A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

It’s old news for those from the Wilkie area that the local golf course has finally taken the next step and replaced their wretched ‘oil sand’ greens (if you can honestly call them greens with a straight face) with actual real-life, grass greens. Even though the greens have been ‘live’ for the entire season, I was never able to get a round in at the Wilkie course when I was in town visiting my folks. Circumstances such as weather, mosquitoes, or being just plain busy kept me from experiencing Wilkie’s new found glory.

At the last minute this week, I decided I could use a good country getaway, so I headed back to visit my parent’s. I had three things on my agenda:

1) I had a few photographic ideas that I wanted to work through.

2) Get my fill of mother’s cooking.

3) Finally get a round of golf in.

I’m happy to say that I managed to get get through my entire checklist. When I woke up Sunday morning, the sun was shining and there was a slight wind. I decided to head out to the course and take advantage of the weather. I was on the course by 10:00, and it was already getting really hot.

I could see the first green off about 380 yards from the tee-box. There was a father and his young son not too far ahead of me, and they let me play through. I had a decent drive and then played a 6 iron to within a foot of the green. When I was up to the green, I could see how good of shape they were actually in. It seems that my friends were telling the truth. Like they said, the size was also decent. It was by no means, huge, but it was a good size. I could also see that there seemed to be a hefty amount of slope to it as well. After my chip on, I had a reasonable putt for par. I read the green and fired away. It seems I didn’t really it very well. I finished with a bogey.

The first hole pretty much sums up my entire round. I was playing extremely well - driving straight, and chipping well. I can honesly say that I didn’t ‘duff’ one shot. I was hitting the ball solidly. The planets must have been aligned, or something. Out of the nine holes, I was putting for par, or birdy on all but one - yet I still managed to only convert on one of them. Frankly, the greens ate me up. I guess my friends were telling the truth on this front as well. No word of a lie, these are the toughest greens I have every played. As soon as I finished my round, I wanted to get out there and play again - to see if I could redeem myself on the putting front - but there was some delicious lunch waiting for me at home.

Overall, I am really impressed with what Wilkie has done to their course. My golf buddies in Guelph always used me as a punch line of jokes in regards to my hometowns’ sand greens. But now I invite any of them to come out here and try their luck with them - they’re difficult, almost to the point of being ridiculous.

Note: I went out for my round with the intention of taking some quick snapshots, but when I went to take my first one, it seems I forgot to carry a memory card. Boo!