The week of golf began with the cross country flight from San Francisco to Boston and then drive to Rhode Island for the University of Connecticut golf tournament at Shelter Harbor in Charleston, Rhode Island.  Golf clubs were shipped earlier in the week to a private residence to avoid the hassle of dealing with the clumsiness of a travel bag on the annoying rental car bus.  The United flight arrived early and the thought of covering the 85 miles to the Weekapaug Inn at a reasonable time seemed to indicate some good fortune.  The stress level starts to build as you start to think about the journey to the rental car center, as your fears are instantly realized with a bus that could only be characterized as a large sardine can.  Stress continues to build as the bus driver starts to invoke the gospel of St. Matthew, while stopping at the next four terminals.  I start to pray that the car I ordered would still be available as I get off the bus and search for the vehicle in Row A–the cadallac is there and I plow into the vehicle and set the Waze coordinates–of course-I can’t figure out where stuff is in the car as there are never any instructions.  It’s 7PM and still daylight so I head out into the horrendous Sunday night traffic in the city of Boston.  Stress continues as I can’t find the latch to the console that contains the power source for the phone providing the directions-no matter-hopefully Waze won’t digest the power by the time we get to Rhode Island.  Eventually we make it to Route 95 and the Boston traffic reduces to a trickle as we get through Foxboro.  As dusk begins to fall, I begin to panic as the automatic headlights have been turned off and the location for the headlamp switch does not reveal a headlamp switch.  Maybe I’m wrong and maybe the lights will come on as it gets darker–not to be- so I have to figure out what to do next.  The idea arises that I can turn on the high beam lamps from the steering column but I have to keep my finger on the switch as the steering column will not allow automatic engagement.  Thirty miles of driving like this and the multiple twists and turns of this journey made this an adventure not to be experienced again.  I arrived at Weekapaug at 9:30 with a swollen left index finger and winced as the attendant showed me where the headlight switch was on the steering column-I would also find the latch to open the console to access the power–fortunately the power on the phone lasted until the end of this trip.

Shelter Harbor Golf Club is a wonderful layout and reminded me immediately of pristine New England venues such as Wannamoisette and The Patterson Club.   The course offers significant variety where positioning is important for approach shots.  The course is a masterful presentation of manicured fairways, well designed carries and strategic bunkering.  A good example is the short par 4, 12th hole where the fairway bunkers are placed right in the best direction to the green.  Carrying the bunker from the back tee is a pretty good achievement.  I managed to make par from this bunker.  The par 3, 17th hole of 157 yards has to completely carry the lake.    The 18th hole is a strong par 4 of 422 yards combines beauty with significant difficulty as I thought it was the hardest hole on the course.  The hole moves gradually leading uphill to a large green where the approach sheet has to get to the top of the green or  anything short of the pin will roll off the green as much as 50 yards.  A great finisher to a wonderful layout. Our Huskie player, Caden Blanchette, shot 67 after bogeying the first two holes turned in a pretty awesome performance.

No. 18 at Shelter Harbor

Day 2 was a recreational round at the private  South course at Lake of Isles.  Lake of Isles has two courses at the Foxwoods Casino Complex in North Stonington, Connecticut designed by Rees Jones.  Both courses are pretty challenging with the lake providing spectacular views and  challenges.  The best examples are the par 3, 11th hole of 165 yards, where there is nowhere to bail out over the lake to a very large green.   The par 3, 16th at 203 yards is another intimidating shot where the length of the hole demands accuracy of the tee with the lake all the way on the left and threatening jungle on the left–not a lot of room to maneuver.

16th hole at Lake of Isles

No. 11 at Lake of Isles South

The flight back to San Francisco from Boston was uneventful following a three hour drive from Rhode Island with the last 10 miles taking 90 minutes in Boston.  The most pleasant part of this was returning the car and having AVIS actually drive me to the airport instead of horrendous bus ride from the rental car center.

Fast forward to Friday and First Tee of Silicon Valley at Cinnabar Hills in San Jose.  Kudos to the First Tee Organization in putting an event that felt like attending a family outing where the 132 participants are strong supporters of the organization.  It was very obvious that the tournament focus is on supporting youth development with golf as the integrator.  The First Tee is all about preparing kids for life’s lessons that are about  to come and develop the appropriate skills and values to prepare kids for their role in the society.  No one really cared about who won or what was won as I was impressed with the pace of play for a scramble format.  A very enjoyable event and my son was ecstatic as he won a new golf bag in the raffle and immediately tossed his 30 year old bag into our trash pin as soon as we got home.

All in all-a pretty good week of golf for some pretty cool causes.