Love course at Barefoot and True Blue

[Brent Hutto]

When we arrived in Myrtle Beach on Friday I hurried to the Barefoot Resort to make my 12:04 tee time at the Love course. After an unplanned-for delay at the drawbridge, I had just enough time to check in, hit a handful of putts on the practice green and find my way to the starter about ten minutes before teeing off. I got paired up into a group of eleven guys from out of town, shook hands and 15-20 practice swings adjacent to the tee box comprised my warmup after a morning spent in the car.

I received a bit of the evil eye from my playing companions when they noticed I was walking (using my three-wheel trolley) and a couple of the course marshals stopped to express amazement at the fact. Typical comment "Boy, that's something you don't see out here every day". I'm not sure why more people wouldn't walk. With the exception of the the trip back and forth through "The Stinky Tunnel" (more later) the course is enjoyable and easy to walk. I think the story may be different at the other Barefoot Resort courses, BTW.

My overall impression is that I enjoyed the course a lot. I'd say it's a very good resort course and I don't mean that to be damning with faint praise. They keep the rough at a level where you can find the ball but hitting it out can be a bit of a challenge (and would be moreso if the Bermuda rough were not dormant). They have fancy GPS mapping things in the carts which seem to really help people keep moving given that there are some second shots that aren't totally visible and obvious when you're standing in the fairway playing the course for the first time. I'd say the designers found a good tradeoff between avoiding a wide-open easy course versus having too many semi-blind shots that would be more appropriate to a non-resort course (see my upcoming comments on True Blue). I played the 6,500 yard "Black" tees and managed a 93 which is more than three shots better than the course rating relative to my 20+ handicap index. I felt like I played at pretty much the top of my game (a couple missed short putts excepted) so while the rating may be a bit generous I think beating my index by playing well on a perfect day (70 degrees, 8mph SW breeze) is about right.

My one complaint about the course is that they were watering heavily to establish the winter overseed in the fairways. Therefore the entire course was playing as wet as you'd expect if it had been raining for several days which is a big spoiler in my book. On the upside, the greens were receptive but not mushy or soft and were rolling as good as any I've played on lately. A perfect pace to give you a chance to make some long putts and just enough speed to make almost every putt have some extra break in the last few inches of its roll. I would be happy putting on those greens every day, the odd bobble from poorly-repaired pitch marks notwithstanding.

I'm going to follow this post with another that summarizes the hole-by-hole comments I wrote in my journal at the end of the trip.

[Brent Hutto]

My journal entry for Friday's round at the Love course. One caveat is that I wrote this on Saturday evening after playing True Blue earlier in the day. So my memory of a few holes was lost and I wished I had found time to sit down as soon as I finished and make my notes.

#1 Easy opening hole. Very front hole location was a killer, nobody in my group made a putt there that wasn't a tap-in.

#2 Neat shelf in the fairway 40 yards short of the green, it's about three feet higher than the fairway but three feet lower than the front of the green. Messes with your depth perception and also probably keeps running second shots from getting near the green. However, the day I played the fairway was so muddy that everything was plugging anyway so I don't know if/when the running shot even exists. Easy par early in the round.

#3 I like this Par 3 a lot. All the RH were really scared of the water . The green had interesting smooth contours, at least near the back-left hole location we played. Later in the round we played back down the other side of the pond and looking at the hole from that angle I remembered how much I enjoyed playing it.

#4 Short, probably seldom drivable, Par 4 with "ruins" long and left. Deceptively deep green. Would be much more fun hole if the landing zone and bump-and-run area were not soaking wet. Hitting wedges off mud takes all the fun away from a promising short Par 4.

#5 Long downhill Par 4, layup hole for me and you can't really see the green from the tee (slight dogleg right after you go down the hill). My layup shot to 70 yards plugged in the fairway which was actually a bonus. I was able to clean the ball and give myself a perfect lie so I hit a wedge shot to five feet and made the par putt.

#6 Scorecard says I made a double-bogey six. I have no memory of the hole.

#7 Another long Par 4. Scorecard says I laid up and made par again. No recall.

#8 Ugly hole, at least at the green end. The green sort of sits down in a low corner of the property but it's actually one of the more interestingly contoured greens on the course. It's one of those Par 5's that isn't easy to make a birdie on so I guess most people wouldn't like it but I thought it was kind of long and boring for two shots and then challenging once you're ready to try and get a third shot near the hole. I made bogey. For some reason the thought occured to me that the business end of this hole looks like something you'd see on one of those courses around Carnoustie (which is odd because I've never been to Scotland in my life).

