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| By way of comparison: It costs a princely $225.00 to play one round of golf at the Harbor Town Golf Links on Hilton Head. They charge $250.00 to tee it up at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. It will set you back $275.00 to play the Donald Ross museum called Pinehurst #2. And new owner Arnold Palmer collects a libidinous $1,400.00 from each foursome teeing off number one at Pebble Beach. Three hundred and fify bucks for each player. Whatever happened to golf as you and I knew it? Most of us learned the game by playing loop after loop on little nine-hole tracks formerly populated by cows and corn. We got dropped off by somebody's father at 7:30 on summer mornings, and got picked up nine hours later...sunburned and full of stories about our incredible golfing feats and near misses and "career drives". An all-day green fee cost about as much as a three-ball sleeve of Acushnet "Club Specials". Which leads me right in the clubouse of the 6,311 yard Apple Hill Golf Club in East Kingston, New Hampshire. First things first: You'll only need to bring three ten-dollar bills with you. It costs a mere twenty-five bucks to play eighteen here! And two hot dogs and a large soft drink at the snack bar won't even use up a five-spot. Why are there so many terific golf holes at Apple Hill? The answer: good old-fashion golf course architecture, 18,000 year-old architecture....the place was mostly designed by a receding glazier! Then, you build a nice little tee at the top of that hill. Next, you build a green at the bottom of that hill. Then you build a tee next to that green...and you go back up the hill! And so on. Then you mow the areas between the tees and the greens. That's it. You use the real land, the original topography. As much as possible, you leave the landscape alone, undistrubed. And finally, if you respect nature, you name your golf course after the hill itself. An so, at Apple Hill, the 378-yard first hole, and 422-yard sixth and the 374-yard eigth are a golfing optimist's favorite metaphor. These three holes are wide open, plunging down the hill, with unprotected greens more than 100 joyful feet below the elevation of the tees. count the hang time on your drive....six seven eight nine...And watch your ball finally land and explode forward and go further down the hill, strainght toward the ultimate target. WOW, what a bomb! And life is good! But wait...our automobiles are parked at the top of that very same hill! And we have to play our way back home. So at Apple Hill we must also contend with the uphill 386-yard seventh and the uphill 380-yard ninth and the monstrous up the hill 448-yard par four finishing hole. These are the three holes that traverse back up the steep incline, straight up from tees to greens with that same, but now painful, elevation change of more than 100 feet. And particularly the straightaway eighteenth! At least the seventh and the ninth holes have the decency to be doglegs that therefore mask some of the uphill pain. But from the 18th tee, the ultimate target - straight on - appears impossibly distant. "Are you sure this is a par four?", someone in my playing group asks me. But then that same player hits his best of the day straight "up the middle" of the fairway, and then a brave three-wood to the green's front edge, and then a bold chip that stops less than f foot away. "I'll take a four on this hole any day of the week," he says with obivious pride. OK, Apple HIll is certainly not in "US Open condition" But, then again neither am I! The fairways and rough are a bit spotty. But so is my iron play. The greens are slow (probably about 3 on the Stimp Meter)...But, hey, I wish every green in the world was set to Apple Hill speed. Less three putts! And, finally, there are a couple of funky holes out there (you tee off with mid iron on the par-four 16th). But, hey friend, don't kid yourself....there are funky holes at the hallowed course in Augusta, Georgia too. The uphill par fours at Apple Hill make everthing worthwhile...as do the truly breathtaking views to the North from the hilltop tees and from the deck of the clubhouse. As the song goes "I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles...and each day at their own pace, change their colors. And there is no better plance in New England to witness this annual autumn miracle than from the top of Apple Hill. When I was a kid, my father told me over and over again that a real golfer, a real player, was someone who could truly enjoy himself on any golf course, no matter what. And today, watching my playing companion tap in for his hard-won par four on the eightenth at Apple Hill...seeing the enormous grin on his face...I finally understood. My father was saying that - once the golf game has begun, once the first tee shots have been hit - the joys and sorrows of playing a Pebble Beach or a Pinehurst and of playing an Apple Hill are pretty much the same. That being said, Apple Hill Golf Club in East Kingston, New Hampshire is just one heck of a golfing value. Robert Sprague |
