SKYRIDGE GOLF COURSE’s signature hole is undergoing an addition right now and will be ready for play shortly.
The Sequim-Dungeness Valley’s links golf layout plans to open its par-5 finishing hole when new tee boxes are ready either in “March or April,” according to clubhouse manager Jim Brooks.
The 18th hole on the nine-hole track will play from 517 yards at the tips “with the forward tees playing at 481, 456 and 412,” Brooks said.
To me, one of SkyRidge’s best features is its lack of trees.
You can only duck away from golf balls ricocheting back from trees so many times before you want a change of pace.
That doesn’t mean its an easy course.
The course’s mounding can create a variety of uncomfortable uphill and downhill lies for players to puzzle over.
On No. 9/18 golfers face an “extra wide fairway[that] takes a straight path to the green,” Brooks said.
Grass mounds are present on both sides of the fairway and a cross bunker cuts through the fairway about 100 yards from the green.
“The green is unique in that it has a bowl effect with the green and fringe being lower than the surrounding mounds and rough,” Brooks said.
A greenside bunker sits on the left with two other bunkers guarding the righthand-side of the hole.
To play the hole, take out the driver and let it go on your first shot as if “it couldn’t be more wide open,” Brooks said.
“The decision is what to do on the second shot … lay up short of the cross bunker and have about 120 yards left, or let her buck and go for it in two.”
Those who can hit it straight and have a low trajectory on their shots (cough, me, cough) will like “the tightly-groomed landing area in front of the green that will allow for a low, running shot to possibly reach the putting surface,” Brooks said.
Nestled in Sequim’s “Blue Hole,” SkyRidge usually affords a beautiful view of the typically snow-capped Olympic Mountains.
Brooks raved about the view from SkyRidge’s in-progress clubhouse.
“Looking over the green and back up the fairway is quite spectacular at just before sunset as the mounds and the shadows created gives the hole the look of a true links golf course.”
The hole is used as the course’s playoff hole during tournaments.
Golf before the game
Lots of golfing events around the North Olympic Peninsula before the big game on Sunday. Read on for details.
Discovery Bay events
On Super Bowl Sunday, Discovery Bay will offer $5 golf up until kickoff, and an optional $20 Tailgate Scramble, which includes lunch, that game-day staple of a gourmet hot dog, chips and a drink.
The scramble will tee off at 9 a.m. (barring frost) and should wrap well before kickoff as the game starts after 3 p.m.
Randy White of Discovery Bay also checked in with some information on joining the club.
Discovery Bay is selling annual passes to the course.
New members can join and receive a $100 credit in the golf shop.
Single player cards are $1,375 and families are $1,900.
The popular Discovery Discount Club will be running again this year for $125.
Players receive 20 percent off all golf and 10 percent off merchandise and rentals.
If this is the first time you have purchased a Discovery discount, you receive $25 credit in the golf shop.
For more information, visit www.discoverybaygolfcourse.com or phone 360-385-0704.
Memorial scramble set
Peninsula Golf Club of Port Angeles will host the Dick Brown Memorial Scramble on Super Bowl Sunday.
Don’t worry, it tees off well in advance of the big game at 9 a.m.
It’s a two-person scramble, eight-stroke differential tourney with 30 percent of the team’s combined handicap factored in.
Entry fees are $90 per team and include KP and long-drive prizes, a square on the Super Bowl football board, hosted appetizers and beverages, a cash team honey-pot payout and merchandise awards.
The course will take $20 from each entry to fund a scholarship in Brown’s name.
It is open to Peninsula members and guests.
Phone Peninsula at 360-457-6501 for more information.
Spots still available
Spots are still available for Port Townsend Golf Club’s “26th annual Coors Light Arctic Open,” sponsored by Marine View Beverages.
The tournament is a 36-hole two person best-ball and will be held on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 11-12, and includes a practice round on Feb. 10.
Entry is $210 per team and includes the three rounds of golf, lunch served on the course each day, special hole-in-one prizes and closest to pin in all divisions each day.
Players will tee off in a 10 a.m. shotgun start both days of the contest and play in any and all forms of weather.
Port Townsend has also started its three-month long Winter Electric Individual Best Ball event.
Players can golf 36 holes a week and record their best individual score in the competition.
Cost is $20 per player with an optional skins game.
Port Townsend also has $10 Saturday skins games plus greens fees for nonmembers and $5 Men’s Club Sunday Competitions plus $5 optional skins game.
Tee times for those events run from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on Sundays.
And you can play all day on Tuesday for just $10.
Winter Links set
SkyRidge’s 27-hole Winter Links Open will be held Saturday, Feb. 11.
The event has an 8:30 a.m. start.
Teams of four will divide themselves into two two-person teams for a scramble nine holes, then switch partners and play nine holes of two-person better ball, and finally switch to your final partner and play alternating shot for the last nine holes.
Each team will end up with a 54-hole score after 27 holes of golf.
Card the two scramble scores, the two better ball scores and the two alternating shot scores, then combine for a 54-hole total.
Cost is $160. Phone SkyRidge at 360-683-3673.
Dewey defeats Truman
It doesn’t rank up there with a “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline, but various news outlets, including the New York Times, prematurely crowned Gig Harbor’s Kyle Stanley as the winner of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines on Sunday.
After a fabulous weekend the 24-year old Bellermine Prep grad carded a snowman on the final hole to blow a three-shot lead.
He then lost in a playoff when Brandt Snedeker got a lucky carom off a television tower.
Tournament organizers had even drawn up the oversized $1,080,000 check in Stanley’s name.
You can see the check here at tinyurl.com/stanleygolf.
I missed the meltdown but caught the playoff, including a hilarious admission from CBS Sports Gary McChord.
“Jimmy, what in the world are we doing here?” a hurried McCord asked Jim Nantz on the tee of the second playoff hole.
“I was driving and heard what was going on the road and I did a U-turn. I thought they were kidding on the radio. In my 26 years, I’ve never actually left and had something wild happen.”
A good article from Tacoma News Tribune golf writer Dave Boling putting Stanley’s horrible, no good very bad day in perspective is available at tinyurl.com/BolingGolf.
Hopefully, Stanley wins soon and doesn’t wander the PGA Tour looking for his “Livingstone,” his first PGA Tour win.
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Golf columnist Michael Carman can be reached at 360-417-3527 or at pdngolf@gmail.com.