Met up with Nor Cal GK’ers MKo and DeepSea14 yesterday for a little Nor Cal Birdie Battle, Peter coming off a hot streak in July with a string of birdies, me with new sticks and Mike fresh off a 5 b... Continue »

Met up with Nor Cal GK’ers MKo and DeepSea14 yesterday for a little Nor Cal Birdie Battle, Peter coming off a hot streak in July with a string of birdies, me with new sticks and Mike fresh off a 5 birdie round. This is my second time playing Poppy Ridge and we played the same 2 nines (Zinfandel and Cabernet) as we did last time

Overall the course was in decent shape and very playable. Fun layout, that sits in the hills so naturally it has a ton of elevation changes. Unlike Bay View, Poppy Ridge traverses the hillside vertically so there’s no nasty side roll once you find the fairway which are normal in landing size.

Like the others mentioned. Greens were very painfully slow. Bunkers were a bit thin but manageable. The layout (and great company) supersedes the defects in the playing conditions.

As for the NC BCB. Ko started it off early on hole 2. I wrestled it away from him on the par 5 Fifth hole. We both had inside 10’ for birdie on #8 but neither converted. Mike then missed a great opportunity for birdie on the 12th hole after stuffing a wedge inside 4’. I too missed a good opportunity on the 17th hole with a tee shot about 9’ above the hole. It all came down to the par 5 18th. Both were in the fairway off the tee with Ko in a perfect spot to go for the green in two. I was just outside the comfort zone and played smart hitting to 60 yards out. Ko’s second shot was about 10 yards short of the green where he promptly chipped it and tapped the flagstick settling 2” away. I hit a poor third shot and then chipped to 2’ but had to hand back the Nor Cal Birdie King his chain!

A great time was had by all and we are searching our calendars for a rematch. Likely at Yocha Dehe!