ericsidewater

Tee boxes -- You could find mostly flat ground on most tee-boxes, plenty of clean spots to hit from with very few visible divots. A few narrow windows to hit, course played very long from blue tees, which measured at about 6,650 yards, but played longer with lack of rollout on many fairways and only a couple holes with helping wind.

Fairways -- Several had huge slopes to them, with mounds of rough usually right in the line of sight from the tee box, you're not usually hitting straight down the fairway here. Most of the grass in the fairways was cut very nicely and was pretty healthy, tons of good lies.

Rough -- Thick with gnarly ruts, holes, and various lengths of grass. You could advance the ball out of the rough usually, but you will face a severe uphilll/downhill/sidehill lie in the rough, which is essentially a double penalty.

Greens -- Legitimately some are as sloped as you would find at Augusta -- unbelievable undulations and elevations changes, false fronts, plateaus, peanut shaped greens, a postage stamp, and a couple that were 50 yards long. A few holes =in the front had very fast putts down hill and slow up-hill. Most of the back 9 played a little slower, I would guess approximately a 10 on the stimp. Holes were not cut super wide with defined edges, easy to miss putts by a inch here.

#14 -- This is an absolutely ridiculous par 3. The day I played it was 213 yards to the pin, the green is approximately 80 feet above the tee box, and since you're teeing off from a little gulch in a neighborhood, the prevailing wind is straight down that valley into your face. This hole played nearly 250 yards, and the green was so easy picnic, with the pin tucked in a slopey corner near trouble and downhill from the safe landing area. Perhaps on a sunny day from a different tee box with no wind and a friendly pin it wouldn't be such a bear, but today it was one of the hardest holes I've ever played. I drove pin high (with driver) in left rough, chipped it down a steep slope to rough on huge slope near bunker, pitch it back out to 12 feet and two-putted for double and felt decent about it.

I play off approximately a 10 handicap and shot an 88, which I wasn't upset about for my first time playing the course, with several blind shots, not knowing which way the fairway was actually going, and having no experience with the greens or where to miss.

Will return as this is a great test of golf, with many forced carry tee shots, long par 3s and par 5s, minimal tree coverage, and a variety of short game shots presented to you, you could really build up your rolodex of golf shots.