July 8th Day 33 - Heritage Shores, Bridgeville, DE and Eagle's Landing, Ocean City, MD

                                                               drove 224 miles

This morning I drove down to Bridgeville to play golf at a RAPIDLY growing senior living development in south central Delaware, Heritage Shores. Delaware isn't a very large state area wise,

but ALL the parts I drove through had well maintained roads, no traffic snarls were kind of neat and tidy. I liked the state very much. They have also gone to the u-turn method of keeping traffic moving, but instead of concrete barriers (like New Jersey) you drive through the intersection you want to turn left in, and shortly thereafter you will be able to enter a u-turn lane and go back to where you wanted to be and make a right turn. Pretty efficient actually!

This golf course is the centerpiece of the development at Heritage Shores, but they have tennis, pickle ball, walking, jogging, bicycle trails, swimming pools, pretty much anything a retired senior citizen could want in the way of recreation. There were a lot of new homes under construction and I have no idea how far the the boundaries of the development go. The northern end of the golf course does not have houses on it (yet). The Pro Shop is NOT near the area where you get your golf cart and the clubhouse is even farther away. They have a restaurant/store next to the Pro Shop where you can buy goodies & beverages to take with you out on the course. Both of these buildings are LARGE, a bit ostentatious (in my view), but they certainly have room for a LOT of people and have anticipated the growth well.

The golf course itself is very good. The pictures show the bridges over the water that irrigates the course. There are not many shots that you have to hit over water, BUT there is water hazard on one side or another on every hole on the golf course except number 17. I found a couple of them. Yep, only two. The course was in good to very good condition, is fairly flat and the greens are NOT as fast as they look. I had a hard time convincing myself to putt the ball harder. I played the 5906 yardage, 67.9 rating and 123 slope. The next tees back are 6477 with a slope of 138 and they would have TOTALLY kicked my ass! There are few trees to contend with, but a fair amount of sand bunkers on the course.

There is one hidden pond (#4) for a first time player. I thought I hit a nice shot until I got closer and saw how far the water was sticking out. Other than that, a very fair golf course I recommend. The forward tee is 4740 yards with a rating of 67.6 and a slope of 115 for ladies. I think Margaret would love this course.

You would have thought I would've been exhausted from yesterday, but I have been playing almost everyday for over a month now and am in as good of (golf) shape as I can get, so it's on to southern Maryland for two 36 hole days in a row.

I got to Berlin/Ocean City about 90 minutes before my tee time. I would've loved to tee off early, but the golf course jam packed and I decided a couple of tasty beverages would be a good way to pass the time. The golf course is in Berlin, MD, but is owned / run by Ocean City, MD. It's a good track & I enjoyed being in a foursome since I hadn't played golf with anybody since Chicopee in Massachusetts.

One member of my foursome was a local who played a lot at this course, Mark, and that is who I shared a cart with. The others were a father (Jeff, who used to play a lot) and son (Alex, who is taking the game up). Alex was probably 20 to 24 years old and could really pound the golf ball, but between those two we spent a LOT of time looking for golf balls. 

I played about the same as in the morning, too many putts to have a good round, and once again found two water hazards. The water is not as plentiful on this course as Heritage Shores, but there are a LOT of trees and doglegs to negotiate and I'm glad Mark was in my cart. We got rained on briefly during the round, but it wasn't unexpected and it wasn't cold enough to be a bother.

I played the gold/white combo tees at a yardage of 6015, a rating of 69.7 and slope of 121. I scored better on the front nine and I'd LIKE to say I was tired on the back, but I wasn't. The back nine is tougher and I would have done even worse without Mark telling me where not to go. Margaret would probably play the 4896 yard course with a 119 slope and 69.0 rating. I think she would like this course,

but probably not as well as Heritage Shores. I would certainly be up for playing it again.

On the way to my motel in Windsor Mill, MD (near Baltimore) I drove back up through Delaware for a while (the map doesn't show the route I actually took) then turned east and crossed the Chesapeake Bay on the Bay Bridge. The Bay Bridge is 4.3 miles long (there are two of them, one eastbound and one westbound) and I thought it was an awesome sight. The bridge ends up very near Annapolis (Naval Academy) and not far from Washington D.C. I like this part of the country (that isn't big city!) and will see more of it tomorrow. No golf on Friday as it's time to get my tires rotated (again) and oil changed.

  

          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                            $$

The Links at Greystone (Walworth, NY)   4.5        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                            $$

Chicopee CC (Chicopee, MA)           4                    YES                          YES                            $ 

The Architects Club (Phillipsburg, NJ)   4               YES                          YES                            $$

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

Heritage Shores (Bridgeville, DE)   4                   YES                           YES                           $$

Houston Oaks (Paris, KY)                  4                   YES                           YES                            $  

Eagles Landing (Ocean City, MD)   4                  YES                            YES                          $$    

Brandon GC (Brandon, SD)               4                   YES                             YES                          $

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

Portland GC (Portland, CT)               4                    YES                             YES                          $

Green Valley CC (Portsmouth, RI)    4                    YES                             YES                          $$

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

Links at Union Vale (Lagrangeville, NY)   4           YES*2                         YES                         $$$

Pilgrim's Oak (Peach Bottom, PA)    3.5                  YES                             YES                         $

Bear Slide GC (Cicero, IN)               3.5                   no                               YES                         $$

Lochmere G & CC (Tilton, NH)       3.5                  YES                             YES                         $$

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

Eastern Hills (Kalamazoo, MI)         3.5                   YES                             YES                        $

Brattleboro CC (Brattleboro, VT)     3.5                  YES  ?                          YES                        $$          

Martindale CC (Auburn, ME)           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!)

The Brookside Club (Bourne, MA)    2                      no                                 no                        $$

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

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

*2 = would move up a tee and NOT pay weekend green fee. M-Th fee is $ 77 and $ 61 after 2 p.m.

                         The first four pictures are Heritage Shores, the others are Eagles Landing.