There is nothing like playing your home course. Playing a new course every day would be like having a birthday every day. It would be great for a while but you’d never get to actually play with your toys. Plus, how often did that awesome-gotta-have-it toy that the kids on the TV were LOVING actually end up being your favorite toy?

I love checking out different courses and get all kinds of jazzed up long before I ever reach the course. The drive in on unfamiliar roads and not knowing the prime spots in the parking lot and the walk into the clubhouse – it’s a lot to take in. Sensory overload is usually the result and, well, that’s not good for scoring.

When I played Sunday River for the first time last year, I was fighting over a year’s worth of anticipation. You know when you turn on the ignition and your car stereo just about blows you out of your seat and then you realize it was you that left it that way? It wasn’t too loud while you were driving because you adjusted to it. Playing Sunday River for the first time was like starting that engine up 18 times in a row. I walked off that course looking like Uma Thurman when she clawed her way out of her grave on Kill Bill 2. OK, maybe not THAT good.

When I play Spring Meadows in Gray, which I’ll play around 25 times a year, it’s a very familiar feeling but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some vicious thoughts swirling around in my head. They’re just different and maybe more subtle but they’re also ones that I can reason with. Take the first hole, a brutish yet lovely par four, which had been beating my brains in recently. I had made several “others” on this hole and, even though I was making pars on the second and third holes, the first hole beat down was killing my round. On the ride to the course I told myself - and sadly this may actually have been out loud – “Just get through the first hole and we’ll be fine.” (Not really sure who the rest of “we” is but hey, it’s a social game). Sure enough, like Amelia Bedelia, I made my par on the first hole and then proceeded to pretty much throw up all over myself with a triple on the second and a double on the third.

So, being a quick learner, the next time I changed my wish to, “let’s get off to a good start on the first nine.” Move to the head of the class if you guessed that I ended up starting on the back nine, fired a two over 38, and then crashed on the front. Two wishes granted and yet the scores weren’t improving. Work on game or work on wishes?

At least I know it’s not the course. Spring Meadows, like most courses and maybe even slightly more than most courses, takes a few rounds to understand what Brad Booth had in mind when he designed it. The par five’s take some getting used to and take some strategy rather than the bombs away approach. The third hole is the first par five (there are only three) and it is a true three-shot hole. Even long hitters have no chance of getting there in two as the hole is divided into four sections with wetlands separating them. In a way I find that knowledge about the hole being unreachable to have a calming effect, as I know on the tee that my strategy won’t change if I kill my tee shot. Knowing the yardages and the prevailing winds and how receptive the fairways are playing all factor in to a successful assault and par is an awesome score. It means you hit at least three quality shots in a row.

The fifth hole takes some getting used to as well. It’s pretty much a blind tee shot over a slight hill and then a second shot to a green that’s elevated just enough to hide the surface’s big time left to right slope. Believe me, you’ll eventually love this hole in a hateful kind of way.

Number six is a very cool par three that is carved into the side of hill and again, you can’t initially tell that the green is tilted right to left and balls roll down that hill as surely as the tourists roll down the turnpike after Labor Day. Aim at least ten yards right of the flag. After your par on six, strap on the defibrillator and trudge up the hill to the seventh tee. This is a fun hole as it’s a short downhill par four with an itsy bitsy pond right in front of the green. It’s fun to watch the big hitters on this hole but the smart play is to hit your tee shot about 180 yards to a flat landing area and give yourself a full wedge to the green. Go further and you’re hitting off a soft downhill lie. Trust me on this.

The eighth and ninth are not overly long par four’s but they’re usually into the wind so they feel bigger. Oh, and there’s a pond on the left hand side of number eight that you can’t see from the tee. You can, however, see balls splash.

Ten is the easiest par five if you can get your drive out over the trees. I’ve had as little as 185 yards for a second shot after a big hit but the OB down the right has also ended more than one good round for those going “all in” and biting too much off the corner. And, you don’t really feel it but the fairway encourages shots to visit the marshy area that runs the length of the hole on the left.

Eleven is tough. The green is one of the hardest on the course and you’ll want to be on the side of the green where the flag is. It’s dissected by a hump that screams “Four Putt!” Got it?

Twelve is a great short par four. No lesson needed here or for the thirteenth as it’s all in front of you. Fourteen goes out ands then takes a sharp left – another strong short hole. After that breather you get number fifteen. A short par five (only 509 from the blues) it calls for a snap hooked drive that can get up over the trees. If you can do that, you can reach it in two. If not, you’ll have to deal with a second shot landing area that can be very tough to hit and hold when the ground firms up.

The last time I played Spring Meadows, OD, who always shoots a 110, stood on the tee of the sixteenth hole and said, “This is the lamest hole on the course.” He was playing the white tees and it measure only 83 yards so he had somewhat of a point. Then he made birdie. Now it’s an epic hole.

Nothing fancy about seventeen but it’s the longest par four and has a green you could land a jet on. I won’t ruin eighteen for you by explaining it. Actually, I would if I could but I will tell you not to leave yourself above the hole. I would bet more than putter has been introduced to Mr. Apple Tree who sits next to that green.

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