The Olympic Club - Lake

Rankings

Golf Digest:  #33
Golfweek:  #31 Classic

How I got on:  My college roommate, Ryan, arranged a round with a connection he had and we made a trip with two foursomes.  

Lucky for me, Southwest had a hard time getting my clubs from Southern to Northern California on a direct flight.  How's that happen?  I'm not genius, but that one is difficult to screw up.  We were slated to play the Lake course twice and the par 3 course.  I had to rent clubs for my first round and borrow shoes - a MAJOR disappointment for any avid golfer.  I don't think it affected my score thought.  The U.S. Amateur was being held the next week at Olympic, so the rough was being grown out.  And when I mean grown out, I mean 6-7" long - so long it was laying over like a bad hairdo.  If we missed the fairway, by only a few inches, we'd need to shuffle our feet around the area we thought the ball entered and only rarely found our balls.  Talk about difficult!!!  And my friend Ryan shot around par for both rounds - two of the best rounds I've seen.  

Olympic Lake has no water, and feels like a classic.  It bends with many doglegs that require working the ball due to the tall, tree-lined fairways.  I love courses that require you to hit a certain shot at specified times.  Olympic Lake makes you do that a number of times.  I remember many of the holes a decade later - something I can't say for a lot of nationally ranked tracks. 

The par 3 course sits overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  The holes are short, but have unique green complexes that are superbly maintained.  I'm fond of the ability to play a pitch and putt that feels like it is maintained with the same care as the championship courses.