Course Profile: Lake Presidential Golf Club

One of the newest golf courses in the Washington D.C. metro area is also becoming one of the area’s finest public facilities. Lake Presidential, located in Upper Marlboro, Md., opened to the public during the spring of 2008. The course is one of the most recent projects for Landmark Land, a golf and resort community developer well-known for projects to include PGA West and La Quinta, each of which has hosted multiple PGA Tour events.

Lake Presidential’s origins trace back to a different development company, however, as the land was originally routed by Greg Norman’s design company during the late 1990’s. According to Nathan Presnal, the current Head Professional and General Manager at Lake Presidential, Norman was involved with the land in a hands-on fashion. “Norman was on the property at least once during the time his company was routing the land,” said Presnal, “but a moratorium on golf course construction in the late 1990’s resulted in Norman’s company losing interest.” Norman’s loss was Landmark’s gain, as shortly after the moratorium was lifted, a real estate developer teamed up with Landmark through their connection on previous work in Houston and the plan for Lake Presidential was born.

Real Estate 101

In the modern age of golf course construction, the focus on features surrounding the golf course are almost as important as the golf course itself. Lake Presidential was designed from the start to be featured in a golf course community called Beechtree. The matter of building a golf course surrounded by homes is no simple matter, trying to achieve the balance of a great residential community without disturbing the golfing public. “In the master plan of a community, you want to try optimize the elevations for real estate, not only to get good real estate views, but to make sure you don’t have houses on the cart paths just to get those views,” said Presnal. There are currently over 400 residences in the Beechtree community, and according to the front page of their website, over 600 of Beechtree’s 1,200 acres will remain open space for the homeowners to enjoy.

During my time on the golf course, I found it noticable that the course is built in a residential community, however, I would not by any means call it obtrusive in any regard. Most of the courses in the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area feature similar housing developments, and Lake Presidential’s layout is among the best.

High Praise

From its earliest days Lake Presidential has received high praise from the golf media. In Golfweek’s ranking issue published in March, less than one year after Lake Presidential’s opening, the publication ranked the course No. 2 behind only Bulle Rock in its overall ranking. In 2008, the same magazine listed the course as one of the top-25 new courses for 2008. On their website, Golf Magazine wrote that “the only point of debate here is which par 5 is better: the fishhook-shaped, 570-yard 8th, which features a tee shot from out of a chute of trees, or the reachable 515-yard 18th, which tackles the namesake lake from the get-go with an imposing, forced-carry tee shot.”  The site also makes note that it named Lake Presidential one of the Best New Courses for 2008.

The Future at Lake Presidential

Although the course has only been opened for less than two years, the staff at Lake Presidential continues to strive for improvement. Perhaps the lone criticism among online course reviews comes down on the course’s extensive use, citing divot-filled fairways and worn tee boxes. Presnal acknowledges that the course can look well-used at times, although that’s not always a bad thing. “The positive is that if you have worn tee boxes, then you know you’re getting lots of players, and that is a great problem to have,” said Presnal. He continued to explain that the greenskeeping staff at Lake Presidential have employed extensive measures to attempt to solidify the turf from tee to green through regular maintenance which is for the most part invisible to the everyday player. “Our groundskeeping philosophy has a lot to do with topdressing and putting lots of sand on the course. First of all, this helps to improve the drainage and keep us in good shape during the inevitable rainy periods. Second, this process creates a stronger root system which will help the turf once the hot weather comes next summer,” explained Presnal. Their process of topdressing begins by punching tiny holes in the tees, fairways, and greens, and then adding a layer of sand as topdressing, a process which when repeated regularly has eliminated the need for a fall round of green aerations, which of course is welcome news for all who have ever putted on a freshly punched green.

Though the greenskeeping staff does not have any large scale plans ahead of them, they are working on a couple of smaller changes to make life easier for the everyday player. “We are in the process of building an additional tee box on the first hole which will play to 340 yards,” said Presnal. “We have heard comments that the opening hole can lead to a difficult start, and this new tee will allow players a better chance to get around the dog leg and open up the hole a bit more,” he added. Presnal also explained that the staff is continuing to conduct select clearing, where instead of removing entire trees, they remove the underbrush from the sides of the fairways, causing fewer lost balls and allowing the player to advance his or her ball back to the fairway as opposed to having to drop.

