Charm City Courses: Mt. Pleasant

I'm lucky enough to live within 30 minutes drive of 10 public golf courses. Half are owned by the county and half belong to the city. Each system has its own player discount cards. Since I live in the county, I have always gotten the county card every year, which is why I have mainly stuck to the 5 county courses.

This year, I finally bought a discount card for the city courses too, so now I can play both systems at reduced rates. One of the city courses is actually located in the county. That’s Pine Ridge, where I’ve played many times this year. This spring, I am making it a project to play the remaining city courses.

I'll start with Mt. Pleasant, which my brother-in-law says is "where all the really good people play."

Hubby and I had a 10:30am tee time on a Sunday morning. The pro shop is a tiny shack with faded wood paneling that looks like it hasn't changed since the 1950s. The first thing that hit me was the smell of bacon wafting through the air. Someone was having a proper breakfast before a round, or maybe an early bacon cheeseburger.

At the starter booth, we met up with Seri and her husband, who was wearing thick black spectacles, which were kinda hip for a nuclear physicist. We all rode golf carts since it's a hilly course. No wonder it's got the word "mount" in the name. And a road called Hillen runs through it. 

On hole one, a bushy-tailed fox scurried across the fairway with a fresh-caught squirrel dangling from its mouth, and with that auspicious omen, we were off. It was quite foggy that morning, and I didn't quite know the lay of the land, so my second shot landed in another fairway. But I recovered and bogeyed the first hole. (Remember, a bogey is a decent score for me.)

On almost all the holes, the greens were unreadable, partially due to the fog dulling the nap of the short grass, but also due to general scraggliness. This, along with the sloped fairways that had severe drops and blind roll-offs, made Mt. Pleasant a tough course for me.

But it definitely had some local charm, such as...

...a concrete pedestrian bridge over noisy traffic...

...roller-coaster fairways...

...rickety iron stairs to have a look-see over the ridge...

...wooden picture-frame fences (wonder if this was here when Arnold Palmer played this course in 1956?)...

...tight par 3's deep in the valleys...

...classic Baltimore rowhouses lining some of the fairways...

...and other historic housing (like this mansion owned by the neighboring Taylor's Chapel) giving a sense of place and a feeling of another time.

So how did I score on this round? Well, I broke 100 in the other direction, unfortunately, and I shot a 102. But not too bad for playing a course for the first time. I'll do better next time.