From Willis Case To Walnut Hills To Monterey

As I've mentioned in several blogs, I went for a 4 hour bike ride a week or so ago all around Denver, and one of the places I biked to was Willis Case, a municipal golf course on a hillside on the northwest side of town, as seen in the photograph on the left.  It has a clubhouse with a restaurant and outdoor patio at the top of the hill, and the holes are laid out up and down this hillside.

It immediately reminded me of Walnut Hills, a course that was located in Hickory Hills, a suburb to the southwest of Chicago that my father loved to play, and which I too played a few times when I was a kid, although I was, and sadly still am, a horrible golfer.  This course was also on a hillside, and like Willis Case, it had a restaurant and bar at the top where you could sit outside and enjoy the ambiance.   There were so many trees, it was almost like being in a forest. Years later I drove back there just to have a look, and sadly the course was gone, replaced by condos.  I think the clubhouse was still there, but it was truly depressing to see the place covered in housing.  So sad to see such a beautiful place ruined.

And of course, thinking about golf makes me think of Monterey, the condominium complex in Stuart, Florida that my parents moved to in 1976.  All of the buildings but two surround a par 3 golf course, which my father Nelson and Uncle Bill (my mother Mary's brother) loved to play, just like when they were on vacation up in Canada.  And technically, it is not really a par 3. When the complex opened in 1970, so many people were driving over the Winn Dixie grocery store because of the dogleg on the 3rd hole, they made it a par 4 and forced you to hit the ball behind a line straight down the fairway or be penalized. My sister Susan and I still own that condo, located in one of the two buildings across the street along the St. Lucie River, but have to rent it out in order to keep it.  The last time I played golf on that course was in August of 2015 (as seen in the photograph on the left), and there was not a soul around. I used to play golf with my mother there during the month of August.  It was hot, but if you waited until 4:00 in the afternoon to play, there was a nice breeze.  I wish I was down there now, but our tenants would probably object to my sleeping on the living room couch.  Ungrateful retches.