Longaberger Golf Club: Humbling but Exhilarating at the Same
Time
By Carl W. Grody,
TravelGolf.com Staff Writer
NASHPORT, Ohio - Longaberger Golf Club helps define exactly
how much golf means to you.
For example, how hard do you really want your golf to be? At Longaberger,
try a rating of 75.2 with a slope of 138 from the black tees. Even
from the white tees, the rating is 69.6 and the slope is 128.
How fast do you want your greens to be? At Longaberger, the average
is 9.5 on the Stimpmeter, and that's only because it's as slow as
the staff can keep them.
How much slope do you want to play? Every fairway seems to slide
one way or the other, and some sit so steeply on their sides that
it's dangerous to drive a cart on them.
Finally, how much are you willing to pay? At Longaberger, that
might be the most telling question because you'll have to dig deep
-- $95 deep, to be exact. (Your fee includes a cart, club cleaning
after the round, use of the private locker room and - hold onto
your chairs - a free towel!)
Toledo-based architect Arthur Hills designed Longaberger, which
is about 45 miles east of Columbus. Hills is a disciple of Donald
Ross, and his layouts include Michigan's Bay Harbor, which was one
of only 16 courses in North America to get Five Stars from Golf
Digest; the Red Hawk Golf Club in East Tawas, Michigan, which was
an honorable mention in Golf Magazine's "Top 10 You Can Play";
and the Golf Club of Georgia in Atlanta, which Golf Digest rated
the best new private course of 1991.
Longaberger has been honored as well. Golf & Travel Magazine
ranked it 23rd in its list of the top 40 daily fee courses in the
country, and Golf Magazine included it among "The Top Ten You
Can Play" in its March 2000 issue.
But the attention was delayed by the decision not to open Longaberger
until a year after it was finished. Hills completed the course in
1998, but it didn't open to the public until May 1999.
"It is unusual to let a golf course sit for an entire year,"
said head professional Danny Ackerman, who's also been the head
pro at Quail Hollow Country Club and Pinehurst #6. "By allowing
it to sit, the course and the golfers really benefit from a number
of things. First, a lot of problems with drainage and washed-away
areas can be solved before the course opens. It also allows the
greens and fairways to mature."
That delay was unusual; most new courses open as soon as possible
because the owners need cash to offset the cost of building them.
But this course was built by the Longaberger Company, a direct-sales
company that makes handcrafted baskets.
It was listed in the Top 500 Privately Held Companies in the U.S.
by Forbes Magazine, which meant it could afford to put off the opening.
Hills' design might make you a basket case before your round is
over. Hills, who was inducted into the Ohio Golf Hall of Fame in
1993, designed numerous forced carries to fairways more than 200
yards away; thin, slick, difficult greens; and more slopes than
you'll find on a roller coaster. The course can play up to 7,243
yards, which would be long even on the PGA Tour.
Much of that yardage comes from a quartet of par fours that average
466 yards from the black tees. That's right, average. For comparison,
consider that the USGA likes to convert a par five at each U.S.
Open into a par four in the 470-yard range to serve as the ultimate
challenge for its competitors. Longaberger has two par fours longer
than that without any conversion.
But you don't have to play Longaberger as a monster course. There
are five sets of tees from which to choose. For example, you can
ease onto the white tees, which play 6,075 yards and from which
"The Big Four" only average 409 yards. The slope is still
sharp at 128, but the rating is just 69.6 - which, considering the
severity of the course design, is still too low.
But if you want to play like the big boys, you'll want to try
from the black tees. It can be a humbling experience, but exhilarating
at the same time.
The par-four 13th hole plays 480 (gulp!) yards from the back tees,
461 from the golds, 454 from the blues and 434 for the whites. You've
got to hit your best drive here just to reach the fairway, which
doglegs slightly to the right around a huge bunker.
If you happen to slice the ball short of that bunker, you'll be
in thick rough with an uphill lie and a blind shot to the green.
But even from the fairway, it's a tough second shot. You'll be hitting
a fairway wood or long iron to a two-tiered green protected by mounds
that drop off the right side and a bunker to the left.
