Palmer Golf Course- Palmer, AK

This course most certainly made the best out of what is a very difficult site. First, the site is as flat as a large piece of land can be, having only forty feet of elevation change from one end of the course to another, a distance of nearly a mile and a half; it seems like less change than that when playing the course. On top of that, the site is wedged between Palmer Airport and the Matanuska River. There is a mandated set-back off of the airport and the river could not be used for scenery as much as possible due to wind blowing sediment from the river bed onto the greens. But even with these difficulties, there sits a solid golf course that is certainly fun to play.

Holes to Note

Hole #2: Par 4, 395 yards
The player is given several choices off this tee. The safe play is to play the tee shot out to the left, away from the fairway bunker visible between the two trees in the center of the image. The other is to play over the bunker, a carry of about 250 yards. The play over the bunker will leave the better line into the green, as might be expected, but there might be a surprise waiting for the player beyond the bunker.

 From the tee, there would appear to be little that the player cannot see. The views of mountains in the distance are quite nice and offered on every hole, regardless of the direction of play.

 From the left side of the fairway, the player is left with a rather straight forward shot of 165 to 175 yards, if he chose to lay back far enough to take the bunker out of play. Visible here, however, is an additional bunker, farther from the tee and not seen from the tee. So, the 250 yard carry the player had to play over the first bunker becomes around 280. Many players have likely found that second bunker on their initial playing of the course.

But for those players long enough to carry the second bunker, a simple shot of around 100 yards awaits.

Hole #5: Par 3, 230 yards

The longest par 3 on the course plays to a green that is slightly elevated, but not elevated enough to prevent a shot from rolling onto the green. The green is quite nicely shaped, having a very irregular shape, something like a clover, and enough contouring to make it interesting, but not unplayable given the length.

 From the tee, any type of pull is obviously not wanted. This shot from the left side of the teeing area, however, makes the hole feel tighter than it really plays. The green provides a generous target and there are wide fringe areas that work to help slight misses. It is unknown if those flat and wide fringe areas used to be green areas and have been lost over the years.

Here you can see some of the shaping of the green. There is another finger of the green that extends out near the bunker on the right side of the image. This is a well shaped green and certainly able to provide challenge to the long incoming shots while still remaining playable. 

Hole #12: Par 4, 380 yards

This dogleg left hole provides a fair challenge to the player off the tee. With most dogleg holes, the play would seemingly be to play down the side of the dogleg in order to cut length off of the hole. However, here, playing down the left side will likely yield only trouble. Shots hugging the left side of the fairway will have to be hit at least 260 yards to avoid being blocked out by the trees on that side. However, any shot traveling over 285 yards runs the risk of winding up behind a large hardwood tree that is through the fairway. So, here, the left side is most certainly not the preferred side. The best play from this tee is a shot in the range of 240-260 yards played to the right-center of the fairway. This will allow for a relatively easy shot into the green.

 The green is not visible from the tee. It lies roughly directly below the point where the ridge line of the peak in the distance disappears behind the trees. Those trees hug tight to the fairway on the left, blocking out shots to the green.

This from the center of the fairway, roughly 120 yards from the green. This gives a fair look at the opening to the green, allowing for either aerial play or ground play. The green is also something of a punchbowl green, one of the few "classic" golf features to be found in Alaska.

Overall, this is a very solid golf course. It is very difficult to review this course in pictures because often times the scale of the photograph does no justice for the hole. On all the holes playing northwards (2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 17) the scale is determined by the backdrop of the mountains that are ten miles distance and 3,500 to 4,000 feet in height. But this course is as good a course as this writer has seen given the nature of the site. 4 out of 10.

Doping in Sports

Doping in sports has come to the forefront recently with a few people being suspended from the Olympic games and, more significantly, Lance Armstrong likely being stripped of his Tour de France titles. This goes with numerous other athletes who have been in the headlines recently for alleged doping allegations. However, for the most part, none of these athletes have ever failed any drug tests. And on top of that, we, the general public, have enabled these athletes for years in their drug use.

