I have been spoiled a bit this year when it comes to golf. First of all, I feel I’ve been able to play far more rounds than expected. And they have been on some nice courses.
2 rounds in particular have been on Clublink courses. For those of you not familiar with our wedding venue, it took place at Rattlesnake Point – a ClubLink course. The day before the wedding I was able to play my first ClubLink course (other than Granite Ridge – but it wasn’t ClubLink at the time). These courses are premium courses. In fact the entire facility is premium from the change rooms through to the staff service. It does make one feel like a snob but it certainly leaves an impact.
The 1st round this year was at Glen Abbey. Pat, my colleague at work has a friend from school that has earned enough money as a consultant to afford the high priced premium level membership that allows access to all the Clublink courses – of which Glen Abbey is their signature course. This course is the home of many Canadian Opens and the ‘pro’ element has been stamped on this course. It is a very difficult course but by no means the most difficult I’ve played. The intangible element is the uniqueness of many of the holes and the sheer artistic beauty of their layouts. When playing the valley holes you can see what makes a pro-level course different from any other type of course. It is the thought put into virtually every yard of the hole that creates a challenge deserving of hosting a professional tourney.
I ended up shooting 86 that day on a par 71 course but I chalk that up to being to wrapped up in being at Glen Abbey. If I played it again (which I hope to as long as I can keep my connection) I am certain I can get into the 70’s.  The most enjoyable part of the round was that we were able to play from the pro tees which gave us the true feel of how the course should be played.
The 2nd ClubLink round this year was just south of Barrie at their most difficult course: National Pines. This course is extremely tight and extremely long. We decided we would not play the tips as it was very wet and humid out. Since the tips top over 7000 yards it would have been virtually unplayable for some of the guys in the group. So we opted for the next level down which sets the course at 6600 yards which is still longer than almost any course you might play. There were many par 4’s that were within the 420-440 range and almost all par 4’s were over 400 yds. Any under that were hard dog-legs that still presented a plus-150 yd shot into the multi-tiered undulating double-cut greens. The par 3’s were typically long as well except for one that was 158 (still long in most people’s books) but riddled with traps and water.
It was the biggest challenge I’ve had in quite some time and I am very proud to have carded an 81 on this par 72 track. I was certain I was going to score well as -even though I’ve been negligent in logging my scores to HandiWeb - I believe I’ve brought my handicap down to its career low. My educated guess would be I’m sitting around a 6 to 6.5 at this time.
To get an idea of how an 81 fares on this par 72 – the rating and slope from our tees were 73.1 and 139 – which puts 81 at around a 6 handicap.
Admittedly, playing ClubLink is pretty much as good as it gets for a non-millionaire like myself. But the prices still hit the wallet. Both outings were over $100 for the green fees and it’s tough to find any public course that would come close to that fee. But it was worth it and I think I could manage a few of these a year.