Changed golf course

Thursday night 90 mph winds came through and took down a hundred plus trees from the local course.  Spent the last two days running a payloader pushing them into a pile whilst everybody else sawed and hauled.  Might have a third of them picked up.  Only plus I can see is that it will play a hell of a lot easier now.  They are hoping to open the back nine up by Monday.  The front nine could take a week or more.

Sound's like The Almighty wanted that track playing like a links course. When I was young, I hated trees lining fairways and guarding greens. Later on, I learned to use them as alignment tools and targets since I could never hit what I am aiming at but close gives you a good cigar. And if you play where it gets hot, its always a bunch cooler in their shade and if its real hot and the play is real slow, I make sure to favor the shady side of a fairway off the tee.  Another benefit is when you have to go, a tree with substantial lower girth makes an honorable shield for pissing behind. 

A local muni built around a huge city reservoir features pine some deciduous trees on all 18 holes smack in the middle of a pine forest. In fact, the course is called "Pine Ridge" and they ain't kidding. The course was built in the mid 1950's and I started playing it in the late '70's when I moved down here. Lots of the holes are doglegs and when I was in my 30's and 40's, I could carry some of them some of the time. As the years passed, I noticed that despite my better drivers that went farther with graphite shafts than the steel ones I used earlier, my distance was decreasing so that I could no longer carry them. Then with the advent of the internet and archived photo availability, I noticed that those white pines on the left of doglegs that I used to cut wre maybe 20-30 feet high in the '70's. Now those bastards are 50-75 feet tall. So that 'spains it, Lucy. Damn.

My town muni lost 200+ trees from hurricane Sandy.  This year we have grass growing in areas where there used to be dense woods.  Opened up alot of the fairways.  Makes it a bit easier to play.  I kinda miss alot of the tucked greens, but that's  Mother Nature for ya!