#9 Nice long Par 3. Vaguely reminded me of #12 at Athens CC although with more mounding and busy-work around the green (I think the sparseness of Athens' #12 is preferable, leaving all the difficulty to be due to the sloping green). There's some kind of shelf or tier at the Love hole that I can't picture in my recollection but I think our pin was right on an edge of it whatever it was. I tried to invent some sort of low shot to climb up to the hole and was rewarded for my trouble with a shank. Up and down from there (far off the green) for a "thank god" bogey.

#10 This hole has a bunker completely crossing the fairway about fifty yards from the green. It is set down a foot or so below fairway level meaning you don't really see it from back a the 150-yard markers. Then the green is only a foot or so above fairway level but that actually creates a decent rise from the bunker (which is dead flat) to the fringe of the green. I clipped a tree limb with my tee shot (which takes a really bad shot, BTW) and couldn't reach the green so I laid up to 74 yards. I then bladed a wedge shot which never left the ground. It rolled 20-30 yards on fairway grass, down into the bunker, rolled across 30+ yards of sand, climbed the dormant-Bermuda banks to the green and stopped eight feet short of the front-center hole location. It was hilarious (and I can say that because I made the putt, did I mention I really liked the greens?). I wish I'd have been playing a match with someone, it's always fun to win a hole with a miracle shot like that.

#11 Easy short Par 3. The back-left pin position had one of the hardest subtle breaks of the many we saw that day. The hole was one some kind of ridge and from left or below the hole it seemed to reject each and every putt as it lost speed. The one guy putting from above the hole was rewarded with a birdie from a putt that rolled about 12 feet dead straight into the hole.

As we reached the twelfth tee I commented to my playing companions that the course had seemed real easy relative to its rating of 72.5/133. Now a lot of the holes starting out had been playing downbreeze (and several of them had the tees placed on the very back of the tee boxes, perhaps in consideration of the wind). This course has non-returning nines (which I tend to like) but by along about the tenth hole or so we were starting to play some holes into the wind. A couple of the tees were moved up either by happenstance or, being generous, because the person setting it up that day knew the wind direction. However, I was about to have to eat my words. Holes 12, 13 and 14 are not easy and on 12 they had us playing from way back next to the "Platinum" tees.

#12 This hole was playing almost 450 yards, although a slight breeze was from the left and helping a bit. I tried to reach the (downhill) green with a 3-wood which landed short and bounced into the front-left bunker, leaving a long bunker shot to the back-right hole. I came up inches short and trickled back down the embankment between the back-left bunker and the green. Finally got up and down from there. This hole is a lot of work.

#13 An interesting tee shot with a creek coming from behind some trees to the left, partially crossing the fairway at 160+  yards from the "Black" tees, then running up the right side of the fairway leaving a little bailout area short and right. Very sloped green (would look at home on a Donald Ross course) with yet another way-front pin position when I played it.

#14 After a 1/4-mile cart path trip that involves crossing under a four lane highway in a tunnel with some sort of musty-smelling water trickling into a catch grate, you climb up a hill and reach the attractive fourteenth hole. Wide open fairway with a slight dogleg left. The green is a two-tiered monster that cost my foursome several collective strokes. My double-bogey six (off a perfect tee shot) was exactly what I earned after failing to reach the green, duffing a wedge shot and failing to chip the ball up onto the back level from the front fringe. It was actually a heck of a two-putt from the lower level to a hole at the back of the green.

#15 This Par 3 looks longer than it plays, maybe that was because the shadows were lengthening. Pace of play, as you might expect on a Friday afternoon at Myrtle Beach, was abysmal. Our round took just under five hours which meant we putted out on eighteen just a couple minutes before sunset. This was the first hole where putting was made more difficult by the late-afternoon lighting (as were the next two holes). The back right hole location is easy to get to with a tee shot or chip but hard to putt. Tons of break behind the hole for any putt or chip that's sidehill from either side. This was the first hole where I made the mistake of "tapping in" a two foot, uphill par putt without reading it. I made a good stroke and that son of a gun broke about three inches, uphill my ass.

