Played a Christmas Day round at Brookside #1 with three friends and was surprised to find the course pretty quiet and smooth going all morning with an 8:10am tee time and playing from the blue tees. I... Continue »

Played a Christmas Day round at Brookside #1 with three friends and was surprised to find the course pretty quiet and smooth going all morning with an 8:10am tee time and playing from the blue tees. I'm still not a huge fan since they reversed the 9s a while back, and they've now closed the old starter's shack and moved it into the pro shop, but the course itself is still a very challenging treat.

Brookside #1 plays really, really long and it's got a lot of tricky, narrow tee shots that tend to then open up wide for most of the holes. There's also that pesky concrete drainage system that plays with your head on a few holes either crossing over it to the green or it running parallel to the fairways and teasing you to worry about pulls going OB. But it's still a super fun course.

Right now the conditions are pretty darn nice all around, with the best part being the greens. They're in very good shape currently, roll true and fast and will make you work for good scores. The fairways are mostly in very good shape with a very few thin areas, while the rough is pretty thick but not quite unplayable. Tee boxes are in good, not great shape, while the bunkers play a lot better than they look, and I should know since I was in a whole lot of them all morning.

We ended up catching a picture-perfect day out there as the weather was an absolute delight, all the while lamenting the poor souls in other states feeling the chill. By the time we were on the home stretch, temperatures were in the low 80s and no wind to punish you, so you really could not have asked for better.