The green is hard, fast and sloped from left to right. It's also
slightly diagonal to the fairway, making the depth questionable
when you're trying to hit it from 230 yards away. Few players will
actually reach this green in two, so unless you're a big hitter,
play this hole as a par five. Lay up on your second shot, then try
to hit a wedge close enough to make the putt. The scorecard will
say par, but your heart will say birdie - and in golf, you should
always follow your heart.
The par-four second hole plays almost as long at 474 yards from
the black tees. But this shot is played from the top of the course;
the tee sits so high that you can see the Longaberger Company's
headquarters several miles away. You can't mistake the building,
either; it's a seven-story structure built to look like one of the
company's baskets.
The landing area for your tee shot is generous, but the second
shot is anything but easy. You're left with more than 200 yards
to a small green protected by deep grass, grassy mounds and a deep
drop-off on the left-hand side. The fairway runs pencil-thin to
the green, so the option to lay up and play this hole as a par five
isn't nearly as appealing.
If you decide not to challenge this beast from the back tees,
you can play from the whites, which are a calming 393 yards. But
that brings the fairway bunkers into play. They're steep and deep,
and if you land in one of them, you'll probably have to lay up anyway.
The 18th hole plays longer than any of the par fours even though
it's "just" 466 yards from the black tees (404 from the
whites). From the tee, there's another long carry to reach the fairway,
which curls around a large tree in the left rough. The fairway slopes
sharply from right to left, and the approach is uphill to an elevated
green.
The clubhouse sits atop a large hill behind the green, and the mounds
around the green frame the shot like a picture on your wall. The
shot is reminiscent of the 18th at The Tournament Players Club at
River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, where the PGA plays the
Greater Hartford Open. (There may be tour events in Longaberger's
future as well; the course already hosted a match between Karrie
Webb and Dottie Pepper for "Shell's Wonderful World of Golf.")
From the 18th fairway, you're left with a three-wood to a tough
green. But if you're in the rough, your best bet is to play this
hole like a par five, just like you did at 13. Lay up, and then
try to stick a wedge close to the pin.
That approach is no guarantee of a good score, though. Greens that
are this hard don't hold approach shots very well. Even on a wet
day, your sand wedge will bounce and roll several yards after it
hits the putting surface. And you also have to block out loud classical
music that for some curious reason is piped outside from the clubhouse.
The junior member of the Crushing Quartet is the par-four eighth,
which received an honorable mention from Golf Digest in February
2000 as one of "America's best 18 holes." It's just 444
yards from the back tees, but it's the hardest-looking of the par
fours because you're forced to hit a long drive over rough just
to reach the fairway, which tilts so far to the left that you should
use a rope-and-buddy system just to reach your ball.
You can see the green in the distance, but it looks like it's on
another planet. It's so far downhill that you feel like you're floating
above it in a balloon, except that dropping a ball onto the green
from a balloon wouldn't be nearly as difficult as hitting it with
a long iron.
It would be shorter - and probably safer, considering the cantilevered
fairway - to go straight at the green from the tee. But the green
is surrounded by water, and from the tees it looks like that water
cuts off the direct route to the green.
That's not true. In fact, there's actually fairway short of the
water; it's just blind from the tee. You have to carry a couple
of hundred yards of deep grasses to get there, but it's worth the
risk for a big hitter. Just aim left of the big tree that seems
to be holding up the hillside portion of the fairway like Atlas
shouldering the weight of the world.
But you have to hit the ball well for this to work. If you don't
reach the fairway, you'll be hitting from thick rough over the water
to a green that's as receptive as a bride when her mother-in-law
shows up for the honeymoon.
If you do hit the fairway, you still have to be careful on your
approach because you'll have a downhill lie. If you don't swing
with the slope, there's no telling where your thinned shot will
finish; all that's certain is that you'll hate the result.
As if those holes weren't challenging enough, none of them are
the number-one handicap hole. Only two of them are even in the top
five; the eighth is the third-toughest hole, and the 13th is the
fourth-hardest.
The hardest hole is the par-five fourth, which plays 563 yards
from the blacks and 452 from the whites. The tee shot is downhill
to an adequate fairway; the trouble comes if you miss the short
grass. Miss to the left, and everything slopes to the woods, which
are perilously close. Miss to the right, and you bring the water
that runs along the last 100 yards of the hole into play on your
approach.