NOTE: As it turned out, that was the beginning of the end of my goal of breaking 90. The rest of the round just somehow slipped from my grasp in the waning hour of the day. I had played pretty much my best golf to that point but my performance on the last three holes left me wanting to try this course again on a day I can actually keep my game together for a whole round. I also think the closing two holes are pretty tough ones.

#16 Every shot I hit on this hole was duffed and I don't know how I managed to make some kind of putt for a double-bogey six. No memory of the hole itself.

#17 Maybe it was the shadows late in the day and late in the round. This hole would seem at home as part of True Blue. Bunkers everywhere, wildly sloping green. I ended up lipping out a 30-foot putt for double-bogey and making the only seven on my card all day. Nobody else in the foursome made par and I don't think anyone made bogey. At least one person picked up after eight. It's probably not that hard a hole but once you hit into a fairway bunker it can slip away from a high-handicapper in a hurry.

#18 Nice closing Par 5 with a somewhat stereotypical approach shot around a lake (with the hazard on the left in this instance). Plays long, especially with a spit of wetlands that crosses almost all the way across the fairway from left to right. From where your drive lands, it seems as though it is a complete cross hazard but in fact there is room on the right to land a ball if you mishit your tee shot and need to hit a layup to about 250 yards from the green. With the GPS map in the cart that would be obvious but I saw it as a do-or-die second shot so I layed up short of it after my short drive. Then a 5-wood left a 7-iron fourth shot. The hole was all the way back left, tucked behind the lake. As a lefty slicer my mouth was watering over a little hump on the front-right part of the green. I thought a cut that hit the hump would be kicked left and run all the way down to the hole. Unfortunately, I hit a rare straight iron shot and landed right in the fringe beyond the mound but the ball still rolled all the way left and I had a par chip downhill from the fringe. This green was wetter and slower than any other I remember on the course and the severely downhill chip stopped dead five feet above the hole on a grainy patch. I had to finish up with a knee-knocker bogey putt for my 93 and perhaps the best round I'm capable of shooting at this course.

[Brent Hutto]

Saturday morning: True Blue

This is the round I was most looking forward to on my yearly trip to Myrtle Beach. Everyone suggested that I'd like Caledonia better but from the description of True Blue on the fishclub.com web page it looked much more interesting.

Note to self. Never play this course again at 7:30AM. The first and third holes have you teeing off directly into the rising sun. Combine that with over-100% humidity (due in part to the sprinklers copiously watering every inch of overseeded fairway rendering sunglasses a foggy no-go) and the first few hole were frankly miserable. I was lucky to find my ball sitting in the edge of the first fairway. If it had been sliced or pulled into trouble I'd have never found it. Between the blinding sun and the fact that I had no yardage book (and hadn't thought to walk over to my playing companion's cart and look at the one mounted there) I chose the wrong club on the third hole and hit a tentative shot with no hope of clearing the modest carry over water from the "White" tees. Tough start to the day.

My overall impression of the course is that it is ugly. I don't find acres and acres of wet, gray, muddy packed sand with tire tracks in it to be appealing. Some of the holes, such as the Cape hole #4, have very appealing contours and I don't doubt that Mike Strantz is a creative genius. The waste bunker conceit is ideal for a resort course since there's almost no looking for balls in deep rough. For high handicappers the waste bunkers are almost as great a hazard as two inches of Bermuda grass but you can see your ball from 100+ yards away. It just isn't pretty.

The greens, as promised, are something to behold. Most are long and skinny, usually at an angle to the line of play and they have as many as three distinct levels. It is my own personal shortcoming no doubt but I'm not as comfortable on huge greens as on more compact ones. Big slopes are fun on a moderately small green but putting 60, 70, 80 feet and up or down between tiers isn't nearly as fun as chipping or pitching the ball, for my part. On Par 3 tee shots a particular hole location can not only add or subtract two clubs from the nominal distance but in fact the carry distance over a hazard doesn't have a simple relationship to the center-of-green distance, as my entire foursome found out on the third hole (and from time to time thereafter).

If I were a good bunker player, I think this course would be enormous fun. By that I don't mean that the course failed to be fun because my sand game is mediocre. I mean that the combination of long and short bunker shots and the intricate oddly-shaped greens really excites the imagination and lets you see all sorts of opportunities to hit it high or low, soft or spinning, with cut spin or dead to get an awkward shot close to the hole somehow. I just found it a little disappointing to see so many opportunities for shots that I don't have (and which would normally be called for maybe once in a round).