The course also continues to look toward the future in terms of hosting events, both single-day and those which may span the course of a weekend. In their young history, Lake Presidential has already held several day-long tournaments. “Last year we held a qualifier for the Maryland State Amateur tournament,” explained Presnal, “And we have also hosted The Golf Channel’s Amateur Tour several times as well. Once we get into our third and fourth year, and hopefully more good rankings come out, the course will catch the attention of more people.”

Course Review: Cog Hill Golf Club, No. 4 Course (a.k.a. Dubsdread)

Course: Cog Hill Golf Club, Course No. 4
Location: 12294 Archer Avenue Lemont, IL
Yardages: 5441 (red)/6033 (green)/6382 (white) /6750 (blue) / 7144 (gold) / 7554 (black)
Website: http://www.coghillgolf.com

During a recent roadtrip with college buddies, I had the privilege to play the No. 4 course at Cog Hill Golf Club, also known as Dubsdread. The course will be hosting the BMW Championship later this month, the third of four stops in the FedEx Playoff series. Let me start by saying this is by far the nicest course I have played in my life, and thus my review may be most positive than others, however, I would contest there is not much to dislike when it comes to Cog Hill No. 4.

The course has a tradition of hosting golf tournaments at the highest level, to include the Western Open Championship from 1991-2007, the 1997 U.S. Amateur, and as previously mentioned, will be hosting the BMW Championship through at least 2011. Although it has the storied history, the course was renovated between Sept. 2007 and Sept. 2008, and is truly a different test than the old Dubsdread.

The course is ranked No. 45 in Golf Digest’s “America’s 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses,” and No. 1 in Golfweek’s “Best Courses You Can Play.” I am not sure, but I think these ratings may have been prior to the renovation, and I would be interested to see the overall reviews of the course post-renovation. The renovation was conducted by Rees Jones, know as the Open Doctor for his work on courses such as Bethpage Black and Torrey Pines among others. (I am no expert, but I can certainly foresee the Open heading to Cog Hill No. 4 in the next decade or so.)

The greens fee of $150 includes cart and a small bucket of balls to warm up with. Perhaps my only two complaints lie here, both the fact that carts were quite old and slow, and for a fee of $150, I feel one should be allowed to hit 1,000 warm up balls if he or she so desires. (On our given day it was warm, so 10 balls into the warmup session I was drenched in sweat and ready to give up on the range.)

The practice facilities include a grass driving range, a small short game area which includes a regulation-sized green and several angles to chip from, and a monstrous putting green featuring plenty of room to hit putts from all angles and elevations. I’m not sure I could have hit a sand wedge from one end of the green to the other, it seemed to travel on forever.

As for the course itself, it was literally perfect. When the course was renovated, almost every blade of grass was torn up, to include every tee box and every green. This resulted in perfect teeing ground, flat as a pancake and perfect angles. Except for divots from the those playing that day, there were no imperfections on any of the tees. Each box had a yardage plate, and given that they are only a year old, you can assume they are pretty accurate.

The fairways are lush, perfectly manicured, and each and every sprinkler-head was marked. Since the carts are not GPS equipped, these markings were much appreciated, providing distance to the front, middle, and back of the greens.

The most memorable, and costly in terms of strokes, are the bunkers on the course, all 98 of them. I’ll do the math for you, that’s over 5 bunkers per hole. They have all been rebuilt, and can be very punishing if when you find them. The quality of sand is very good, and even after a major rainstorm, they were still very playable and seemed to soak up the water very well.

The course is quite lengthy, playing almost 7,600 yards from the back tees. During our round the back tees were closed in preparation for the coming event, and we played the blue tees which measured 6,750, still lengthy from that tee level. One of the many changes they made during the reconstruction was to create additional teeing grounds, and each hole now has numerous teeing options. This is likely a feature aimed at demonstrating the course’s versatility to host a major such as the U.S. Open, giving the USGA flexibility in how they setup the course.

Overall, very high praise for the redesign of Cog Hill No. 4. I did not have the opportunity to play the course prior to the redesign, however, after seeing numerous photographs in the clubhouse and watching video of the tournament held there in 2007, it is quite evident that the course has changed significantly. The $150 price tag may scare those not native to the area, but when you consider the other premier options in the Chicago area, the price is not unreasonable. Highly recommended, and I’ll give it five stars on the Palm scale.

Musket Ridge Golf Club

Once again lacking on posts, summer is such a busy time for weddings and other travel obligations. Hope to be more steady with the posts...

