My son and I both grew up playing video games.  I started with Atari back in the early 1980s and kept it rolling all my life.  My son joined at a fairly early age in the PS3 era.  We've had a great run of playing mostly sports games together and golf has been one of those.  One of the golf courses that I had a chance to play awhile ago, prior to the US Open held there, was Chambers Bay, in Washington state.  It was before they had baked it out for the Open and it made by Dream Course listing at the time, on which it will likely stay after this visit.

As the games began to feature this golf course, I was able to talk to my son about the "real" golf course when we played it on the video game together, which was fun.  So, when we had a chance to go play it for real here in 2026, it was a great treat.  It was funny how some of the video game novelties (the games do a good job, but sometimes defy reality a little bit) impacted my son's approach to the course.  What didn't defy reality was that my son, now 17, is bigger and stronger than I am, so we played a tee that was pretty far back, and I was a bit outmatched for distance (although I did out-drive him by about 2 inches on hole 8, and I'll take it when i can get it).  Anyway, he ended up beating me for the third time ever (soundly I might add) and, if not for a few extra putts along the way, he would have broken 80 as well, which was fun for me to watch, like my own real version of a video game come to life.  Pictured here is him crushing his drive on the long par four 14th, which is then stuck a short iron to 10 feet and rolled in the birdie.

I told my kids as they grew up that when we go some place green and beautiful, we have to be ok with rain, as that is what makes it possible for such beauty to exist.  That holds true, but when you go to a golf course that holds a lot of value due to the stunning views it has, and without those views, Might be a sub-par course, and then you get rained on, the spirits can get dampened.  Then imagine you don't just get rained on, but you get rained on every hole for 4.5 hours and it gets so bad, you begin to lose grip of the clubs start fearing for your group's safety.  Suffice it to say, this round in late June holds the record for the wettest round of golf in my 40 year career.

Long story short, I tried to be as fair as I could in my review of Furry Creek.  I can see that in good weather, some views would be truly remarkable.  Also, there were a handful of memorable holes and some of the others that felt diabolical may have been better if we could have maintained our grip on our clubs, but overall, the main memory will be the warm diner we went to after to cozy up, eat a lot of food and get our body temperatures up out of the danger area.

For anybody who read my last post in late 2025, you can rest assured that nothing has changed for the better, typified by my 4 month absence from posting.  That being said, my only full golf round of 2026 thus far did miraculously include an eagle, my first since 2022, so that was nice.  I was able to add one more hole/picture to the Vineyard Course at River Ridge and its review got bumped up too as the course is in better condition that it had been since CoVID and it just has really nice views on a good day.

I've been busy, frankly, too busy with other pursuits to play much golf, much less write about it.  In fact, I just played my first golf round in two months recently and the previous one was related to this update, so I'm behind in real time, but not in aged count (at least for this round). 

This post has another golf round from my annual golf trip in 2025, this one from the incredible Edgewood golf course in Lake Tahoe.  It's still safely on my list of the Top18 courses on earth and, although I haven't had my annual look at that those ratings, my playing of this in 2025 hasn't changed my very high regard for the course (just wish the price didn't keep going up).

I just wrapped up an annual guys golf trip, this time to Lake Tahoe, and we played a few courses up there I have played before.  One of those is Lake Tahoe Golf Course.  I have played there twice before, but never from the back tees in summer.  Although I only snapped one extra picture for the review, my rating for the golf course went up as the back tees are really significantly more interesting and the summer conditions combined for a enjoyable round of golf.

The last post from my nearly 11 month old trip to Wisconsin is where it started, at Erin Hills.  To be clear, the venue was superb with cool room options and good food, making it a great one golf course destination.  I hope they will consider adding a complementary golf course to increase the value of staying longer, but as a standalone golf course, it was a lot of fun.  It was also easy to see why this is a major venue.  It is long (and we played 2 tees up from the back) and has lots of problems lurking on every golf hole, but it is also fair and good golf shots are definitely rewarded with birdies.

I recently got to go back and play Eagle Bend Golf Club again, located in Bigfork, MT, near Glacier National Park.  I'd played it a few times before, including in spring and summer (see one photo from each season here).  I now got around to posting an updated review that highlights more golf holes on the Osprey nine, which is the "third" nine at that complex.  

Having played it now a couple of times, it's the perfect compliment to the other Eagle and Bear nines.  Those two "fit" better together as a cohesively designed golf course, but the variation created by the Osprey nine is an absolute enhancement to that golf club and, frankly, the Osprey nine has the best stretch of holes on the entire 27 holes.

Although I rarely rate private golf clubs on the website criteria due to the fact that their private nature gives members privileges and other benefits that can't be ascertained by the pure golfing review, I can say this place is great through and through and the golf course (all nines) is very enjoyable and well maintained.

"Pride comes before the fall" is how the saying goes.  In this case, as an aging golfer, one knows more falls are coming, but the question is how many, how far and how deep is the pride and subsequent fall(s).

In my case, I had taken great care in tracking my rounds since 2001, when I started playing more rounds at golf courses other than my beloved home track of Saticoy Country Club, where I grew up.  I had a track record during that window (and probably even a few years before but didn't have the evidential proof to back it up) of having my score average rest in the "70s" for every calendar year. Additionally, at no time during that window did I post an individual score of 90 or higher (we're talking handicap allowable rounds with reasonable gimmie putts, a mulligan here or there, surely not pro style by admission, but still legit by amateur standards), and those records remained intact through 2023.

Coming into 2024, I had been on a bit of a golf decline and knew that there was one key stretch of golf that would likely make or break my streak.  That came on my annual golf trip with my buddies, which this year saw us take a trip to Wisconsin, playing 5 public golf courses in the Top 100 in the US, several of which have hosted majors, and all of which are hard, even on benign weather days.

I will post more updates about this trip but I think I delayed the start of this post for 9 months as its a written admission of the end of both of those streaks, with the key blow being being absolutely trounced by a heavy wind day at the Irish Course at Whistling Straits.  I had played there before once and not fared well either, but suffice it to say, of all the hard Pete Dye golf courses, and there are many, this one might be the one I struggle with the most. It's got plenty of good holes, but it just seems like all trouble is set up to capitalize on my most frequent misses, and with the 3 clubs of wind like we had, it was with no great shock, but with sadness (in a golfing sense only, I want to keep perspective here) that both of my streaks essentially ended on that golf course in September 2024.

The picture here is of the golf course, but is of my good friend, Taylor, who stuck his shot here really close to the pin, which was a moment of excitement in a round otherwise characterized by four golfers being pulverized by Pete Dye.  Also, Happy First Father's day to Taylor!!