for playing it. I DON’T know the Holiday/weekend rate!

I enjoyed the course and though I probably won’t play it again (because of location) I can recommend it. It was not my first choice in the area as I wanted to play Canyon Springs on the Snake River just north of Twin Falls, but they were having a junior tournament. I would also like to play the Jerome CC (also having a tournament that day!) which is available to the public so IF I get back to that area they would be my first two choices. If things had gone as planned I would have played Burley on Tuesday morning before heading off to northern Utah for an afternoon round. My first of many adjustments to my schedule/plan.

There is a LOT of good golf in the Boise/Nampa area and we have friends there so my going back to Twin Falls/Burley seem to be a longshot as of now. I ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant I could walk to, just down the road from my motel. I had a seafood soup (Siete Mares) that was REALLY good. I paid cash and can’t remember the name of the place, but it's just off the freeway near a Perkins.

Burley has three sets of tees ranging from 6507 to 5666. 5666 is a long yardage for most women, but their par is 75 from those tees and senior men play it as a par 72. I played the white tees, 6055 yards, slope of 122 and rating of 68.7

     Randy’s Golf course   ratings           would play again     would recommend to others     Price

Wine Valley                        5                              YES                           YES                             $$$

Rivers Edge (Burley        3.5                              ??                             YES                            $

The golf course ratings page will be on every post except on days I don't play golf. I will BOLD the golf course I just played so you can see where it fits in the BIG PICTURE of all the golf courses I play. The dollar signs are indicators of what the round cost (w/cart) on the day I played. Most courses will have a higher weekend/holiday rate, but not all. One $ means the round was $50 or less. Two $$ equals $51 to $75. Three $$$ is for $76 to $100 and four is over $100. I didn't play anything over $120 on this trip, but if I had five $$$$$  would have been everything over $150.00

 Pictures from River's Edge Website