Change of pace for me today. I played the 9-hole Forest Dale golf course, located in Salt Lake City. Forest Dale, known by my group as “Foreskin Dale,” is the oldest course in Utah, serving up bogeys since 1906. Not as old as the New Course in St Andrews (1895), but 111 years isn’t too bad. This is a mini-review.
Forest Dale Clubhouse and practice green
The clubhouse (above) is actually a historical landmark, placed on the Utah Historical Register. Can grease in the cafe be a historical landmark? It might be as old as the course. I kid. I kid.
This 9-holer is interesting. It features a par-36 but three par-5’s, three par-4’s and three par-3’s. Here’s the par-3 8th below, what I could call the “signature hole” of the course.
Forest Dale 8th hole
This course is friendly to the very casual, higher handicap golf crowd. No collars required. In fact, I’d be surprised if shirts are required. It’s inexpensive but the rolling hills make it much more interesting than some of the other flat courses in the city. The old-school greens are pretty small, but since the course is moderately short they’re not overly hard to hit. They were quite slow today. Probably more favorable for the typical client the course serves.
I don’t know who the pro in the shop is. Never met him until today. But for a hot Sunday without a lot of people playing, he was very friendly and obviously enjoying his day’s work.
Forest Dale isn’t exactly golf tourist attraction for serious players, but for locals who don’t take themselves too seriously it’s fun. It’s not too hard to get on the course. I checked in with no tee time and was on the first tee before I had a chance to tie my shoes. It was a no-stress, enjoyable day and some decent exercise for me today. Good times.
FORE-st Dale!
Big announcement! I’ve release my first-ever mobile app! To increase my skills in the day job area of web development I tasked myself with learning a complex programming framework which lends itself to creating “device agnostic” applications. Part of that learning, and my winter project, was to make a mobile golf app. So I took my website Utah Golf Guru and created an app based on the same data. Utah Golf Courses is NOW AVAILABLE for free at the Android Play Store. I’ve submitted the IOS version to the Apple App Store also, but it is awaiting approval.
Utah Golf Courses mobile app
About Utah Golf Courses App
Utah Golf Courses works on any Android or IOS device. The app provides a listing of every golf course in Utah. The user can search for courses based on keywords. The user can also filter courses based on the type of course (public, private, resort, military), and geographic location. So the user could filter the list to show public courses in the southwest region of the state.
Course Details
Each course has a ton of details when the user taps the course to view it, like yardage, slope, rating. One can even find the types of grass on the fairways and greens. I also offer playing tips and commentary on many of the courses, including the range ball quality.
Tablet view of a course
The majority of the course photos were shot by me with many by drone.
Why?
There are many reasons behind making the app. The first two listed above were learning new coding skills and learning how to make an app. The other reason behind this one is that I’ve often found myself and my buddies looking for courses to book tee times, and not knowing their numbers. In just two taps of the user’s finger, the user can find the course and dial the course from the app.
Links (pun intended)
Utah Golf Courses for Android
Utah Golf Courses for IOS (coming soon)
Utah Golf Guru Website
From Scotland to French Lick to Spanish Fork, Utah. The HOG World Tour’s latest course visit was the extremely fun Spanish Oaks golf course at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon, about an hour south of Salt Lake City.
Fall is most definitely here, and we had been getting rain for roughly two days straight. Right as my lads and I reached the first tee the rain stopped, the temps rose, and we loved it. The combination of the lush green grasses with the low clouds on the mountains, with the leaves turning colors… wow.
Spanish Oaks is a very fun course. It’s not long, but it gets quite tight as it progresses. There are some short, risk-reward par-4’s which can reward well executed aggressive shots. I wish I wasn’t so far from this course or I would play it much more often. The greens were great, even after being soaked for two days in the rain.
Somehow I managed to shoot an even par round. Three birdies, three bogeys and the rest pars. What a fun day.
My email, Facebook, and Twitter are lighting up with concern from around the world. I’m thankful to have so many friends in the golf industry. Apparently the big news the last couple of days is that a golfer was stabbed here in our lovely state, an incident involving slow play.
So speed it up!
The golf course was Payson Golf Course, a course which isn’t close to me. I’ve never played it. Probably never will now. This is from the Salt Lake Tribune:
Payson • Police say a 61-year-old Utah man is accused of stabbing another man for golfing too slowly.
KUTV reports that the man and his wife were golfing Saturday night when they got into an argument on the course with other players.
Payson police said the couple thought the group was going too slowly and wanted to play ahead of them.
The man reportedly used a pocket knife to stab another man and was wrestled to the ground by another golfer after the couple encountered the group again near the ninth hole.
The victim had a small cut and was taken to a hospital for the non life-threatening injury
I’ve just completed two days of one-on-one meetings with golf industry professionals and media at the ING Spring Conference here in Heber, Utah.
It has been quite fun and educational engaging with these interesting people and checking out their products/services. Here’s a list of organizations I’ve met with in the two days here:
Bridgestone Golf
Tour Edge Golf
Golf Mesquite Nevada
Zermatt Resort
Heber Valley Utah CVB
18 Birdies
CHASE54 Apparel
eduKaytion Golf
Golf Overnight (club shipping)
Knuth Golf
Perry Golf
PGA Golf Exibitions
SNAG Golf
SoulKix
TK International
Visit Central Florida (CVB)
Wasatch Golf
I will be following up with these companies and working with them in the future with (hopefully) great blog content for HOG readers! Stay tuned.
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