I know why lovers of angles and such find this a fun course. There really is enough width in play to be able to imagine some strategic choices off the tee on certain holes. Maybe it is my own unfamiliarity with such strategic width (since players at my level generally try to aim away from trouble and get the ball in play rather than working tee shots in expectation of better angles) but by the end of the round a lot of the fairways had a certain sameness about the landing areas. Not that there weren't plenty of unique and creative holes in the mix but it was almost like the holes that were wide enough to provide multiple strategic options all look kind of alike.

The fairways handled the heavy sprinkler work a little better than at the Barefoot Resort the day before. Only a few shots were from notably muddy lies but that was made up for by the many, many sand-filled divot holes that were in play. Normally I consider it bad luck to have to hit out of one of those once in a round. I lost count but must have faced that shot close to a half-dozen times at True Blue. When you're not playing real well (I ended up shooting 47+54=101 from teh 6,000 yard "White" tees) a course like this is hard enough without wasting strokes trying to hit an approach shot out of a mini-bunker. That's not a knock on the course, just my bad luck that particular day.

I do have one additional knock on the course, however. The greens were slow and grainy. Perhaps I 'd have experienced more of the joy in Strantz's roller-coaster greens if I hadn't had so many downhill putts stop well short of the hole. Seventeen of the eighteen greens at the Barefoot Resort Love course were in better shape and any one green at True Blue. Enough said, they just weren't good to putt on.

Later this evening I'll post my hole-by-hole description of True Blue...

[Brent Hutto]

Here's a pretty straight transcription of what's in my journal, written just a couple hours after finishing my early-morning round at True Blue.

#1 Probably a good opening hole but right into the sun on the tee shot. My third shot hit the steps in the right-hand bunker and buried on the upslope. Since I would have to stand on the steps to hit the shot (and they would interfere with my followthrough) I took what I assume is a free drop in the bunker away from the steps.

#2 Really, really deep narrow green. I hit a fat 8-iron short onto the front edge, hole was back left. Three-putt from 22 yards.

#3 All four of us hit a club for the nominal distance marked on the tee box. Flag was left of center (but not all the way back) which made the carry 135 yards over the water versus the 139 to center marking. Also totally blind due to the rising sun. Three of us used the free (and illegal, right?) drop zone behind the green which was marked with white tee-marker style posts.

#4 Par 5 curving beautifully around the lake. This is what's meant by a Cape hole, no? The three right-handed hackers I was playing with all managed to miss the fairway way to the right (cart path, woods, deep gully). Easy for a lefty hacker to aim right and let it slice into the fat part of the fairway, at least from the tees we were playing. Put my third shot in the front right bunker when it refused to slice. Cool hole.

#5 This is probably my favorite hole at True Blue. The long approach shot has an interesting shallow angle along the waste bunker down the RH side of the fairway and green. Three of us put balls in that bunker. I pulled my three-wood shot maybe 6-7 yards right, hit it straight (darn it, no slice again) and was lucky not to plug under the front lip of the bunker about 25 feet from the right-center hole location. I can't remember if there's any trouble in particular along the left of the hole but in my recollection it basically plays along that right-hand waste bunker the whole way.

#6 We could see the flag from the tee which has to mean they're using the left-fork green (IMO the harder of the two possible approach shots). The tee shot carry from the "White" tees is 135 to the left or 150+ to the right so naturally I hit a low, pulled half-topped shot all the way right and came up a couple yards short of clearing the wetland weeds. My second ball was a good shot to the left, hit my approach in the waste bunker 50 yards short of the left green. Tried to manufacture an 8-iron explosion shot and left the ball in the bunker. Caught all ball with the next shot and airmailed the green so I picked up rather than trying to get up and down from the mulch for my eight. Weird hole.

#7 Very easy short (<140 yards) Par 3. Might be tougher if the hole were up on the hill back right.

#8 Pretty hole. Aim over the rock with yardage plates on the tee boxes to give you the carry distance on that line. The flag was in the middle of the green and there was a "slow zone" of about a five-foot radius around the hole. Standing above the hole you could it was a totally darker shade of green and very grainy. It didn't keep one guy for chipping in for birdie from short right. Nobody else came within a yard of getting a putt to that hole. They need to work on the grass on that green (the worst among many others that day).