This hole is so tough that a marshal is posted on the tee to help
you. He patiently explains where you want to hit your tee shot and
where not to miss. After you hit, he scoots along in his cart to
help find your ball. Then, as you're getting ready to hit your second
shot, he explains the pros and cons of each possible choice.
For example: "See that green. Don't go for it."
The marshals at Longaberger are like veteran caddies, except that
you don't have to pay them. They know what they're talking about
because they play the course on a regular basis. For every two days
they volunteer to lead nervous golfers around by the hand, they
get to play two days. One of the marshals even admitted that once
he signed off with Longaberger, he just couldn't go back to his
old club to play anymore.
Anyway, the water isn't the only hazard on the fourth. The green
is smothered on the left by thick bushes, and behind the green is
a severe drop-off leading to more thick bushes and high grasses.
Lay up short of the water - don't worry, your marshal will give
you the yardage - then try to hit the green with a short iron.
And look out for that ridge in the middle of the green. It's tough
to see from the fairway, which is why the marshal happily points
it out just before trolling back up the hill to help the next foursome.
One of the nicest things about Longaberger is that the course
is spread out. Each hole seems secluded, and there are no houses
littered along the course to distract you. You don't even see many
golfers; tee times are spaced 14 minutes apart rather than the traditional
eight, which gives you plenty of time to consider your shots without
worrying about holding up traffic behind you.
Even when you're in trouble, you don't have to worry about the
pace of play. The groups behind you are probably trying to extricate
themselves from potential disaster, too. You can take the time to
really enjoy your round.
The staff goes out of its way to make sure you have a good time, too.
When you arrive, the bag handlers are there to unload your clubs and
take them to your cart. The clubhouse is huge - it looks like a resort
hotel as you drive up to it - and includes a restaurant with a chef
hired away from Disney World.
There's a clubhouse attendant ready to help you as soon as you
enter the door, and someone always reminds you to take home your
complimentary towel from the locker room.
In the pro shop, big, comfortable chairs sit in front of a large
television as if it were someone's living room. While you wait for
your round to start, you can have a seat, watch The Golf Channel
and chat with the volunteers about the course.
Once you're on the course, rangers cruise up to you a couple of
times just to make sure you're enjoying yourself. This is disconcerting
at first if you're used to rangers bearing nothing but bad news,
but you learn to appreciate the smiles and advice from these roving
volunteers.
The staff at Longaberger treats your round like it's a great event
in your life, which it is for many people. Public-course players
often plan an excursion to Longaberger as a chance to be "big-time,"
and tee times are tough to get.
All 21,000 of the season's tee-times were filled by May 1 in 2000,
and the season ran from April until Nov. 4. If you want to play
here, you have to call early in the spring.
To alleviate that crushing demand, Longaberger is building another
course on the same site. It will be designed by Ohio native Tom
Weiskopf and should open in 2003.
So, to the ultimate question - is Longaberger worth nearly a hundred
bucks of your hard-earned money? Well, that depends on who you are.
If you're just a mediocre player but take your golf seriously,
go somewhere else. Longaberger will frustrate you so much - and
so early in the round - that you'll be miserable all day. You can
play badly and enjoy Longaberger, but only if you don't care about
your score.
But if you're a good player looking for a challenge, Longaberger
is the course for you. The rough is wicked, you'll have uneven lies
in the fairways, the course is long and the greens are hard and
fast.
If you want to score well, you'll have to play the course several
times to learn where not to miss your shots, but you'll still have
a good time if you have a one-round stand with the course.
If you're worried about bang for your buck, Longaberger probably
isn't worth $95. For that price, you could play Cooks Creek twice
(at weekday rates) or Champions Golf Course in Columbus three times.
But if you're looking for that once-a-year excursion with your buddies,
or if you're looking for a vacation experience to brag about back
home, Longaberger is worth your time.
Just work on your long game before you get here, and don't forget
your mountain-climbing gear so you can safely play from the fairway
on number eight.
But no metal spikes, please. They aren't allowed.
Longaberger Golf Club
One Long Dr.
Nashport, OH 43830
Phone: (740) 763-1100
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