Swing into Golf this Fall!
I was fortunate that I was able to play two courses last week, none so far this week. The two that I played were Wildwood Green and Wil-Mar. Each of these courses has its benefits and negatives, but they are both challenging and fair courses. I wanted to give you a brief update as to the condition of these courses in the event you are planning on playing one or both of these courses soon.
Wildwood Green, which I played a week ago Sunday was in amazing condition. The greens were very hard and very fast. Speaking to one of the club professionals after my round, he informed me that they were keeping the greens fast for the Pro-Am that was being played the following day. I imagine they have adjusted the speed of the greens to make them more fair for the amateur golfer since then. With the fast greens, it was a challenge to play these greens, until I was able to get the feel of the greens. The front nine, I actually had 19 putts, which is high for me. I finally got the feel of the greens on the back and had only 14 putts. For the first time in years, I four putted the first hole, but then again, I hadn’t realized the speed of the greens at that point.
The fairways and tee boxes at Wildwood was also in pristine condition. I did not see any instance of muddy fairways throughout my round. Lately, the fairways have been playing very well for this course. Of course, I am sure they will be doing work throughout the fall and winter months to maintain the conditions and get it ready for Spring. I would highly recommend this course and if you are not a member, please contact me and I will get you on the course to check it out. Membership at Wildwood is very modest and not very expensive. They recently had a minor increase in dues, but it is still affordable, especially considering the improving conditions of this course.
Wil-Mar is a semi-private course that is more public than private. It is located near Knightdale and is a great course to work on some aspects of your game. When I played it last week, the course was in very good condition. The tee boxes needed some work, but the fairways and greens were solid. The greens were not very fast, but faster than they have been in the past. It had been at least 3 months since I played this course, and the greens were much slower at that point. Recently, they re-seeded many of the greens there and they have bounced back better than ever.
Wil-Mar is very reasonable in price and the last I saw, they had a program that if you purchase one round of golf, you can play all day. This makes it very appealing. Wil-Mar offers memberships at very reasonable rates, great if you live in the area. Wil-Mar has a very unique setup as it has 6 Par 3s and 5 Par 5s. You do not see this much, but the additional short holes allows you an opportunity to work on your short game. A couple of the Par 5s are reachable in two if you get off the tee well. I would recommend this course as it is a great, inexpensive place to play a round of golf while working on many areas of your game.
