Pete, Dale Conley, host Ed Jensen and Don at the Corvallis Country Club.

With an assist from friend Dale Conley and his former OSU prof Ed Jensen, we recently played the Corvallis Country Club and got our "Courses To Go" tally back under 30.

At one point we were at 29, then Silvies Ranch opened up with its four new courses, so back we went to 33. Hopefully our number will continue to dwindle — although we much prefer to have new courses added rather than see courses close, which has been the norm the past 10 years.

Corvallis C.C. is a tree-lined track that offers a challenge on most every hole. We'll post a full review soon. The quick skinny: the course was in good shape with one glaring exception, the greens were quicker than they looked and took some adjusting to, and we were sad to hear the course is facing some apparent severe financial challenges.

That may account for the "one glaring exception" mentioned previously: the bunkers. As we all know, a synonym for bunker is sand trap, and sand traps need, well, sand. Sand was in short supply at Corvallis Country Club. Some bunkers had a thin sand layer, others a mere dusting of sand and some literally no sand at all. It's a little daunting to hit out of an all dirt bunker, but we did a couple of times.

Ed was a gracious host and had many helpful tips as we tooled around the course. We'd love to go back some day and hope to see the country club's situation resolved.