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Golf on Cape Cod Course Review
Are you playing a Nike?” asked Mort Stone, as I finished off the last two inches of a six-foot par putt. “Um, no. Why do you ask?” “If you had been using a Nike, it would have gone in.” Ba-dum, bum. Of all the golfers to get paired with at “Olde Barney,” as Mort calls it, or Olde Barnstable Fairgrounds, as it is known officially, we got a guy who could have been a Borscht Belt comedian, and his wife of 49 years, Donna, the Gracie Allen of the team. It was June, and the Stones had been back from Florida for two months by now, back in the comfort of their pond-front home in one of the seven villages of Barnstable, and back at their home course, where he is a 16, and she is a 36, and together they are happy and in love no matter what. Originally from Boston, the couple had considered a retirement in Maine, but decided it was too far from civilization, and instead moved to the Cape 10 years ago, in the process becoming a fixture of the course and its hill-top More remarkable than septuagenarians who like to walk 18 holes several times a week, she hasn’t hit him yet, despite numerous opportunities. “He has no idea,” Donna said, as Mort walked up the right side, my partner walked up the left, and she was forced to either wait or shoot, and shoot she did, straight through the middle of them. We had completed the tricky par 5 at No. 1, and the short par 3 over water at No. 2, and were now standing over our approach shots to this second par 5 at No. 3, a course rendered unique by its funky 5-3-5-3 start. A three-shot picture postcard if ever there were, No. 3 measures 503 yards, with water down the left side and a road tucked behind the trees down the right. It terminates at a 45-yard green that narrows as it goes and is guarded by bunkers front and right, some gnarly rough long, and the lake on the left, always open to a poorly struck pitch. “Do you enjoy that sort of high risk, high reward shot?” I asked Donna after Mort has always been the athletic one in the family, with high school and college sports and tennis and golf, whereas Donna came late to the game, having shied away “until she discovered a new religion, called Ping,” Mort said. Golf fits into their lives somewhere between maintaining two homes, his continuing work in the health care industry and their three children and three grandchildren. To hear them tell it, golf can either be their exercise, their entertainment, their social center or their marital glue, although Mort mentioned another aspect of their enduring union that would make for better reading in Playboy. In any event, you haven’t enjoyed the full experience at Olde Barney until you’ve played it with these two. They know everyone, and exchange greetings with one and all, no matter the hole or the distance between. They know every nook and cranny on the course, and can tell you what to avoid (like the sneaky bunkers down the right side of No. 7, a par 4, 430 yards) and when to use an extra club (as on No. 12, a par 3, if the wind is whistling above the treetops surrounding the small, elevated green). “Churchill described this hole as an enigma wrapped in a conundrum,” Mort, with his trademark Dentyne smile, lied. Golf on Cape Cod appreciates the local knowledge, Mort was told. “It isn’t knowledge,” Mort said, “here it’s local color.” By then, the dew on the course had mostly disappeared, the sun was trying to peak through a month of rain, and the Stones had swapped greetings with a half-dozen fellow golfers. At one point, they got a phone call from a relative who was in a hospital in Vermont, intensive care as a matter of fact. Mort immediately begged our forbearance, which was welcomed and unnecessary all at once. We were just happy the patient had good news and the Stones could handle the ordeal without missing a single shot, a juggling act they managed by handing the phone back and forth or simply putting it down while the caller kept talking, including once while Donna was deep in a bunker and the disembodied voice was on top of her bag. On some courses on some days with some golfers, this may have been a problem, but not at Olde Barney on a weekday morning with Mort and Donna. It was part of the experience: a genuinely rewarding four-hour round at a course that always keeps your attention, no matter the would-be distractions. Among the others were: the hawk that swooped down and snatched a critter from the woodsy left shoulder of No. 1, a 485-yard dogleg left; the parachutist who floated aloft above the elevated hole in the forest at the 12th green, before landing (hopefully) at the airstrip across the street from the course, which served as the county fairgrounds until its transformation in 1992; and the propeller planes that appear and disappear along the treetops, adding splashes of color to the blue-and-green palette. Speaking of colorful, Mort and Donna were asked whether they had ever aced a hole. Not here, they said, but Mort got one during a round in Naples five years ago with a seven-wood and an orange ball, because it was getting dark. And I believe him. Among the other distinctive features of the Olde Barney experience — the big leafy tree in the middle of the fairway on No. 18, a double-dogleg that required two perfect blasts and a decent chip to reach, and still didn’t yield a par, not with the pin tucked in front, just beyond the deep, yawning bunker, on the low side of a back-to-front slope with a ridge running through it, and me not playing a Nike. Oh, well. I’m happy to report the course is in great shape, especially the tees and greens and practically divot-less fairways. Plus, after 17 years of operation, Olde Barney continues to provide a profitable amenity for the people and coffers of Barnstable, as well as golfers from all over. Memberships to both courses are available to residents for $800 a year and non-residents for $1,500 a year, with additional deals to suit the player and the times, such as a break on greens fees for residents and reduced rates for morning and twilight play.
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