(June 24th) Day 19 – The Jones Course, Speidel Golf Club @ Oglebay Resort, 

  Wheeling,WV    drove 398 miles

I could not get a tee time as a single and there are two courses at this resort, The Palmer Course and The Jones Course. The courses are named after their designers. I very much wanted to play the Palmer Course, but evidently so does everybody else and it was packed. I played the Jones course and as I was approaching the starter shack one of the locals asked me which course I was playing. I told him, he said "Good Luck, after you play 16,  17 & 18 you'll probably never want to play it again". How prophetic!

I would return here to give the Palmer course a try, but I didn't like the Jones course AT ALL and wouldn't recommend it to a friend either. The maintenance was good and the course is pretty enough, but this is a snow skiing area in the winter time, you can see the chairlifts across the way. That is all you need to know about the topography of the golf course. The Palmer course is also sloped, but I don't think it's to the same degree. I was exhausted and frustrated after this round of golf, and it wasn't even the worst score (97) I have shot on this trip. It's one of those courses that tends to screw you over sometimes when you think you hit a good shot, so it really isn't any fun at all.  

The Jones course has 5 sets of tees ranging from 7001 yards to 4659. I played the white tees at 6046 yards with a slope of 126 and a rating of 69.8 according to the scorecard. Green fees with a cart (no one in their right mind would walk this, but I saw two guys doing it!) were $ 78.61. I HOPE I don't play any courses on this trip that I dislike more than this one.

After golf, I soon got on Interstate 79 in Pennsylvania and drove up to Rochester, NY to spend the night. The drive it self was very boring as all you could see from the highway was trees (this is going to become a common theme). The interstate passed Pittsburgh to the west and you would never have any idea there was a city (or an airport) except for the exit signs. I stopped at a little pizza joint, Brandani's Pizza, in Rochester, and got a great pie for dinner. I should've ordered a size smaller, I could only eat half of it, but it was VERY GOOD!

           Randy’s golf course             ratings           play again               could recommend           Price

Prairieview GC (Byron, IL)                5                   YES                             YES                          $

Wine Valley (Walla Walla, WA)         5                    YES                             YES                          $$$

Dakota Winds (Hankinson, ND)        5                    YES                             YES                          $$

Raccoon Creek (Littleton, CO)         4.5                  YES                             YES                          $$

Brooks Golf (Okoboji, IA)                 4                    YES                             YES                          $$

The Legacy (Springfield, TN)            4                    YES                             YES                          $

Awarii Dunes (Kearney, NE)              4                    YES                            YES                          $$ 

Lake Panorama Nat. (Panora, IA)      4                      no*1                          YES                          $$

Houston Oaks (Paris, KY)                  4                    YES                             YES                         $   

Brandon GC (Brandon, SD)               4                    YES                             YES                          $

Viroqua Hills GC (Viroqua, WI)        4                    YES                             YES                         $

Snow Hill CC (New Vienna, OH)      4                    YES                             YES                         $  

Bear Slide GC (Cicero, IN)                4                      no                              YES                          $$

Rivers Edge (Burley, ID)                  3.5                    ??                               YES                          $

Eastern Hills (Kalamazoo, MI)         3.5                  YES                             YES                          $

Birch Creek (Smithfield,UT)             3.5                    no                       good golfers only            $

Kimball Golf Club (Kimball, MN)     3                      no                                no                           $

Buffalo Golf Club (Buffalo, WY)       3                      no                                no                           $$

Pryor Creek (Huntley, MT)                 3                      no                                no                           $        Johnny Walker Course (there’s also a Country Club course, but you need to play with a member!)

Jones Course (Wheeling, WV)         1                      no                                no                           $$$

*1 = would play again if a different yardage was offered, with slope and course ratings

This was the only picture I could find that I KNEW was the Jones course at Oglebay. This is #4
and it's one of the few easy holes on the golf course, a 124 yard par three with a backstop!




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