Whiteford Valley Michigan. 83. Pretty good. But not the most challenging course. Then on to Wheeling, West Virginia. I didn’t know Wheeling was a town. I thought it was an adjective for the state of West Virginia as in freewheeling. I got this idea from the Neil Sedaka song (that was only a hit in Australia).
The night before they had five inches of rain and the Bloch Memorial Golf course is now a bog. I come to the seventh. I’m not sure where to go with my next shot. There is a white target, but I’m not sure how far the green is beyond that. So I walk up to take a look. It is not beyond it. It is in front of it. There is no warning about the twenty metre 60 degree drop. You could just drive your cart straight over. Below is a professional rendering of what I encountered.
Anyway onto the eighth. After my drive, I park the cart and apply the foot brake. This doesn’t hold and the cart goes backwards on its own for some 5 metres until I clamber back aboard and manage to bring it to a halt. The green is elevated so I gun the cart up the hill but half way up it loses all traction and starts going backwards and then sideways . It is heading for a tree, but slowly, so I manage to push off the trunk of the tree with my hand which is good, but now it’s going backwards and it is picking up pace. Oh Bugger this. I abandon ship. Landing in slop. The cart continues merrily along for another thirty metres or so before coming to a halt as the incline flattens out. The wheels are completely caked with mud. I complete the eighth and ninth very slowly and carefully. I relate my story to the old bloke behind the jump. Him, “Yup that going sideways can be scary”. Me “Well the wheels are caked with mud and need to be hosed down”. Him “Well that isn’t going to happen at this golf course”.
That’s the last state for this stint, time to start heading towards NYC.
• The long and winding road.
50 States of golf 