The car ride home from the golf course is a time for personal reflection. What went right? What went wrong? Why did I think walking on an 90 degree day was a good idea? Why do I continue to play this stupid game?
On the long drive home from Green Valley Country Club, replaying my round in my head, I had one bigger question – why hadn’t I played this course before?
I picked the worst possible day to experience the course for the first time. It was painfully hot, with humidity at 3 billion percent, and the Aquidneck Island breeze I was expecting never showed up. The late afternoon tee time had disastrous pace and walking the course may not have been my best idea.
When I finished, none of it mattered. As I unloaded my gear into my car, complete with my second shirt change of the day, I realized Green Valley Country Club is one of the best public golf courses Rhode Island has to offer.
Why did it take me this long to experience Green Valley? It’s the most Rhode Island answer.
In my 20s, I worked at Metacomet Country Club and took advantage of my playing privileges there and some of the state’s other private courses. Working at newspapers in South County, I started experiencing golf south of the tower and really enjoyed the courses down there.
Once we settled in Foster, the idea of driving to Portsmouth to play a public golf course seemed absurd. Drive over a bridge? In the summer? And not go to a beach? Nope.
When I started my summer boondoggle with the “Five Rhode Island Golf Courses You Need to Play This Summer,” Green Valley was a name that I noticed most often in social media comments and in my email inbox. The success of the first story meant my bosses were OK with me playing more golf for work, so I knew I had to see what Green Valley is all about.
My golf is rarely planned more than 24 hours in advance, which makes my desire to play early difficult. I’m constantly checking the internet for tee times, hoping something convenient will pop up and “force” me to go play.
With my kids taking part in a summer theatre group that had rehearsals on Sunday evenings, I decided I could grab an afternoon “work” round. Checked Green Valley’s website, there were a boatload of tee times available, so I booked and mentally prepared myself for the hour-plus drive.
It was hot and humid in Foster and I was under the assumption those things don’t exist in Portsmouth. I was wrong. I elected to walk – the kid in the pro shop said it wasn’t a tough trek – but after hitting like 15 balls on the range, I realized my day was going to be about survival and it had little to do with what Green Valley had to offer.
For the next 18 holes – which took over five hours to play, thanks to the course being backed up to the other side of the bridge – Green Valley offered exactly what any golfer would want from a course.
The thing that impressed me most was, after the round, I realized I used every club in my bag. You don’t get that at a lot of places. There’s so many courses that you can gouge with driver and go right to scoring irons or wedges.
A lot of that has to do with Green Valley’s design. If you want a challenge, it can play long, measuring at over 6,800 yards from the tips. When I saw that, I instantly passed, and the two random gentlemen I was paired with agreed the next tees up – over 6,600 yards – was going to be more than adequate.
That option is still beefy for me, but it didn’t feel that long. Some of the tees may have been up, but a lot of the length comes from three good-sized par 5s (No. 4 is 550 yards, No. 10 is 613, No. 17 is 548) and the par 4 second hole, which requires a big tee shot and a long iron in.
All the par 5s were manageable – and would have been scored on better had someone had any semblance of distance control with their third shot – and while they didn’t stand out as far as great golf holes, the rest of the course more than made up for them.
What made just about every par 4 fun was the options they presented. Longer ones gave you the necessary room you need off the tee, with the difficulty being in a longer approach with a protected green. The mid-length and shorter par 4s were user choice holes – you could try to overpower them, but ran the risk of finding trouble fast. If you went with a shorter club off the tee, it left you with a longer approach.
I loved the par 4 third hole. It’s a dogleg right and you can cut the corner, but there’s out of bounds right you cannot see from the tee. Going up the left side looks safe, but there’s a hidden bunker – which I found – and if you go too deep, you’re suddenly in a tree line that prevents you from seeing the green. I hit 3-wood and if I had to do it again, it would be a hybrid.
No. 18 was a fun finishing hole. It’s another dogleg right with no room to miss right – because that’s where the range is. Miss left, you’ve got a longer shot into the green and, from what I’ve been told, the wind is generally screaming in your face here. Feeling good, I hit a 3-wood – it was working on this day – straight, banged a casual wedge to the green, two putted and closed my day with par.
