Roadgolf: Spook Rock GC, Suffern NY

 

Things have been a little hectic in the city lately, so a little roadgolf is in order. Spook Rock is another teetime-website find. It's located in sleepy Rockland County near the New Jersey border and within the one-hour zone of golfability. At a shade under forty miles away, we're in low population density territory which means I’m not expecting crowds on this cold windy Saturday.

Crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge to New Jersey

I don’t know what to expect having heard zilch about Spook Rock nor done any research. Didn’t even find out the slope or rating until after teeing off. I thought the name sounded cool. This is my golf game now. In a past life I would’ve looked up all such data and perused the scorecard, course photos and whatever other 411 I could find. But now that decrepitude has caught up, I'm picking out tee-times based mostly on price and likelihood of nobody being around.  So far so good.

While this no-dog policy is one I can certainly understand, I have a hard time imagining how such an official looking sign would be necessary. I mean how many people are trying to sneak dogs out onto the course? Not many, I am guessing. Anyways I should find out when this so-called "golf season" ends-- I'll bring Ringo and we can play an extremely long-range game of fetch.

Very nice facilities here. The range and the practice green sit right next to the first tee.

The first hole was kept relatively tidy but from the second hole on, nature’s bounty of autumn trash  snarled our forward progress, gobbling up balls both errant and on-target. A few times we were robbed in plain sight, balls disappearing into piles right before our eyes as we watched helpless.

But I am in a different category of golf participant these days, and whereas previously those leaves might’ve soured a whole round, now I just consider them a convenient scapegoat for my high scores.

That's right, I’m just here to enjoy some low-stakes casual golf-oriented activity. I’m not even too bothered that there’s not enough time to finish eighteen holes before dark. I can hardly recognize my golf-self anymore. Such a casual attitude. Maybe I should look into buying “casualgolf.com”.

I don’t know if it’s due to my newfound emotional indifference wellness, but I found SRGC to be an exceptional golf facility--nice conditioning, solid amenities and a charming layout in a classically Northeastern woody setting. Only when I finally got around to examining the scorecard did I realize that this course is officially a formidable challenge at 130 slope. There were penalty strokes aplenty, some leaf misadventures and gigantic blowup scores but a great time was had nonetheless. Hope to come back to find more favorable conditions.