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While there's nothing more important to me than the design of a golf course as a determinant of my enjoyment, I do enjoy golf course ephemera. The choices clubs make about the little implements that guide and accent the playing experience are interesting to me. Some courses and clubs keep it simple and clean, while others seem to pile on the pieces of flair.
The Club at New Seabury seems to have found a tasteful level of indulgence in these sorts of knickknacks. Their two courses use different styles of tee marker, bound by a common theme: boats. It's fitting, since the club spans 1,500 acres along Nantucket Sound on a southeast-facing stretch of Cape Cod. The Ocean Course, whose front nine is one of the most scenic stretches of golf in New England, uses painted cleats, which are metal protrusions used on and around boats for securing rope. I could have used something to tether my golf ball to the course on Wednesday, buffeted as it was by 30 mile per hour winds on the Ocean Course's open front side. The Dunes Course's tee markers are wooden blocks with rope wrapped around them.
Not being much of a boat person myself, I had no idea what a cleat was before my round. Now I do. It's far from a life-changing discovery, but it is a nice, quaint Jeopardy!-clue-type souvenir of a trip to a golf club with a clear sense of place.
Comments (5)
Tim - The Cape and Club at New Seabury are made for that smooth lefty swing of yours! The wind has stopped— you should come back!
Tim, its about time that Augusta National starts using something other than branches for their tee markers. How about miniature white log cabins or a smaller version of the trophy. So many tournaments have thoughtful tee markers and a branch just doesn't do it for me at Augusta!
I hear what you're saying, Geeg, but my guess is that the Green Jackets regard the branch tee markers as in keeping with the club's arboretum-like setting. I've noticed a lot of other courses use those kinds of tee markers, too. Another way in which other courses try to invoke Augusta, for better and worse.
We recently played Lost Marsh in Hammond Indiana and the tee markers looked like pieces of steel we thought were because of the steel mills we could see from the course. We found out from a friend that played there they were railroad tracks that were there because the are used to be a major hub for trains
Sounds perfect, Chuck! I think a lot of people regard heavy industry as a nuisance when it bumps up against golf. I much prefer when courses embrace it, rather than pretend it isn't there. Hope I can play Lost Marsh sometime.