OVGA Amateur Golf Tour

This week the OVGA is yet again at a new venue, Deer Run Country Club, which recently opened for limited public play. Deer Run is a Par 70 layout featuring tight tee shots, smooth, well-guarded greens and tricky elevation changes. This weeks’ Hole Of The Week is the par 4 10th hole. This 18 HDCP hole plays 321 yards from the beige tees, and 300 yards from the white tees. But don’t let the length and HDCP ranking fool you. Sure there will be some birdies and maybe more than one eagle this week. The hole is drivable. The fairway bends, or appears to bend, slightly left, where the last 100 yards or so are downhill to the green. The latter part of the fairway is dotted with patches of thick rough to provide a small bit of protection frrom long hitters. The green is large and relatively flat. The trouble lies in the tee shot. To the left is a row of trees. Normally playing as a lateral hazard, for our event they are marked as out of bounds due to a club event held the same weekend. They should be white-lined. Much more sinister is the row of single trees in the distance. Though it can’t be detected from the tee box, these trees are only a few paces from out of bounds on the right, and the surrounding hard terrain banks toward it. This writer hit a mediocre fairway wood off the toe and still found the out of bounds by a foot.

This hole is the best birdie attempt on the course, and a bogey will be considered a disappointment for many if not most players. It will also yield a surprising number of triple bogeys. “Grip it and rip it”, if you dare.