2012-09-03 31 -81

Mon 3 Sep 2012 in Waverly, Georgia: 31.1008130, -81.5884483 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

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
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  Definitely set up for events and the like.

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  The opening sign.

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  The view of the geohash hole from the yellow tees.

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  Success! One day I'll learn how to take pictures without glare.

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  View of the geohash towards the road.

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  View of the geohash towards the course.

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  Hooray! I don't look nearly as tired as I felt there.

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  Putted to the hashpoint.

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  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

Geoff earned the Golf Geohash Achievement by reaching the (31, -81) geohash on 2012-09-03.

Geoff achieved level 5 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement by visiting coordinates in Jacksonville, Florida and 5 of the surrounding graticules.