The Moc - Preview

Tampa has to have one of the worst collection of courses in any major metropolitan area. They're all varying degrees of terrible, caused by less-than-ideal soil, lazy design, and club mismanagement.

Sure, we could drive over an hour and pay $80-$150 for "better" courses. But the travel would get really old, really quickly — even for those of us without young families and annoyed WAGs. It's also fiscally irresponsible, especially when so many of our members have applied for SBA loans.

Fun fact: If you played in every event during our 16 seasons, you'd have spent $6,027 in greens fees alone.

So being a man of the people, and a beacon of light to the masses, I spend a lot of time in the off-season looking for good deals and new experiences. The Groves (par 3 course which Tall Mike uses as an ATM) was a decent find. I think people mostly liked Huntington Hills. Big Cypress will hopefully find its way onto our schedule. We might play Skyview in The Rapture this year. Pasadena and Vinoy Club are good, but getting us out there will be a challenge.

Some places are duds, but the effort was made in the last 12 months to verify: Timber Greens, Seven Springs, Meadow Oaks, Plantation on Crystal River, Twisted Oaks...

Which brings us to Sunday's selection: Moccasin Wallow.

When I stumbled upon this course, I was extremely confused how something I've never heard of (with decent online ratings) had slipped past my radar. It didn't take long to realize this was a re-branding of the dumpster fire that was Imperial Lakewoods, located near the dumpster fire that is Buffalo Creek.

Apparently a retired PGA Tour caddie purchased the course, and is in the process of a complete overhaul. They made it "private*" and spent a bunch of money creating greens that didn't suck. They added some fancy point-of-sale system so the starter uses an iPad to manage groups. And they slapped paint (literally and metaphorically) on everything else to cover up the shit stains.

*"private" as in they will charge you $1 to become a member. I still can't wrap my head around the purpose of this transaction. Maybe it has something to do with classification within Manatee County's codes?

The only time I played it, the greens were nice and impressively fast. I didn't spend too much time in the fairways. And the rough was more dirt due to the overgrowth of oak trees that need to be removed. Basically, the normal shit you'd see at most places we play.

But the layout — despite being designed by my boy Ted McAnlis who created Waterlefe — ranged from forgettable to mind-blowing difficult.

The 9th hole — a 525 (from the whites) par 5 that wraps around a lake with a postage-stamp green containing a buried elephant — is one of the dumbest things I've ever played. I can't wait for you all to experience it.

A handful of holes on the back nine reach the level of Wentworth frustration. Beyond the mismanagement of tree over-growth... I have no idea how this course was built next to a retirement community. What were they thinking?!

You may remember I like to over-exaggerate things in order to manipulate your expectations. But consider this: I played a round there with Faz, Reid and Danny. We shot 90, 97, 100, and 108 respectively in dry, windy weather. Replace that with rain this weekend, and this will become the experience 2020 demands.

Things to Note:
- Get there early to check in. I'm giving them your names so it should go quicker. They do have a range as well.
- We are allowed to bring booze this week since they aren't selling any.
- I'll run the random pairing generator soon. Maybe I'll go live on Twitter to document it (probably not).
- Everyone is on the WHITE tees unless you tell me otherwise. The scorecard below will show you distances. Use the event page on this blog to see the different slopes/ratings if you want to calculate your course handicap from different tees.