I was going to wait to post a POW review until the thread made it to page 2, but it doesn't work that way. The others who write these course insights are much better suited, but here goes my memories of yesterday's round:
Greens: Up to 5 feet of elevation change, mostly low front to high back. Greens were announced to be stimping at 12'7". Whoever siad to stay below the hole was right. Some, but not many, internal green surface contours, mainly in the form of ridges. #12, a medium length par 4, had a hump in the front center of the green, with pin mid left. I had to navigate the mound, so I chipped from 10 feet short of the green with a six iron. I bumped it into the side of the mound facing me, it sloped hard off the back left of the mound leaving me a tap in from inches behind the hole. That was fun.
I think the green with most elevation change was the first par 5 on the front 9, #2 maybe? I started on # 15, and am not looking at anything for a card reference. Anyway, the approach is over a large, unmaintained swale, with a large green running high left to low right. My driver/ 9 iron/ 9 iron approach leaves me only 80 feet from the hole, all uphill. I did mange to leave myself with an easy 20 footer for par though. And my 5 footer for bogey back downhill seemed easy. #9 is almost a redan from the forward tee they had us play. I fired right at the pin since the greens were holding very well. The course had .10" of rain the night before.
Routing: This is the part of a course I'm just starting to appreciate. POW has plenty of room to play, but a few holes are best suited to low, long irons off the tee. #5, I believe, is one of those holes. Dogleg left with your eyeballs filled with trees from the tee. I hit 3 wood, because I have confidence in my ability to draw it. We started on #15(shotgun), so thankfully I can't even attempt at course ebb and flow descriptions!
Bunkers: Bunkers were large, groomed and not too difficult to play from. I would say that most bunkers were in predictable places: Landing areas, corners of doglegs, and fronting/ flanking most greens. I tried a few out, just to be able to write about them. I was able to putt out of 2 different bunkers, if that tells you anything.
Trees: Yes, there's a lot. I felt that corridors and landing areas were fair, and I didn't see where the trees had overtaken any hazards in terms of vision/ line of play. I saw a few areas where trees were removed around greens, but serious tree thinning wasn't evident.
Overall: My first impression is that POW is a highly manicured, tight in places, first rate private club. I enjoyed the round, managed to stay below the hole despite a lot of front pins, and had to play my heart out around the greens to shoot 76. I look forward to tackling it again.
Joe