Favorite Things

Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Seventh fairway of Dogwood Course, facing east. I took this while standing just downslope from the tee, looking downhill toward Dogwood Lake (the south end of the lake is in the center of the photo). The slightly sloping (but mostly horizontal) line just below the center of the photo is a cart path.

This hole is a long par 5. The fairway goes down to the lake, then around the south end of the lake (right hand side of this photo), and then doglegs north. In this view the green is hidden by the trees on the left-hand side of the photo.

Highly skilled golfers can drive to within perhaps 50 yards of the near lake shore and then hit their seond shot across the lake. There is a (small) "secret" landing area over there where a fade trajectory on a second shot will kick toward the green. (I can't do this -- not even in my dreams -- but I've seen it done. I once saw a woman -- who had hit from the (men's) white tee marker -- play the hole this way; her third shot was a chip from perhaps 5 yards off the edge of the green. Actually, I've hardly played golf since I moved here. Many years ago, when I did play, I fantasized about a time when I could play golf every day. Now I could, but I don't. Go figure.)

Incidentally, I number the holes from "one" for each of the three 9-hole golf courses. Sometimes, Houndslake talks like they have an 18-hole couse and a 9-hole course. In that nomemclature, the Dogwood course is the back nine of the 18-hole cousre (and this is the 16th hole, not the 7th)


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