We played 13th Beach today, it is a course that I have been wanting to play for years. We played the Beach course which to me was a bit of a misnomer . At no point did we see the beach. Don’t get me wrong, the course was fantastic, the fairways were perfect & the greens were true. Perhaps I built the course up too much in my head but I was expecting to at least see the ocean at some point. We played the course with the wind blowing, but playing on the coast I guess you would be dreaming to expect it to be still. I think I lost about 8 balls during the round ( the only comp I won all day), it is a punishing course when you play off line. One of the things I was really disappointed with was the bunkers. I played out of about 5 bunkers, 2 of them were great. The rest of them were crap, fuck all sand & full of stones. Neil, Matt & Ian felt the same way, considering we were that close to the beach you would expect a decent amount of sand in a bunker.
But enough bitching. We headed out to play the course because it was Trevor’s birthday & as stupid as it sounds he couldn’t make it. Neil, Matt Ian & myself tried to make up for it but we couldn’t make up for the fact that Trevor wasn’t there, even with a video call to Trevor which may have made things worse 🙂 To sum things up, I have been dying to play this course for years, perhaps I built it up too much in my head, but I can’t get over the fact that there wasn’t any holes that played in view of the ocean.
No ocean views was a bummer but I loved the greens, I’d say the best I’ve played on and the fairways were in great nick and the wind was in great form (bloody wind) but at least we had a nice sunny day not to hot and not cold. It would have been the prefect weather for playing golf if not for the wind. Still had a great day out there.
Good to hear what you thought as I too have been wanting to play for years.
I might lower my expectations in the hope that when I play it, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Please don’t not play this course because of anything I hsave written Michael. As I mentioned the course was fantastic, but it just didn’t meet my high expectations. As you said, the best way to go into any course is without expecting anything & be pleasantly surprised. As Neil commented, the greens were some of the best I have played on. All I can say is have a hit there & tell me what you think 🙂
Did any of you guys buy a copy of The Golf Course Guide before playing 13th Beach? You could’ve saved yourselves $20 each off your round.
They’ve also got an iPhone app coming out at the weekend, so I’d recommend downloading it to find some other courses which you can get discounts at.