The last golf course review I did was Atlantic City Country Club. That golf course had over 100 years of history, featured work by some of the greatest golf course architects of all time, a harborside location overlooking Atlantic City, and a position at the top of Golf Magazines Best Public Golf Courses in New Jersey list, not to mention coming in at number 74 in their top 100 Courses You Can Play list. Piney Apple Golf Course...has none of those things. This is golf in a far more basic state. I've played courses with fewer bells and whistles, certainly, but this is not a fancy place. You don't even need a collared shirt, which is very nice. It's cheap to play, and the scenery is quite nice. And frankly, I could not have asked for a better day to play golf, it was bright and sunny, and the temperature was in the low 70s. Perfect golf weather. Anyway, let's get to business!
The first hole is a steeply downhill par 4, and is technically the longest par 4 on the course. You'll see why I say technically when I cover the back nine. You can sort of see the green from the tee, but you can't really see the fairway. There's not much to this hole, but the view off the tee is a good one. Probably the best view on the course.
The second hole is a very short par 4, and I can imagine this hole making me irritated were I to play here on a regular basis. 260 yards. That's all it is from the back tees. However, I don't imagine this green gets hit in 1 very often. For one thing, the back tee is offset, making this hole a dogleg to the right. That means you either have to get your drive high enough to clear the pine on the corner of the dogleg, or fade it around. And if you're short, you have a pitch up the hill to an extremely shallow green. Getting it to stop is tough unless you really get the ball up in the air. This is not as easy a hole as you might think.
The third hole is a mid-length par 3 that plays slightly uphill. Not much else to it.
The fourth hole is downhill like the first and plays the same general direction as the first. I like this hole more though. For one, I like the aesthetics of the tee shot, it has an almost alpine feel to it. This course is definitely not misnamed. As for the second shot, it's a drop-shot wedge down the hill with an appealing background. The picture I took of the approach is almost identical to the picture the course put on the scorecard. The only big difference is the flag, it's yellow and on the middle of the green on the scorecard, and red and on the front here.
The fifth hole is a short par 3. We've had the piney part of Piney Apple, now comes the apple part. South Central Pennsylvania is a big apple growing area. I know this, I've seen plenty of apple orchards, but the sheer concentration of them in this area, caught me off guard. I guess there's a reason Adams County produces 70% of the apples in a state that produces a lot of apples. Anyway, the golf. It's a simple hole, not much in the way of strategy here. This may be the easiest hole on the course.
The sixth hole is a par 4 with a big dogleg to the left. This is actually something you don't see too often, holes that bend this much, but this course features quite a few holes like this. If you don't cut the dogleg with your drive, you'll definitely want a long iron off the tee. I didn't quite know what the hole was doing, used a driver, went through the fairway and was extremely lucky to have not gone in the pond by the seventh green. The second shot is pretty straightforward, but the green does have a fair amount of size and slope to it, so putting can be tricky.
The seventh hole is the longest par 3 on the course at 190 yards. There's a pond front right that you can't really see, but interestingly, if you had to pick a place to miss, that's the place to be. Bailing out left leaves you with a much tougher chip shot, potentially over bunkers to a green sloping away from you. Missing right, provided you don't go in the water, leaves a very simple chip back up the hill, and as you can see from the picture, the day I played you would have much more green to work with.
The eighth hole is the longest hole on the course at 500 yards, the only par 5 on the front nine, and arguably, the only real par 5 on the course. The tee shot is normal enough, but the second shot is strange. The green is small and nestled among a bunch of trees and the fairway all but disappears. If you hit a drive up the right side, you won't be able to go at the green in two. I'm not sure, of course, but I don't think this is the original green. There's an unused green about 75 yards right of the one you see below, and what seems to be a more appropriate playing corridor in front of it. This one's a mystery.
The ninth hole is...not very interesting. Dead straight, no bunkers or hazards of any kind. The tilt of the green favors a shot from the right, but there's not enough on the hole to make that any more than a vague suggestion. A bunker short left of the green or right of the fairway in the driving area would make the hole a bit better.
That's it for the front nine, you can find the review for the back nine here!
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