I immediately took issue with Mo Golf’s “Western New York” claim on Buffalo Golfer’s new poll series. For me, Western New York has always included Rochester and Buffalo. I played Western New York Junior Tour events at Niagara Frontier, Silver Lake, Webster, and everywhere in between. Despite my best arguments, however, the powers that be refuse to include Rochester golf holes in the poll series. So I have to do what any self-respecting golf junkie would: start his own list of favorite holes in Western New York! Of course, my list only includes Rochester-area courses, but I figure at the end of it all we can have Rochester-Buffalo face-off between the two lists to see which is the superior golf city in Western New York.
Of course, I’m too arrogant to leave my list up to the whims of the untamed masses like my more populist Buffalo cohorts, so I’m going to be the final judge of every hole on this list. Thus, not only is it a battle between the two upstate cities, but it’s also a fight between the people’s 18 holes and the selections of the northeastern intellectual elite (represented, rather poorly, by me). So here goes, beginning at the beginning with hole number one:
1) Country Club of Rochester, Par 4, 320 yards.
The Rochester area is not exactly chock-full of great opening holes, but after some soul-searching (and course-searching) I came with a funky short four from one of my favorites. I caddied and worked in the bagroom at CCR for seven years, and this first hole really grew on me over that time. Every player has a different way to attack it. Some opt for an iron into the flat followed by a short iron up the hill. Others push things about with a fairway wood off the tee to challenge the right-hand fairway bunker for a shorter shot in. The boldest will opt for a driver on the first swing of the day, hoping for a short pitch or even a putt for the second shot. As mysterious as the tee shot is, the second shot is one of the strangest approaches on any opening hole I know. The shot is uphill most of the way, but in the last 15 yards the fairway drops down into a bowl green. After a few plays, golfers learn that every shot kicks forward off the front part of the green and feeds hard from right to left. The green itself, like many at CCR, runs away from the player at the front but is built up in the back. This makes judging speed on vertical putts very difficult. Throw in a nasty tilt from right-to-left, and you get a brutal green that is a sign of things to come.
On a personal caddie note, this green was a great place to earn a golfer’s confidence as a green-reader. The green is very severe, but most first-timers will never see it. I’d usually be ask to read one big breaker in the group here. I’d pick out a spot well outside the hole, and my player would give me the incredulous “there?!” or “that far out?” After watching their putt dive off a cliff as I’d predicted, I’d have their trust on the greens for the rest of the day. Maybe caddies do add something to the game, after all.
Quirk, decisions, and nostalgia: just my kind of opening hole!
