Tied for 16th..

I played in my first golf tourney at Oak Quarry last Saturday. The picture you see on the home page is their signature hole #14 and is the view we had too..amazing. It was my first time playing here but Oak Quarry is quite an interesting course laid out through the quarry mines. It cuts through these huge quarry mountains and is visually stunning and has numerous elevation changes. I can't remember any hole that was just "straight" which kept me excited about the next hole.

I believe carts are mandatory and if it wasn't you don't want to walk this bad boy. There are just unbelieveably steep paths to the next hole and a little distance from one hole to the next. I'm not going to describe every hole and what I did or didn't do but what I can say is if you're outside the first cut of rough..fuhgettaboutit. The rough is fairly thick, but well groomed, but you just can't find your ball once it gets into the bushy area beyond the rough..and there were numerous "Beware of Rattlesnake" signs too. Remembering what I read from GolfChick I decided not to tread there. I ended up losing 8 balls, a shattering new record, but better than getting bit by a diamondback anyday.

The greens were much faster than what I'm used to playing and nothing really checked for me. I got wind of this rather quickly and played a bunch of bump and runs which worked out pretty good. Every green was muti-tiered, which I loath, but surprisingly I was able to lag putt well that day.

I got to use my rangefinder but it turned out the carts were equipped with GPS units but the GPS seemed to be off a few times with the correct yardage. Also one thing my rangefinder could do was to get yardages to the front of the hole and at various "markers" on the fairway and green which the GPS unit couldn't do. Getting yardages to the front was actually a big help that day since there was alot of trouble if you couldn't make to the flag.

A good example of this was on this on hole #10. It played 208 yds to the flag but if your shot went anywhere to the right you were done. I busted out my rangefinder and decided to hit it to the front, 178 yds., and hopefully run it to the hole. I hit my 5 iron, 180 yd. club for me, and hit a good shot but missed just about a yard from the front. It was safe though and I went up and down to save, the others in my group decided to go for it and posted 6's all around.

Hole #14, "Splinel Slide" (they name all their holes..not sure what they mean though..some kind of mining reference I suppose), is a gorgeous par 3. "This signature par 3 hole was rated the best in Southern California." Basically you're sitting high atop this canyon with a lake to the left and a very intimidating peninsula green to the front. You can bail out to the right but anything left is "bye-bye" time. The hole played 178 yards to the center but probably a little less than that since it was dramatically downhill. I went witht he 5 iron because I figured that a little long was better than short here. I ended up hitting a frozen rope, that everone was hollering at, at the hole that hit behind the flag and rolled and stopped at the first cut of rough..a 6 iron would've been perfect. I went up and down for par here which was awesome.

I ended up shooting a 97 (gross..really gross) and 77 (net), but one of the highest rating/slope, 71.9/133, courses I've ever played. They used the Callaway method of scoring since not everyone, I think I was the only one thinking about it, had established indexes..which helped me too anyway.