#9 People disparage this hole every time they talk about True Blue. They must not like the short layup required if you can't or don't want to do over the wetlands, leaving a long uphill shot after the layup. The green is small and subtle by the standards of this course (although it would be an interesting green on most others). I managed to pull off a one-in-ten-thousand shot so of course I love this hole! After failing to carry the wetlands with a poorly-struck 5-wood I dropped behind the hazard and used that same club to hit a semi-blind, uphill, crosswind shot over the front bunker to a way back-left pin. I climbed up to the green and found the ball four feet from the hole. Made the putt for a par even with a penalty stroke (not common for a short-hitting bogey golfer like me).

#10 Ugly, uncomfortable hole. Sort of a scaled-down version of the fourteenth at Cuscowilla. Too many blind uphill shots over a diagonal echelon of fairway bunkers. I didn't know what yardages to play (should have been in a cart with a yardage guide I guess) so I just eyeballed it and hit a couple of choked-down 4-hybrid shots to lay up for a wedge fourth shot. The wedge shot was off a wet, downhill lie in the fairway and I half-chunked it into the little wetland area running across in front of the green. I should have looked in the (mud, not water) wetland because my ball was quite playable but instead I took a penalty drop, knocked it on the green and two-putted for eight.

#11 Nothing to it, plain-vanilla Par 3 distinguished only by the waste bunker running virtually the whole length of the hole from tee to green.

#12 or #13 I don't remember which Par 4 is which between these two holes but one of them has a tee shot along the road by the driving range and then a pretty approach to a shallow green set up on a ridge. It would look at home on any number of Donald Ross courses, bunker front left IIRC and requiring a right-to-left shot to our left pin position if you're hitting a long club for the approach. I had to attempt a 5-wood from a sand-filled divot and after I chunked that short of the green I was treated to a second mini-bunker in a row for my wedge shot, which also came up short. It was a very nice hole but I didn't get to really experience it, just another in my large set of double-bogeys that day.

#14 Ultimate wraparound bunkering on an otherwise plain-Jane dropshot short Par 3.

#16 Beach bunker (which I hit into, natch). The left-to-right tee shot to a green angling away slightly on that line reminds me of something but I can't remember what hole or where or whether it was even a Par 3, for that matter.

#17 I like the shot I had for my second. It was a layup that should have landed on the right side of that ridge in the fairway (about 80 yards from the hole) and kicked toward the green. I sliced it onto the left-side slope where it stayed and left me hitting off an awkward stance and lie. I had a total short-game meltdown after hitting into the bunker over the green and conceded myself an eight without tapping in my two-footer.

#18 Our tees were way up on this hole, bringing that big mound 150 yards from the green on the right side of the fairway into range. It attracted three of our four tee shots (although one managed to bounce over and into that nasty waste bunker). From the up tees you don't notice how close it is or how much room you have to the left between the mound and the pond. Approach is sort of like the eighteenth at the Barefoot Love course except shorter and on a Par 4. Actually the eighteenth green at the Love course is more interstingly contoured than this one.

[A.G._Crockett]

Brent,
I am really sorry that you didn't have a better experience at True Blue; for what it is worth, I liked it much, much better the second time around, but I'm not willing to say that would be everyone's experience.  Oddly, I think the first hole at Caledonia also goes directly into the sun and the same problem comes up on early morning tee times.

The greens at the Love course are bent, as are the greens at Caledonia; True Blue's are one of the bermuda hybrids.  I'm not sure why the difference given the common ownership, location, and architect, but the greens at True Blue do indeed have much more grain.  More than anything else about course conditions at Myrtle, green conditions vary greatly throughout the year.  

I'll look forward to your hole-by-hole on True Blue.

[A.G._Crockett]

Oops! We crossed in cyberspace.  Give me a little while to read.

[A.G._Crockett]

Brent,
Reading you journal of True Blue, a couple of things come to mind.

The first 4 holes are very difficult to survive without a big number somewhere along the way, and since there are two par 5's in this stretch along with a very difficult par 3, things can get ugly.  The first three greens are all somewhat to very difficult to hit, though I think the #2 green is very cool.  #3 is just tough to hit, no matter what tees you are playing, and I believe that this is a hole that has been softened somewhat from its original version.  #4 is very playable, but a par 5 in which all three shots can find water is going to be a problem for at least somebody in most groups.  All in all, a tough starting stretch on a course that has three par 5's (par 37) on the front, and I think that it's easy to get off to a bad start here.

