Conocodell Golf Club Review

Golf in a simple but entertaining form.

If there's one thing I have to say about golf in Franklin County, it's that there is an abundance of relatively cheap and accessible golf for everybody.  Conocodell, in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania, is one of several inexpensive 9 hole courses in the area, and after playing there this weekend, I'd say it was the best.

One of the best points of the course is that it is very flat.  No hills, no nothing, so it's a very easy walk.  I think they try to encourage walking, since the price for 2 people to walk 9 holes on a Saturday is $24, but to ride, it's $48.  So, there weren't very many carts around, which was nice.  I would highly recommend anyone who plays the course do the same.

Water running along the first hole.

The condition of the course was iffy for most people, but for me, they were perfectly acceptable. There was a definite delineation between fairway and rough, the grass was somewhere between brown and green, and the course was playing fast, which is definitely how I like it.  The greens were in very good condition, playing reasonably quick, but not too fast.  I don't mind fairways and rough being a bit questionable, but getting a decent roll from the greens is nice.

Now, let's get to the important part of the review, the golf course.  It's not a long course, with a couple of very short par 4's, but the one par 5 is pretty long, and there are some longer par 4's as well.  I don't know, it's not a particularly scenic place, but it just seemed to fit into the surroundings very well, so I found myself taking quite a few pictures.  Maybe it was the fact the fairway blended into the rough almost seamlessly, and then the rough blended into the native areas just as seamlessly.

A crossbunker on the fifth fairway.

The first hole is a shortish par 4 that doglegs right around a water hazard.  The more water you cut off from the tee, the shorter second you have.  I think the green might be just about reachable with a bold enough drive.  I haven't been driving it well, so I didn't go for it.  After a straightaway mid-length par 4 and a shortish par 3, there's a couple of reasonably difficult par 4's.  The fourth is pretty tight, but the fifth is a bit more interesting.  There's a couple of big bunkers cutting into the line of play, and the green is guarded by even more.  A stream on the right makes the hole even more interesting.  I wish that I could say I played the hole well, but I didn't.  Hooked my drive straight into a tree, had to make a 12 foot putt for bogey. 

A challenging pitch on the last hole.

The sixth is a very short par 4 which my younger brother drove with a three wood.  Got the drive to about ten feet, missed the eagle putt right on the edge.  Typical, he said.  After another mid-length par 3, the eighth is a mid-length par 5, playing straight to a wide open fairway.  Really get a chance to open up with the driver, which I attempted unsuccessfully and my brother (who is comfortably better than me) managed.  It's a fun drive, but there isn't much else to that hole.  The ninth is a little more interesting.  It's only about 300 yards, but it plays along the road to a small green guarded very closely by a pair of surprising intimidating bunkers.  I closed off a relatively lackluster round by curling in a 15 foot birdie putt, salvaging a 40 on the par 35.  Not brilliant, but not awful.

I can't legitimately give the place a particularly good grade, or recommend it to anybody who doesn't already live here.  There are better places to play golf in Franklin County.  That said, it's a fun little course that's very easy to walk and fits in well with the environment.  Nice way to spend a couple hours with the family.

It just...looks good.

Caledonia Golf Course Review

Pictured: an arboreal experience. 1st hole.

You may or may not remember that I started doing a tour of this course on my golf blog.  But since I stopped updating that, that one hole has been sort of sitting out there in limbo.  I'm not going to do a full tour of the place here, but I will share some of my thoughts on the course.  As I said there, it's an unusual golf course.  To quote myself, "Caledonia Golf Course is part of Caledonia State Park, and as such, it can be pretty minimal.  No nicely maintained fairways here.  It's only about 5,300 yards, but it is very hilly and there are some long walks.  It can be a hike, and I'm not sure it's worth it.  This course has some very weird holes, holes that I really don't like.  But it is pretty cheap."

I can't say that I can highly recommend the place.  Nothing about it fits my eye.  I hate trees, and in what must be the surprise of the century, the golf course in the middle of a state park located in the Appalachians of southern Pennsylvania... has a lot of trees.  So I tend to spend a lot of time getting the full arboreal experience, but not a fulfilling golf experience.

The long par 3 6th

The front nine isn't too bad.  The first hole's a bit wacky, the hole doglegs in a weird way and the lack of driving range discourages any sort of bold driver play, but it's not too hard.  I just get double bogey anyway.  The next few holes are fairly inoffensive, and the fifth hole, a 250 yard par 4, can be driven with just a 3 wood, or if you've got some length, a long iron.  The sixth hole, a 215 yard par 3, is not hittable.  It isn't, it can't be done.  It plays 50 feet uphill to a green that somehow manages to be elevated even above the hill it plays on.  Golf balls stop before the green if you try to run it up, and they skip right over if you land in on.  It cannot be done.  The next 3 holes are hilly, but again, nothing too extreme.

You've finished the front nine, and while it was hilly, it's only a par 32, so the walk (in this scenario, you're walking because that's how golf is meant to be played) wasn't too bad.  You take the short walk to the tenth tee, and you are confronted with what can only be described as a small mountain.  Yes, you have to play up that.  To make matters even worse, if you miss the fairway to the right at all, your golf ball will fall all the way down the hill.  I've been over there plenty, and the long iron up a 100 foot slope is not an easy shot.  The hole's only 450 yards or so, but it plays about 100 yards longer.

The 10th hole, draped over a mountainside.

The 15th green: evil incarnate

So, you've ascended to the summit, and now, on the very next hole... you go right back down.  The entire way back down.  The 11th isn't a bad hole, it's fun watching your ball fly forever, but did it really have to come like that?  Go all the way up just to go all the way back down?  The 13th hole kicks off a three hole stretch that I can only describe as being absolutely evil.  The 13th is only a 100 yards, but it plays up the hill to a tiny green that is nearly impossible to hold.  It was even worse back in my junior golf days, when they had it playing 65 yards, and even more uphill.  It was literally impossible to the green then, now it's just very difficult.  The 14th is a short par 5 that doglegs sharply to the right.  There's out of bounds left, and the hole turns at about 250 yards, so you can't really use a driver.  Fair enough, but you have to get the ball about 250 to have even a reasonable look at a layup, which means you're trying to hit almost onto the road.  If you go right, the trees are thick and basically impenetrable, so it'll take at least one pitch shot just to get back to the fairway.  I've seen multiple double digits on that hole.  But the final hole in this stretch is the most evil.  It's just a 170 yard par 3, but the green is sloped so much that any putt from above the hole is going to run all the way down to the front.  Unless you make it, which is possible, I guess, but not likely.  So it's a one putt or three putt situation.  Four putts or worse are a fact of life.

The view from the last hole.

The final hole concludes the round in fitting fashion.  There's a lot of trees, some of which in odd locations, the drive is blind if you go more than 150 yards, and golf balls disappear for no good reason.  I guess the second shot is okay.  I can't really say I recommend the place, there's far less frustrating places to play a round for cheap.  It's obvious the place was built to be as non-intrusive as possible, so if you like to be surrounded by nature while you play, it's not bad.  It might be worth the play just because it is a bit of an adventure, a really unrefined golf experience.  I doubt you'd find any country club types here.  So, Caledonia Golf Course, I really, really don't like it, but that doesn't mean everyone has too.