2012-09-03 31 -81

Expedition

The Plan

In the trees off the 7th hole in Golf Club at Sanctuary Cove. I've got a tee time for 8:10 AM, which will hopefully let me play the round before the day gets too overbearing. Erica is not a golfer and has no desire to play, so she'll be sitting this one out.

Geohashers

Geoff

The Adventure

Woke myself up at 6:00, and despite notes to myself urging to leave by 6:30, it was closer to 6:50 before I headed out. The drive was one of those exceedingly boring ones of just getting on I-95 and going north. It was about an hour drive, and the only thing that livened it up was Georgia State Patrol whipping by me at a hundred miles an hour to pull someone over. (Not an exaggeration, I'm pretty sure it was going that fast.)

My plan was to hit the links at 8:10, allocate myself three hours to finish the game and make the geohash, then hit the road to be back by 12:30. Technically, I achieved all three of those goals. First of all, it's imperative to know that I am terrible at golf. My high hopes were that if I could keep my score in double digits, it'd be a smashing success. For the record, par at Sanctuary Cove is 71, so you can see I had really high hopes for myself. I also figured that, considering the amount of stops I'd have to make to hit the ball again, ten minutes per hole was probably a high but accurate guess.

I only played nine holes. The party in front of me was so slow that it took twenty minutes per hole, aka the entire allotted time I had set for myself, just to finish half the game. Par was 36, I scored 54. Not exactly a smashing success, but well enough, I suppose.

It was about as eventful as bad golf can be until I hit the 7th hole. I realized as I was driving up to the tee that this hole was set up perfectly for me to try and actually hit the ball to the geohash. When I drive, I have a wicked slice on the ball, but there were bunkers in front of me as a visual reference and the hashpoint was in the trees to the right! The party in front of me allowed me to play through, so I took aim, fired, and for once, my drive went exactly as I planned it, right into the trees.

Said party was helpful and pointed out my ball hadn't gotten too deep in the trees. I thanked them, picked it up, and continued into the trees. The following exchange took place: "Wait, where are you going?" "Oh, I actually meant to hit it further into the trees, so I'm just taking it there." "Why?" "The internet demands this of me."

By the time I came back from the point, they were long gone. Once again, satellite imagery showed the trees as being much more open than they were. I used my putter to move some of the overgrowth out of the way, which thankfully stopped immediately thereafter and it was a fairly open clearing. I found the spot, took my pictures, then dropped the ball and putted to the hashpoint. Success!

Now, in terms of marking it, this was where I faltered earlier in the morning. Where do you place a playing card so that it doesn't get picked up by the grounds crew? At the point won't work, no one would actually go in there for a ball. Just outside would look like trash, as would sitting it at the tee. Eventually, I realized my problem was with the playing card itself - why don't I leave a golf ball? So at the beginning of the round, I wrote out the coordinates on a ball and left it by the yellow tee of the 7th hole. Problem solved!

I actually birdied the eighth hole to my own great surprise, but describing what happened needs a picture of the hole and some time with Paint/Photoshop, so it can come later. By the time I had finished the 9th hole, as mntioned earlier, I had golfed half as many holes as I wanted but just as long as I had planned, so I returned the cart and left for home.

Gallery

Photo Gallery
Definitely set up for events and the like.
The opening sign.
The view of the geohash hole from the yellow tees.
Success! One day I'll learn how to take pictures without glare.
Does Poseidon get a Sex Geohash if the waves are furious enough?
Thankfully not the banana variety.
Hooray! I don't look nearly as tired as I felt there.
Putted to the hashpoint.
Left at the yellow tees of the 7th hole.

Achieveables

Admit One is a possibility, but there's nothing stopping someone from parking on the nearby road and just venturing into the woods. Template:Virgin graticule