Walking The Golf Course Is The Way To Go

We're fortunate. The newer privately owned public courses ringing Puget Sound give us resort golf for less than $50 a round, half of what comparables would cost in Arizona or California or Hawaii.

If, indeed, McCormick Woods could be duplicated anywhere south of Oregon.

I meet friends in the San Francisco Bay Area and they've got no new courses to show me, not ones that we can afford.

Here, I think about taking them to the Classic, Avalon, Harbour Pointe, Desert Canyon, Apple Tree, McCormick Woods, Port Ludow and the new course between Tacoma and Olympia, Meriwood.

Meriwood is outstanding, rolling terrain, reasonable greens, big trees, big fairways, not too many wetlands to find a way across, tough but playable, a terrific deal for $32 during the week, including power cart.

The course is located just west of the Nisqually exit off I-5, like most of the newer courses about an hour from whereever you might live, making golf at least a six-hour proposition.

We've had three quality courses open in the past year, Meriwood, Shuksan near Bellingham, and Willows Run in Redmond. All have pluses and minuses depending on what you think is important.

As much as I liked Meriwood, I probably won't be going back. Not until they open a second 18 holes.

"The next 18," said Ron Coleman, Meriwood's director of golf, "will be a walking course."

Novel idea, a walking course.

Perhaps golf has passed me by, but the game is best enjoyed walking, carrying your clubs or pulling a cart. Chatting with the people in your group as you head off the first tee, feeling the shape of the hole as you walk down it, having your clubs with you. Getting some exercise, for goodness sakes.

The golf culture in America has changed. People under 30 years of age think golf is played out of a an electric or gas-powered cart. I mean, how else are you going to carry the six-pack of beer if you don't have a cart?

Carts don't make sense, especially in the Northwest where for most of the year they must stay on the paths which leaves you tromping across fairways looking for your ball with a fistful of clubs, and never the ones you need.

The suggestion that carts speed up play is ridiculous. On a normal course, they do no such thing. In Ireland and Scotland, where there are no golf carts or cart paths, a round of golf for four people is expecxted to take longer than three hours and 15 minutes.

I'm of the opinion that one ought not to be allowed to ride in a cart without a doctor's excuse.

What golf carts do make is cents. They take a $29 round at Willows Run and make it $39. And for what? For what I think is a less enjoyable experience, that's what.

A few years back, Port Ludlow made carts mandatory as they do at almost all the resort-type courses in Arizona, Hawaii and California. The customers rebelled. Port Ludlow pulled back.

Now, however, the problem is institutional. Golf courses are being built so they can't be walked. They've become far-flung housing projects and monuments to a designer's ego.

The distance between holes at Meriwood is 2,800 yards, four times what they are at a normal golf course. Architect Bill Overdorf wanted to build as spectacular a course as he could.

At Desert Canyon, which also requires carts, most of the tees are elevated, producing wonderful, downhill shots, but also requiring a cart to get to the tees.

The new Shuksan course in Bellingham, a sort of Northwest links layout with great views of Mt. Baker, is fun to play. It, too, has elevated tees, especially No. 1 and No. 10, and although carts are not required, the walk is just too strenuous without them.

"We determined that you couldn't walk our course in less than five and a half hours," said Coleman of Meriwood. "So we had to make carts mandatory. We think our price ($32 during the week and $35 on weekends, including carts) is competitive."

At least at Willows Run in Redmond, holes are close enough together that you can easily walk the course, although it appeared on a sunny spring day that more people were riding.

Willows Run, built in the Sammamish Valley on a 163 acres, isn't as exciting to play as Meriwood or Shuksan, but it is a much-needed golf complex for the area, starting and ending with location. Unlike most of the resort-style courses in the area, it is close. It also has nice amenities, club house, driving range, practice area, as well as the openess (no trees) to allow the kind of free swinging normally found well south of here.

Willows Run is expecting to do 80,000 rounds this year. All but a few of which could be on foot.

----------------------------------------------------------. Best buys in Puget Sound:

-- 1. Gold Mountain in Gorst. Fine public course run by the City of Bremerton. $22 on weekends. Nice setting atop ridge near Bremerton airport. No houses, well maintained, terrific practice areas.

-- 2. Kayak Point in Stanwood. Rugged, scenic, hilly course best played by better golfers. County owned, privately maintained. Great combination. $30 on weekends.

-- 3. Riverbend in Kent. Good municipal facility. Near Seattle, walkable, reasonably maintained, not-too-hard but not-too-easy. Has many traps and lakes. Crowded, but for a reason. $23 on weekends.

-- 4. McCormick Woods in Port Orchard. Remains one of the better courses around despite more and more homes. Front nine best in state. $45 on weekends.

-- 5. Tie between The Classic in Spanaway and Merriwood in Lacy. The Classic has matured into an interesting test with the area's most challenging and notorious greens and adjacent bunkers. Meriwood is in the McCormick Woods mold. Classic is $45 on weekends; Meriwood is $35 including mandatory carts.

Most scenic:

-- 1. Port Ludlow. The new nine offers even better views of Puget Sound than the other two. The experience draws golfers from around the world: wildflowers, the remnants of an old-growth forest, ponds, birds, even an occasional birdie.

-- 2. High Cedars in Puyallup. The views of Mt. Rainier are shocking. This is golf without gimmicks, just a nice spot with grass, trees, water and that mountain.

-- 3. Kayak Point in Stanwood. Unlike Harbour Pointe, which has seen its bordering trees ripped away for housing developments, Kayak Point is like playing in a preserve.

-- 4. Eaglemont in Mt. Vernon. Far-off views of the sound, up-close views of rugged, rolling hills above the Skagit Valley. Until the housing developments are finished, this is a nice place to get away to.

-- 5. Shuksan in Bellingham. New course, a bit of a links layout in an area without trees. Elevated tees offer nice views of the valley and an occasional look right into Mt. Baker.

Toughest:

-- 1. Kayak Point. Not that long, but the trees and the terrain simply wear you out. Midway through the back nine you start aiming and quit swinging, and the legs go.

-- 2. Semi-Ah-Moo in Blaine. Arnold Palmer course has the toughest greens around.

-- 3. Avalon in Burlington. Terrific test, although the south nine is punative to the point of being unfair. Hit it straight or hit again.

-- 4. The Classic in Spanaway. Holes aren't long or tight, but bunkers guarding greens are the most difficult in the area.

-- 5. Eaglemont in Mt. Vernon. New course forces players to carry a number of wetlands. The results are often wet landings.