Stewart, your trek and pictures remind us that golf is a great game. Can't wait to tell my friends we GOTTA play Pehquenakonck and Vails Grove because they are "destination" courses now.
I don't know if its more amazing, or completely understandable, that TWO courses such as these exist within literal walking distance of one another. And perhaps Stewart can attest from his own visit, in the last 20 years, I've never seen more than 10 cars in the lot nor more than 15 golfers on each course. I drive by both (they are along a "beat-traffic" short cut from 684 to 84) weekly and those numbers are smaller every year...doesn't matter the day or time of day, they are ghost towns, which adds to the surreal sense of both places.
This was different in the early mid 80s when I was a teenager... Vails was really, really busy on weekends; you might have a half hour wait and had to pair up with singles/2somes...I stopped by a month ago...2 pm on a hot Saturday, not a soul to be seen.
VK - We had an 8:15 tee time at Pehquenakonck. I didn't make an earlier time as we had a 50 minute drive and had to cross the TZ Bridge and there is construction of the Saw Mill. I didn't expect to be the first ones out that morning but we were. We actually teed off a few minutes before 8:00 and saw three twosomes on the course after us, a dad and his 5 year old son, two teenaged boys and two young women. It was a great day to play temp wise, but there was very overcast with a slight mist and a chance of rain, so that might have reduced demand that morning. We darted by 9:30. In hindsight we should have played 18 as they have two sets of tees for each hole and we had plenty of time to kill before Vails Grove.
Vails Grove has a men's club that has use of the course on Thursdays until 12:30. They wouldn't let us make a tee time. Instead I was told to show up and they would get us out on a first come-first served basis at 12:30. The men's club had a shotgun start with a foursome on each hole and one fivesome, so there were a bunch of cars in the lot. They play the nine hole course twice using different tees each go-round.
It is less than a five minute drive between the courses. We stopped at a cafe called Hayfields which is halfway between the two courses on the corner of Rte 121 and Bloomer Rd. It is a combo cafe and florist in a building that was a gas station. The food and coffee were good and it was much busier than either golf course. After eating we couldn't think of anything else to do to kill time until 12:30 so we drove to Vails Grove. It was impeccable timing as the last group to go through had just finished playing the first hole for the second time so they let us out on #1 with the caveat that we not ask any of the members to let us to play through. We were behind the fivesome, but they had five riding carts and played fast so we didn't have too many long waits. We often played two balls each and played the seventh and eighth holes twice.
I know that's more info than needed
Peter -Just set their expectations. For the right players these courses will be a lot of fun, but I know many who would say WTF.