The drive from New Jersey went well. Fred Stluka and I checked into Conley's Resort at 10PM. We found Bill Hogsett at the bar. The crew wandered in over the next half-hour from all over our quarter of the country: Thor Collard and Joe Dean from Columbus, Gary Hayenga from Ann Arbor, and eventually Terry Easton from Dayton. Brent Hutto had flown in from South Carolina, but was not staying at the resort. A few others were staying at the home of our hosts, Mark and Grace Georg; that included Mark's dad Roger and longtime buddy Steve Metzler.

Before we headed home Sunday afternoon, we had played ninety holes at five different courses. My personal favorites were the first and the last -- Stoughton Acres and Lindenwood -- but all the courses were fun, and the company was great. Usually we play courses south of Pittsburgh, but this time the Friday and Saturday courses were north, near Mark's home.

A few recollections from the five rounds...

Friday morning - Stoughton Acres

• Number 12 is a short (120-yard) par-3 with a steeply sloped green. On the tee Brent announced, "I'm calling my shot! I'm putting it on the green below the hole, for stress-free putting." He then pushed it right into the tall trees. It rattled around a bit (hit at least two trees), then popped out of the treetops toward the green. It stopped on the green, about 10 feet below the hole. Brent claimed he called it, but we insisted that you have to say if you're intending a bank shot.
• One of the best holes of the weekend is the dramatic downhill par-5 thirteenth, with a good-sized lake between the fairway and the green. Absolutely gorgeous; I was sorry I didn't have my camera on the course that day. Several of us (myself included) drowned a ball in the lake, but still had a wonderful time playing a wonderful hole.
• Number 18 is a short (potentially drivable) par-4 with a tee shot over water.
• Our threesome turned in all pars on that hole, the only time we did that round.
• Mine was a wet par. My skyed tee shot rolled back into the lake, but I dropped, put a nine-iron on the green, and made the par putt.
• Fred chipped in for a "par". It took considerable urging from several of us and two stroke recounts before he admitted it was a birdie. (BTW, Fred must have had about seven birdies over the weekend. I saw at least three of them.)
• Thor had to call in to work this morning. Seems it was his project's turn to hear about layoffs, and he wanted to know if he still had a job. He did! BTW, Lucent refers to layoffs as a "Force Management Program" (as in work-Force). Some wag in the group suggested it conveyed the message, "May the force be without you!"
  

Friday afternoon - Krendale

• Thor can absolutely launch drives. Mark, Fred, and I were very pleased when we could get it out somewhere near his ball. I had a generally good driving round, and was close to Thor's drive a very satisfying number of times.
• The fourth hole has a pond in front of the small, shallow green, and bunkers behind. I may be the only golfer that ever hit across that pond three times without getting wet. My approach shot bounced off the green into the bunker. I caught all ball from my lie in the bunker; it carried not just over the green, but over the pond as well. I was left with a much trickier repeat of the approach shot, because of a severe downhill lie. I was also left huffing and puffing; the pond extends a long way left and right, and it was a long run -- yes, I jogged -- around it to my ball and back. (There was a group behind watching us; I didn't want to hold them up any more than necessary.) This time, I got it to land softly enough so I was putting. Walking to the next tee, I said to Thor, "Well, that was an aerobic hole."
• The eighth hole is an island green, set in a hollow among tall trees. Beautiful hole, even though the ambience is temporarily marred by grading they are doing nearby on the nine that is currently closed.
  