Why was Lance Armstrong stripped of his Tour de France titles? In the end, what it really amounted to was that he refused to play the US Anti-Doping Administration's game anymore and participate in their witch hunt. In this day and age, it is apparently not necessary to actually fail a legitimate drug test to be guilty. The USADA simply refused to even consider that perhaps Armstrong was simply that much better than the rest of the competition. Consider that even now, at the age of 40, Armstrong is winning half-Ironman triathlons, defeating professionals over a decade younger than himself.

However, one reasonable thing about the USADA's decision (if it does come through as planned) is that they do show a willingness to strip people of titles and records, something Major League Baseball has thus far refused to do. Mark McGwire has admitted to using steroids during his 1998 baseball season and at other times. Barry Bonds tested positive for steroids in 2000, before his record setting year, as was released by Federal prosecutors. Numerous other baseball players have tested positive for drugs, yet their records and statistics still stand. Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire still have their records, however. But from all the press coverage on this, as well as other ball players, notably Roger Clemens, shows that all this is essentially a modern-day Salem Witch Hunt. And of course, government agencies and those supposed, self-appointed, guardians of the purity of sport at the USADA find it necessary to waste large sums of money to do so.

But the worst part of the whole situation is that we have enabled this situation. I recall vividly sitting in the living room at my parent's house with my dad watching Mark McGwire play Sammy Sosa and the Chicago Cubs attempting to break Roger Maris's home run record. And he did so. Citizens nationwide cheered, as did the thousands in attendance at the ballpark, at this ball player breaking Maris's sacred record. We then sat around, selling out park after park while Barry Bonds did the same thing just a few years later. We've watched and cheered our Olympic heros as they failed drug tests. People watched professional wrestling in record numbers during the 1980's as wrestlers pumped all grades of chemicals into their bodies. And we continue to watch all these sports even though athletes are suspended quite often for drug use. Truth is, we, the public are consumers of this entertainment. Do not attempt to fool yourself, professional "sports" are not sports at all. They are merely athletic entertainment pursuits that we pump vast amounts of money in to. At least the WWE is honest enough to call their product entertainment; baseball, football and others would still have us believe that this is sport.

Until people refuse to pay drug users and pay to see them, this will continue. Athletes will continue to abuse drugs and do everything possible to skirt the system. Teams will continue to write them record contracts. And citizens will continue to pay good money to watch these teams and athletes. I'd just prefer the witch hunt that has been going on for some ten years now will end and these athletes, drug users or not, will be allowed to live their lives in peace and, hopefully, obscurity.

Length Based Designators for Golf Courses

What is a long golf course? What is a very long golf course? For the purposes of some future discussions and course reviews that are likely to take place on this site, perhaps some definitions are in order.

The shipping industry has some uniform designators based on ship size. One standard set of designators, there are several "standards," rates ships as Crude Carriers (meaning ships that carry bulk shipments of unrefined crude oil/petroleum), Large Crude Carriers, Very Large Crude Carriers and Ultra Large Crude Carriers. The numbers used to make these determinations are virtually meaningless to the non-mariner and also not of real use here. But could a system like this work for golf courses?

Indeed, it could. Using the shipping model, there are very few ULCC's. As such, it makes sense that there would be very few Ultra Long Golf Courses. It seems reasonable that a ULGC is any course longer than 7,700 yards.

The Very Long Golf Courses (VLGC) designator could go down from there and cover courses between 7,300 and 7,700 yards.

The Long Golf Course (LGC) designator could be 6,900 to 7,300 yards.

And the standard Golf Course (GC) designator could be courses below 6,900 yards.

Of course, if desired, there could also be an additional, perhaps quite useful, designator of Short Golf Courses (SGC) for those courses below 6,100 yards.

Perhaps these designators can be used to sort through and categorize the various golf courses as they may be profiled.