Remembering a thread recently about giving the biz to 'mom and pop' courses, I thought I would give some love to a fine one near the Poconos called Sugarloaf Golf Club. This is a course designed by Geoffrey Cornish many years ago (1966) that is a wonderful place to play if you are in the area and want an alternative to Tilly's Valley Country Club (yeah, VCC is better).
I played there last Saturday and was a little too late to catch the course w/ the views at the peak, but I think you'll get the feeling this place is located in a beautiful part of the country. I'm probably most impressed by the variety of greens at S'loaf. Some are relatively boring, but others are quite contoured and varied and I think work w/ the land quite well. Ok, as Marti DeBergi once said, enough of my yakkin', let's get to the pics:
One of the first really interesting greens is on the par 4 4th. A tiny green with a spine running through the middle so that 3 distinct pins are possible and you better get on the right tier or else:
The fifth green sits at the end of a hill on a nice par 5; the figure 8 shape makes the middle pin perhaps the most challenging:
The green at the par 4 8th:
The green on the scenic, very downhill 9th is canted very much from back to front to allow the 2nd shot a backstop:
The view from the tee on the par 5 12th, the highest part of the course. A drive here seems like it is in the air for a minute!
I really like how the green on the par 4 13th has been located against the hill:
The 14th is a par 5 reachable in two, but requires a 2nd shot over water, typically from a slightly downhill lie:
The green on the 14th is fun too:
The 15th hole is perhaps the longest par 3 from the tips I've played in years, coming in at 266 yards:
The green on the 15th is two-tiered:
The 16th is a par 4 head-scratcher. This view from about 200 yards out shows the big tree located near the bend in the dogleg. You either stay short of it, or try to drive past it to have a short iron in:
And the green at the 16th is devilish, the pin this day very difficult to get at:
Overall it is a fun layout. I'd give it a Doak 5. They seem to battle with wetness on #2 and #16 fairways, and some of the traps struggle to drain. But it is hard to quibble with the price (25 bucks on Saturday).
As always, I have many more photos of the course and they are here with my specific comments:
http://darwin.chem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/Sugarloaf/index.htmlI welcome your comments as usual.