• Number 12 also has a lake in front of the green. Fred's approach shot from the fairway was thin and fast, a real worm-burner; the ball was never above waist height. It disappeared over the fairway dip down to the lake. "That's wet!" was the general consensus. As we walked toward the pond:
• Fred said, "Funny, I don't see any ripples."
• Standing on higher ground, I said, "I can see the ball. It's on land, but you better take off your left shoe."
• As it turned out, it was a few feet from the bank. Fred had a stance, made the shot, and then made the par putt.
• Do you deny that 13 is an unlucky number? If so, you haven't played the thirteenth at Krendale's, which we all call "the hole from hell". It is 400 yards, way uphill then way downhill for a net altitude wash. OB left, and the trees on the right pinch the landing area for a driver to almost nothing. If you miss right, you must waste a shot to position yourself for the approach. It has to be from exactly the right spot or you have no prayer of hitting the green, and little prayer of even finding your ball after you attempt the approach. I was low in our group with a double-bogey 6. Thor was having a match with Mark, and his 7 beat Mark by three. ("But it was only an 8 on the second ball.")
• Immediately after the hole from hell is a short par-3 with the bunker from hell. Hard sand. Very deep. Very short front-to-back. And a wall in back (railroad ties, if I recall -- but anyway, a wall). Together, they assure that you won't have enough backswing to get the ball as high as it needs to go. Mark got out of it with a putter -- successfully.
• Thor describes my antics on the final hole as "The Tutelman Tug." The hole is a 160-yard par-3. Downhill. Massively downhill. Everybody in our group hit 7-iron there. The thing that made my 7-iron different is the two Ls -- launched and left. It disappeared over the mound behind the left greenside bunker. We didn't find it on the steep grass downslope. We didn't see it immediately in the parking lot either. A more detailed search showed it sitting about three rows into the parking lot, near a pile of sand waiting to replenish the bunker. If I had been in the sand, I'm sure my fellow competitors would have made me hit from there. But I was on the asphalt, so I got a drop. Now I had to hit from a small grass strip in the middle of the parking lot, over 25 yards of pavement and another 10 of steep uphill rough, to a green that ran away toward a lake. Amazingly, the high wedge shot landed on the green and rolled just off; I had a fairly short chip to save par. Unfortunately, at that point all my good shots had been expended, and I took a double.
  

Saturday morning - Suncrest

• Among the four of us, we were only one over par collectively after two holes. Seven pars and a bogey. "These guys are good!" But it was mostly downhll after that. Only one or two other holes that we all parred.
• On the fourth hole, Fred had a solid birdie. I guess he decided he liked that fairway, because he also played it when we were on the fifth and eighth holes (the holes on either side of the fourth fairway).
• It was understandable why he played the fourth fairway on the fifth hole. The two holes were virtually indistinguishable: an elevated tee, long straight par-5 fairway, and seriously elevated green with the same backstop behind.
• It paid off on the eighth; Fred got another birdie there.
• Fred's tee shot on the fifth was very close to Terry's second shot on the fourth. The difference was that Fred's ball was on the ground; Terry's was waist-high in a forsythia bush. Terry did manage to advance it, but he had to use a left-handed baseball swing.
• On the eighth hole, I hit a "bark hook"; I couldn't duplicate this shot with a large bucket of tries. I was behind a small (8" diameter) tree, and needed to hit a low 4-iron as close to the right of it as I could. I got it a little too close, and the ball just barely skimmed the bark. It was such a glancing contact that the ball was deflected only a couple of degrees to the right. But it did pick up a lot of hook spin from the tree, and turned in a long leftward curve until it came to rest in the left rough, almost at the green.
• The ninth hole is a 160-yard uphill par-3. But I played it for 215 yards. My tee shot was somewhat short and left, and kicked further left onto the cart path. At that point, it began rolling back down the hill. It followed every twist and turn of the path for 55 yards. (Fred paced it off while I played my long second shot.)
• Gary Hayenga is henceforth to be known as "Bank Shot". On the eleventh hole, he got a par with more favorable kicks than Beckham. He hooked the drive way left over the forest, headed inexorably OB. There was a loud woody crack or two, and the ball came bounding out of the woods onto the fairway. His next shot was short and right, way downhill of the green. But it hit the cart path on the fly and jumped up the hill. The second bounce hit a mound, and was deflected hard left toward the green. By the time it stopped, the ball was near the fringe, and Gary made the most of it by getting up and down.
• Interestingly, the only two pars on that hole in our group came from the two that had hit into the trees and been woodenly rejected: Gary and Fred. Bill and I, who hit long drives down the middle, could only manage bogeys. For the rest of the back nine, tree trouble seemed to indicate a par was on the way. I think all of us but Bill had multiple pars on holes where we hit trees.
• For me, the fourteenth hole was a disaster resulting in a quadruple-bogey 8 -- without benefit of penalty shots or three-putts. I was complaining to Fred about my "tired swing" -- I hadn't hit a solid shot in three holes.. The complaining must have been good for my game (maybe that's Sponseller's secret), because I finished:
• Par on #15. Short hole, I know. But you should have seen where I was after the drive, and the big trees I had to hit my second shot over.
• Par on #16. Yes, the long 550-yard par-5; I was all over the place, but managed a par. But you should have seen Gary play it perfectly, and almost make his 5-foot birdie putt.
• Par on #17. Yes, the uphill 220-yard par-3.
• Bogey on #18. Just missed my 10-foot par putt on the 420-yard uphill par-4.
  