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Course: Musket Ridge Golf Club
Location: Myersville, Maryland
Yardages: 5,333 (r) / 5,884 (w) / 6416 (b) / 6902 (g)
Website: http://www.musketridge.com/

Several weeks back I had the opportunity to play at Musket Ridge Golf Club off of I-70 out in Myersville, Maryland. The course has recently been ranked seventh in the state by Golfweek Magazine in its rankings of public golf courses. I was playing in an outing, so my experience is a little different because of that, but I can certainly say from pulling in the parking lot to putting the clubs back in the trunk, it was a fantastic day. I have nothing but high praise for this course, and want to highlight some of the best aspects of Musket Ridge.

The course was designed by famed architect Joe Lee, who lists Cog Hill, Doral, and Bay Hill on his lengthy resume. Overall, the course has a fairly challenging layout, featuring few flat lies, numerous giant bunkers, and plenty of tall fescue to find as you travel through the beautiful Maryland countryside. The course features many wide fairways, though it is quick to punish a poorly struck shot that misses the fairway by more than a few feet. Though some holes would be considered “tight” from the tee, by and large they are more than fair and oftentimes the short length allows the player to hit a fairway metal or long iron and still face a reasonable approach into the green.

It is hard to pick a signature hole on this course, as given the beautiful terrain it is laid upon, there are several tee shots with breathtaking views. The majority of tee shots require some strategy, as it is certainly not a golf course conducive to automatically pulling driver for every par 4. Once you have found the fairway, golfers are left with reasonable approach shots into fairly large greens. Miss the green, however, and there is a good possibility you will find yourself in one of the course’s many large bunkers. The greens were in great shape, each putt rolling true as can be. The rest of the course was nearly perfect, both tees and fairways in great shape, and the rough was plush with deadpan nowhere to be found (despite the recent lack of rain).

The service in the clubhouse as well as on the course was terrific, a well stocked pro shop and bar provide a nice after-round setting. The course features a full grass practice facility and giant practice green, both of which are complimentary with a greens fee purchase.

Short of being closer to my house (I know...) I think this is an idea golf setting for both the advanced and intermediate level player. I give it the highest of recommendations, and a 4.5 on the Palm scale. With regard to this, and any other course I review, I’d be glad to answer any other questions you might have.

Course Review -- Hobbit's Glen Golf Club, Columbia, MD

note: been a busy couple weeks, so somewhat behind on posting. Apologies for that...
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Course: Hobbit's Glen Golf Club
Location: 11130 Willowbottom Dr., Columbia, MD
Yardages: 5434 (r)/6162 (g)/6687 (w) /7078 (b)
Website: http://www.columbiagolf.net/


In the first (of hopefully many) course review I present Hobbit's Glen Golf Club in Columbia, Md. Hobbits Glen is owned by the Columbia Association (CA), and is a semi-private course open to CA members and their guests. Not being a CA member, this is the only the second time I have played at the course. I volunteer with the Special Olympics of Howard County golf program, and Hobbit's Glen is one of the courses that host the program. (Periodically following our golf lessons the kind folks at Hobbit's Glen allow coaches to play a few holes before dark, and thus I’ve only played the first few on the front.)

The course is considered one of the best, if not the best, in Howard County, and has been voted Best Golf Club in Howard County by Columbia Magazine’s Howard County Readers’ Poll for the last eight years. The course has also hosted the State Farm Senior Classic on three occasions earlier this decade. I would be curious if the course has made any efforts lately to acquire any other tournaments at the PGA, LPGA, or Champions Tour level, and may just inquire about that....so stay tuned.

One of my favorite aspects of Hobbit's Glen is their practice facilities. In addition to a nice driving range, they feature a large practice green as well as a large chipping and pitching area, complete with bunker and fairway which can accommodate practice shots up to nearly 100-yards. The driving range features a large turf hitting area, however, every time I have visited the range the turf area was closed and golfers were limited to traditional artificial mats. The practice green has a very large surface area, and features both holed-out cups as well as some pins without cups, providing numerous targets across the green. Additionally, the holes are well placed, affording the player an opportunity to hit a putt from literally all angles and slopes. I did not have the opportunity to visit the short-game area this time around, but from a distance it appeared to be in good shape and a excellent venue for an intense short-game practice session.

