I played the Vintner's golf club today - 12/7/10

It is a nice little nine-hole just outside of Napa. It's not great, but nice. The Lakeside grill and golf shop share one large rustic room. The g... Continue »

I played the Vintner's golf club today - 12/7/10

It is a nice little nine-hole just outside of Napa. It's not great, but nice. The Lakeside grill and golf shop share one large rustic room. The golf shop has taken a minimalist approach and carries the standard ball caps, golfballs, and bags of tees. The grill is a cozy little affair where you would want to meet up after a few rounds and have a drink and a bite to eat.

The guys behind the counter were super friendly and pointed out every thing they had to offer. I decided to go hit a bucket of balls to warm up and was pleasantly surprised at the driving range. It was the coolest driving range I have hit at so far. The range is in an L formation. Mats on the right and grass around the left past the parking lot and fire station. They had bunkers and pin flags at different elevations to hit at. I will go back there if nothing else but to hit some balls.

Later, I went to retrieve a pull cart and the guy behind the desk recommended that I use one with the larger wheels, boy was he right. The course was like mud-soup and apparently had a drainage problem. As I got ready to tee off I looked up the hill at the white castle that was the military veteran's home, I paid my homage to them for their sacrifices and tee'd off. Apparently my gratitude was not enough for them and their hovering souls decided to have fun with my ball. I chased that little white devil all over the course, slipping and sliding. At times I think I hydroplaned across the fairways trying to get to my ball, so I put the score card back in my pocket and decided to just have fun. The greens had not yet recovered from the aeration job from a month ago. I am not a great putter but I got to see my ball bounce around like it was going through a vintage Japanese pachinko machine. I found this to be a novel way to pass the time. To add to this, a few of the bunkers were flooded and I couldn't help but laugh and then pray that I didn't hit into one of them.

On a side note, apparently someone did not think that the water and sand hazards were enough, so they installed 2 free range biting hazards down at the 4th hole -white swans the size of baby elephants. I suggest that you load a cargo pocket with chunks of wonder bread so that you can throw out chafe if one of these b (at) sterds gets on your six. The hundreds of geese were no problem and quite docile I found. They parted and got out of my way freely while giving me the big “Hairy eyeball”. In retrospect I have to assume that they have figured out how to genetically pass down the information from one generation to another not mess with the bipeds that carry a bag of metal and graphite “She-lay-lee's”.

In all fairness I can not give an accurate review of this course do to the weather of the past few days. I will be sure to go back when it is a bit dryer.