Randy's Golf Travels

  (July 6th) Day 31 – Chicopee Country Club, Chicopee, MA     drove 240 miles Margaret & I stayed near the Hartford airport and I got her to the terminal about 6 a.m. in the morning. I had waffled on whether or not to play at Chicopee, though it had been on my radar since I planned the trip last year. I decided I would drive up there (only about 25 minutes from the airport) and get on as a single. I hadn't enjoyed my other Massachusetts golf course & I figured I would give it a go. This course is SO popular that on Sundays they do a 9 a.m. shotgun start with (pretty much) full foursomes on every hole. At one time it was a Country Club, but now I THINK its a Muni. It's a great course with really great greens and pretty good maintenance, and LOTS of patrons. There are 5 sets of tees that range from 6414 yards to 3091 (for beginners and kids, ladies normal tee is 5159) and is a par 71 golf course.  I played from the white tees at 5986 with a slope of 123 an...

 (July 5th) Day 30 – Brattleboro Country Club, Brattleboro, VT     drove 155 miles When I had made my way to New Hampshire from New York, I traveled this same road, but it was new for Margaret. You go through Troy, NY (actually had a Major League baseball team, a long, long time ago) and into a spur of the Green Mountain range (remember your U.S. History, Ethan Allen & his Green Mountain Boys were players in the Revolutionary War) and down into the narrow valley where Brattleboro sits. It's very close to the New Hampshire and Massachusetts' state lines and they probably get traffic from every where. It's a pretty drive on a winding up and down highway (speed limit is 50 nearly the whole way) with a few passing lanes along the route. It is only a 50 drive from New York to New Hampshire along this narrow strip of Vermont. The "Country Club" has four set of tees ranging from 6533 yards to 5051. I played the white tees at 6073 with a course rating of 69.6 and slop...

  (July 4th) Day 29 – The Links at Union Vale, Lagrangeville, NY     drove 333 miles If you look at the map we went down & up the same highway to play golf. We just finished further north. This links style golf course has five sets of tees ranging from 6954 yards to 5257. I played the white tees at 6224 with a course rating of 70.0 and slope of 125. We paid $ 105 each for this Sunday tee time and cart, plus Margaret had to rent clubs. She played the 5257 tees, 69.5 rating and a slope of 125. This is a nice golf course with many changes in elevation and a nod to British open style revetted (stacked sod in the face and deep) bunkers, a small church pew bunker section, and other hazards to make your life miserable (just kidding, but only a little)! The architecture is clever, especially for first time players as sometimes it looks like there is NO place to land the ball until you drive up and discover it was an illusion. Making me uncomfortable off the tee is the ea...

    (July 2nd) Day 27 & 28 – No golf today! drove 32 miles We spent the much of this day at Margaret's uncle Jack (her father's younger brother) and Aunt Helen's house. I did know Margaret had spent a summer with them a long time ago (after she graduated from high school) and she went east to work to earn money for college. What I did NOT know was she had a job in a sausage factory, yep stuffing sausages. She only lasted a day, the work was too gross for her. Uncle Jack is quite unlike Margaret's father. He is loquacious and loves to tell stories where as Harold never had much to say unless the topic was hunting or another of his interests. It was also interesting to me that two boys who grew up in a remote town in upstate New York, both became aeronautic engineers. Jack told us things that Margaret knew nothing about and was as entertaining as he was informative.  We spent the day chatting and then went to dinner where Margaret's cousins Shelley &  Bruce, a...

  (July 1st) Day 26 – Portland Golf Course  Portland, CT     drove 95 miles It is July 20th as I write this, so now I am 20 days behind. I am in Jefferson City, MO and I have a couple of hours to kill, so I'll try to write up two or three days (and now as I finish this post w/pictures it is September 7th and I'LL NEVER CATCH UP. But in time, I WILL finish blogging and Facebooking this trip! Most cities named Portland actually have a "port" near them, but this inland Connecticut town (on the Connecticut River) does not as far as I can tell. The golf course here has four sets of tees ranging from 6184 to 4981 yards. I played the 5734 yard tees with a slope of 121 and a rating of 68.6. This is a par 71 golf course. Green fee & cart were $ 50. While there is nothing special about this golf course, the maintenance was good and it is quite a fun course to play. Part of the fun were the three guys I played with. Two of them play together often (Art & Don) and ...

  (June 30th) Day 25 – Green Valley Country Club  Portsmouth, RI     drove 195 miles Green Valley Country Club has four sets of tees ranging from 6830 to 5447. I played the 6091 tees with a rating of 68.8 and a slope of 121. The starter was also the pro shop (kind of) and he charged me a senior 9 hole fee so cart and green fee was $ 47. Normally the fee would be $ 62 and I think that would be quite reasonable for this golf course. It was a hot & humid day and his rational for the undercharge was nobody was out on the course, but there were folks out there, cause I caught them on the tenth hole. I did NOT complain about the reduced green fee, however. BTW, Senior green fees are one of the BEST perks about getting older. I enjoyed the course and played pretty well except for one big screwup on the front and another one on the back. It's not a flat course, but the rolling hills have gentle slopes and I did see some folks walking. The maintenance was good, not g...