Our old friend Bill and I got an early tee time at Lake Presidential on Monday. The pro shop indicated there was nobody ahead of us to tee off and we could go at any time. We loaded up the cart an opted to skip the driving range and putting green in order to get out ahead of any crowd that might show up. We had a pretty leisurely round, with the group in front of us and the one behind us only showing up every so often. We chose to play from the silver tees, making the course 5,783 yards, plenty long for our age and skill level. The other tee boxes were black at 7,158 yards, blue at 6,717 yards, white at 6,258 and burnt orange at 4,895. Bill chose to just enjoy the round and skip the score keeping. I kept my score, which wasn’t terribly pretty at 98 with an 18.2 handicap, which would have netted me an 81. Losing four balls on the front nine definitely contributed to that outcome.
If you’re a senior golfer and have anything like an 18.2 handicap or greater, you may want to consider playing from the burnt orange tees. Some of the holes are pretty long for us short hitters and some require long carries. If you’re not a stickler about the rules of golf and maintaining an accurate handicap index, you can/should also consider picking an appropriate tee box on each hole. Occasionally, someone facing a long carry from the fairway will put the ball on the tee and hit their driver. I’m on the course to enjoy the round and hope that the others with me can too.
I’m not big on the credentials of a course, as I love them all in their own way, but Lake Presidential does have some. The hosted the Maryland Women’s Amateur Championship in 2011 and the U.S. Open Qualifier in 2011 and 2013. The Maryland Golf website has rated it 3rd best public course in the state, the Top 100 website rated it 12th and the Golf Day website rated it 50th. It’s a great course but all of these looked questionable when you dig deeper into their data.
Liked: Fairways and greens were pretty generous in size. Trouble lurked everywhere but was generally manageable.
Liked: The grass on the tee boxes, fairways and greens were lush. On the par 3s I didn’t use a short tee as it wouldn’t reach into the dirt. I could just hit off the grass.
Liked: The cart appear to be new and have a great GPS system. They are also equipped with an extendable cover for your clubs in case of rain.
Liked: Lake Presidential has a pretty good website and great drone footage of each hole. Lately, I’ve been making Google Earth Studio “videos” for each hole but I’m going to skip this one since theirs is so good. (Haven’t figured out how to include it without shelling out more cash.) Drone videos For some reason, a different golf course comes up on the first hole but the other holes will still work…
Liked (but in a challenged sort of way): Everything after the tee box was undulating so you faced a lot of different lies and shots.
Liked: A really large all grass driving range with practice sand trip and pitching green.
Disliked: Some parts of the fairways are fairly scarred by players hitting their second/third shots and not replacing or filling in their divots. The carts was all equipped with a sand mixture and scoop and it appeared that everyone took a cart so there really isn’t much excuse.
Disliked: The parking area in front of the clubhouse looks like it gets no love, probably because everyone is rightfully working to keep the golf course in shape. Looked weedy and unmowed and some trash scattered around.