#6. I have played both greens, and the left green is much, much more difficult to reach, and much more penal to miss.

#10. In many ways, this hole is classic Mike Strantz, and "uncomfortable" is a good word for what he does to you on the tee.  The landing area for the tee shot is enormous, but the string of diagonal bunkers is quite intimidating.  Strantz shows you a shot and you must commit to hit and let it fly, but the shot that he shows you is always MUCH easier than it looks.  (However, this is a hole that you would have to see several times to know your distances for sure.)

#17 and #18.  Very good par 4's that demand accuracy off the tee, but not length.  The approaches are of similar length, but 18 is much more difficult because the green is probably 40 yds. or more deep, rather narrow, and slopes toward the water.  Really a visually intimidating shot, even with a mid to short iron in your hand.

You hit on another classic Strantz feature in your assessment of
#11 and #14.  These two par threes are essentially easy holes of around 130 to 150 yds., but the visuals created by the waste bunkers make them seem much, much more difficult from the tee.  I believe that players often make much, much poorer swings in this circumstance than they normally would from that yardage, and that is a Strantz mainstay.

I absolutely love the par 4's at True Blue.  I don't think there is a weak hole in the group, and I think several are special.  (2, 8, 12, and 13 are favorites.)  The par 3's are average, made better by the waste areas around the greens.  The controversial nature of the course, IMHO, is based on the par 5's, which might take a little more local knowledge than most resort courses require.  But I do think that they grow on you; for instance, I really like #10.

I hope you can get back and play TB again, and also fit in Caledonia.  Your review of the Love course makes me want to get there next July when I'm back.

[Brent Hutto]

The first 4 holes are very difficult to survive without a big number somewhere along the way, and since there are two par 5's in this stretch along with a very difficult par 3, things can get ugly.  The first three greens are all somewhat to very difficult to hit, though I think the #2 green is very cool.  #3 is just tough to hit, no matter what tees you are playing, and I believe that this is a hole that has been softened somewhat from its original version.  #4 is very playable, but a par 5 in which all three shots can find water is going to be a problem for at least somebody in most groups.  All in all, a tough starting stretch on a course that has three par 5's (par 37) on the front, and I think that it's easy to get off to a bad start here.

So I guess I didn't do too badly starting off with four straight bogeys.

#10. In many ways, this hole is classic Mike Strantz, and "uncomfortable" is a good word for what he does to you on the tee.  The landing area for the tee shot is enormous, but the string of diagonal bunkers is quite intimidating.  Strantz shows you a shot and you must commit to hit and let it fly, but the shot that he shows you is always MUCH easier than it looks.  (However, this is a hole that you would have to see several times to know your distances for sure.)

As you say, it's not a hard hole if you pick a safe line and commit to your shot. It's a double whammy the first time you play because without having a good image of the shot in your mind committing to it properly is nigh impossible. The hole certainly isn't as difficult as the fourteenth at Cuscowilla but it is just as "uncomfortable".

#17 and #18.  Very good par 4's that demand accuracy off the tee, but not length.  The approaches are of similar length, but 18 is much more difficult because the green is probably 40 yds. or more deep, rather narrow, and slopes toward the water.  Really a visually intimidating shot, even with a mid to short iron in your hand.

I wish I still had a semblance of a golf swing by that point in the round. I especially like the seventeenth which has the kind of shaping that provides a combination of angles and possibly uneven stances that Mike Strantz is good at imagining. In truth, the two finishing holes are not brutal at all compared to the rest of the course. I would think there are several other two-hole stretches where par-par is more difficult than at the close. I like going with a little more subtlety rather than saving the two hardest holes on the course for the end of the round.

I absolutely love the par 4's at True Blue.  I don't think there is a weak hole in the group, and I think several are special.  (2, 8, 12, and 13 are favorites.)

I'll grant you the second hole and the eighth is very attractive (although something about the green seems unfinished, maybe it's just not as in-your-face as most of the others at True Blue). Of 12 and 13 which is the one that tees off along the road by the driving range? I liked that hole a lot but can't recall whatever was the other hole before or after it.

The par 3's are average, made better by the waste areas around the greens.  

Yes, the weakest part of the course. Other than #3 they really should be easy pars. Of the courses I've played recently I'd say Athens CC, Cuscowilla and Barefoot Love all had more interesting shots, greens and short-game options than the set at True Blue (although #3 makes up for a lot).