Saturday afternoon - Conley Resort

Sunday morning - Lindenwood

• This was the coldest morning of the weekend, at 35°F when we awoke. Frost everywhere. Windshield-scraping time. But we wore shorts and it paid off. We played the back nine in the seventies. (That's temperature, not score -- fortunately.)
  
• With a few pleasant exceptions, I was hitting big slices with my driver. That got me into a lot of trouble, and the scores showed it. I had three stroke-and-distance penalties. Well, technically only two. On #11 I hit a provisional, but we found my first ball in the woods. By the time I was out of the woods and up the fairway, I was lying three only 5 feet from my provisional. So on that one, I played the stroke and distance.
• On the par-3 fourth, we almost managed to lose Joe's tee shot. It wasn't that bad, but looked like it bounced into the spruces on the left. We even knew which tree. After looking under and around it for a while, I remembered that Fred used to shake the spruce branches at Lindenwood and balls would tumble out, so I started looking higher in the tree. Within seconds, I had Joe's ball; it was in a branch of the orbivorous tree, at about chest height.
  
• Joe Dean managed to par the really hard sixth hole. It's the #1 handicap on the Gold nine, but that doesn't tell the half of it. It's a 400-yard par-4 with a long approach to a steeply elevated green guarded by a lot of sand in front and below. Joe hit a good drive, then put his approach shot on the green with a lofted wood. I think that may be the first time I've seen a par on that hole.
• Fred and I were running a two-man relay with his car keys as the baton. He was in the group ahead of me. Every time we caught them on the tee (I did say it was a slow round, didn't I), either I asked for his car keys or I returned them.
• When we got to the 10th hole (first on the Blue nine; long drive over a lake, then it bends left uphill forever) we saw Thor hitting from well up the fairway. Given the trouble facing the drive and the length of the hole, that's not a terrible place to be in two. But after he hit, we saw Fred bend down and place something white on the ground where Thor had been. We figured it out right away. Fred was pinning a note to the ground with a tee, telling those who followed that Thor had driven it to there. Wow!
  

Our host greets us at Conley's	Playing by headlight on Conley's 18th	Bill Hogsett practices putting...	... while Brent Hutto gets a short-game demo from Terry Easton
Mark and Roger Georg, Thor, Joe Dean, and Fred Stluka wait to tee off at Conley's	Brent watches Bill's ball at the first tee at Conleys'	Bill returns the favor	Gary Hayenga tees off
The lovely seventh hole at Conley's, a downhill par-5. Theoretically reachable	Steve Metzler chips at Conley's 18th green, a long par-3 over water	Grace and Mark at dinner Saturday	Joe and Steve sun themselves while waiting for the fairway to clear at Lindenwood
The 18th hole at Lindenwood, a long par-5 in a river valley; the river has to be crossed twice	.	.	.