In terms of length, Hobbit's Glen is not extremely long, through by no means is it a short course. The course plays to over 6600 yards from the white tees (over 7000 for blues), and features two par fours of 420+ yards. There are no “short” par 5’s, but a couple are reachable for long hitters with two good shots. The course is very fair, in that there are several tight holes, along with several others which are more wide-open. One of the nicer features of Hobbit's Glen is the scorecard, available here, which includes a detailed yardage book typically found only at more exclusive clubs. The course features a bar and grill, The Coho Grill, which serves typical bar food. I did not eat anything there, so cannot speak for it, but from what I have heard from others, it is above average for golf course food.

One word of advice, as is similar with many courses in the Baltimore/Washington metro area, the course is not friendly to walkers. There are several spots on the course where there is a considerable walk between the green and the next tee, sometimes to the point where if a foursome in carts were playing behind you, they would probably be able to catch you while you were making the trek to the next tee.

One other word of caution is that the club experienced difficulty in greening their fairways this season. Please see (undated) quote below for more detail, but basically several fairways have large dead spots, and in the outing I played in recently, free drops were given if your ball landed in one of these dead spots.

I would like to provide an update on the progress and condition of the fairways at Hobbit's Glen. As you have seen, there are a number of areas, mainly in wet and shaded areas, where the Bermuda grass is not doing well yet this season. It is, however, improving from day to day. This week we started an aggressive program of sprigging, sodding or seeding areas that require our attention. This process will be essentially complete by the end of this week. Previous sprigging experience tells us that we will be mowing these areas within two weeks or so. Many fairways are in relatively good shape at this point. Holes one, four, six, nine, and seventeen are good examples. Other fairways are in good condition with the exception of some isolated areas. In total, about 1.5 acres of turf were affected by the weather conditions. The pre-emergent that was applied in April has slowed the recovery process. The fairways will fully recover over the next month, but you will see an improvement each time you come out to play.

This spring has been unusually difficult for the Bermuda grass, but great conditions are soon to come. I have spoken to other superintendents growing Bermuda grass in this area, and they are seeing similar winter damage. We all believe it occurred in the early spring with the drastic swing in temperatures and cloudy conditions. Last year we had just a few areas that needed attention. The fairways at Hobbit's Glen pose several challenges regardless of the turf type. Shade and drainage are the two most difficult to deal with, but we have a comprehensive, ongoing plan to address these issues. Addressing these issues will minimize winter kill events in the future. We are dedicated to improving the conditions.

The fees are somewhat complicated depending on your particular situation, so instead of posting them here, I will instead provide the link to the fees.

All in all, a highly recommended course...3.5 stars out of five on the Palm scale. With regard to this, and any other course I review, I’d be glad to answer any other questions you might have.

Top Ten in Maryland?

In case any locals are browsing, here is the top-ten public courses in Maryland, published by golf.com in Sept. 2008. I can only claim to have played on course on the list, Maryland National, and was very impressed with the course. I think it would be an admirable goal to try and play the rest by year's end... edit: looks like course #3 on the list is closed as they appear to building residences on the course instead.

1. Bulle Rock, Havre de Grace
2. Links at Lighthouse Sound, Bishopville
3. Beechtree, Aberdeen
4. River Marsh, Cambridge
5. Atlantic Golf at Queenstown Harbor (River), Queenstown
6. Maryland National, Middletown
7. Rum Pointe, Berlin
8. Whiskey Creek, Urbana
9. Rocky Gap, Flintstone
10. Musket Ridge, Myersville

Blog Topics

Here are a few things I plan to write about...

• Course Reviews -- mostly limited to Maryland/DC courses, and probably a couple in NE Ohio where I grew up.
  
• New Golf Gadgets -- the industry continually develops new toys aimed to make life easier on the golf course. Many of which I am skeptical of, but others may be useful. Such hands-on reivews will be subject to budgetary constraints...but who knows, maybe we get a few readers and companies start sending me stuff...
• TV Coverage Reviews -- not rehashing the golf shot-by-shot, rather looking at the way in which it was covered. I unfortunately don't get to watch all four rounds each week, so these will be sporadic at best.
• PGA Tour Insider -- again, not shot-by-shot, but hope to look at the inside of the tour happenings, and maybe not just limited to the PGA. As time permits will look at LPGA, Senior, and Nationwide tours.
• Book Reviews -- many a journalist has written about the game, going to look at some of the better works, past and present.

I am also a believer that there are many out there with more time/dedication than I have to put into this blog, so I will try to highlight the best of these blogs as time permits. I know this is a popular feature on many other blogs, so I will try my best not to reinvent the wheel.