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Ron Hebert, Don, Pete and Mitch Nosack at Sandelie East on April 13. |
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A 70-degree day on April 13
— Don's birthday, incidentally — found us out at Sandelie East Golf
Course as we marked Course No. 155 off our list. Mid-April is as good of a time
to play Sandelie as any, we suppose. We were joined by friends Mitch Nosack and
Ron Hebert — this was Ron's first "official" Don & Pete adventure.
Sandelie East has so much
potential. The layout is really quite nice. At about 5900 yards it's not a long
course. It's also not particularly challenging, though it does have a much more
imaginative design than sister course Sandelie West and has several holes with
a lot of character. But ... and it's a BIG but ... the course simply isn't well
maintained.
It's mid-April, you'd expect
the fairways to be lush. At Sandelie, they are sparse. There's simply not
enough grass. There are lots of single blades of grass and mud. You rarely get
a good lie because the ball is never sitting up because it's never laying in
all grass. That gets frustrating.
Then there are the greens.
The front nine greens were, with the exception of two, diseased and just
splotchy. Getting a smooth roll was virtually impossible. On the back nine, the
greens had been sanded and plugged, but it appeared that they hadn't been
watered once since the sanding/plugging — and you can tell it had been
awhile, it wasn't like they were plugged yesterday. Again, putts bounced across
the green, they didn't roll.
The price is appropriate for
the level of care, and people were friendly. But really, we'd be happy to pay
more if they'd take better care of the course. We'll post our full review here
soon.