I spend a fair amount of time golfing, watching golf, or wishing I was golfing. Mind you, I’m not obsessive about it. I just prefer getting out of the house for a few hours rather than having my wife assign me “honey do” projects that she’ll probably yell at me for doing wrong. She has even gone so far as to suggest that I do them wrong just so she won’t trust me to do them again… ever. She may be right; but I prefer to call it rising to my most tolerable level of incompetence which sadly also applies to my golf game these days.
Regardless of all that, we are heading into summer and my plan is to play every course in the county from top to bottom, left to right. OK, so maybe it doesn’t quite rise to the level of a “bucket” list that the title of this article suggests, but at least it’s a goal that will get me out of the house. Right?
So in the next week or so I’m going to cross the border—four times actually—to play the course in Point Roberts. I’m really looking forward to that and my buddy Brandon will be out of WWU for the summer so will be able to ride along with me. After that, we’ll take on Semiahmoo and Loomis Trail in Blaine then move slightly east to Dakota Creek in Custer and finally Homestead in Lynden with its signature island green. We’ll call that the “Northern” swing.
Next we’ll do the “Central” swing beginning at the delightful little Raspberry Ridge, Shuksan and the links-style North Bellingham. Finally, on the “Southern” swing, we’ll head to Lake Padden and Sudden Valley and if we get really crazy, we might cross the county line and take a shot (or 90) at Avalon and Eaglemont. I actually played Eaglemont last weekend when my kids took me there for Father’s Day. I’ve not been there for at least two years and it was in fabulous shape; they’ve moved into a beautiful clubhouse on top of the hill and rearranged the nines accordingly. I’ll look forward to revisiting it at the end of my Whatcom County swing. NOTE: I’m not a Bellingham Golf & Country Club member so left that off the list. But if you are a member, and are willing to invite me, I’d love to embarrass both of us sometime when you’re in the mood to be dishonored in the midst of your peers.
So there you have it. Over the next two or three of months, I’ll be reporting about my exploits on ten courses located in Whatcom County; at least seven of which are among my favorites in Western Washington. I’ll leave it to you to decide which seven. There are few counties in the entire state that can rightly boast this number of high caliber courses and excellent excuses to avoid the “honey do” list. In this way, we are very lucky.
Go. Play. Golf.
