"You’re not playing golf on our wedding day!"
My fiancée Linda rarely "puts her foot down" but today was an exception. We were visiting Raspberry Plain, an eighteenth-century mansion that hosts special events, corporate meetings, parties, and…weddings. As we toured the property, my fiancée fell in love with the stately rooms, the lush and beautiful gardens. My attention drifted to something else.
"Man, that’s a great looking golf course!" The rear windows of the mansion look out several fairways of Raspberry Falls Golf and Hunt Club, a Gary Player Signature Course. Immediately my thoughts turned to when I’d be able to play there.
I asked the director of the mansion if there was some kind of deal between the Raspberry Plain and the golf course. Seems reasonable to me, but unfortunately there wasn’t any. Though she told us that many grooms arrange to play there before their wedding.
Linda could easily read my mind. That’s when she put her foot down. "I don’t want you all sunburned and tired out on our wedding day," she said.
"But we’re getting married at six. Plenty of time for a round!"
She just shook her head.
My father gave me some advice when I got engaged: "Don’t fight about the small things." Now, usually golf in no way qualifies as a small thing in my life (my handicap is certainly no small thing) but, relatively speaking, I could see how my father’s advice applied here.
I said, "How ‘bout the day before?" And I got a kiss as an answer. Isn’t she great?
Okay, you’re probably saying, get on with it!
A few months later, my buddy Vranko and I skipped work and made our way out to Leesburg to play a round at Raspberry Falls. We had a really good time, but the round certainly didn’t help my handicap. It was definitely one of the tougher courses that I’ve played.
To get to the course you have to go out to Leesburg, Virginia. You can take the Dulles Toll Road all the way to Dulles, then hop on the Greenway to Route 15. The course is just north of Leesburg, right off of 15. The way I got there, from Maryland, was to take White’s Ferry across the Potomac. From the ferry you come out and cross over Route 15. It’s about a minute and a half from the Virginia side of the ferry.
Vranko was waiting for me. Since it was 10:30 on a Thursday in November, the course unsurprisingly appeared almost empty. Hopping around the clubhouse was a three-legged black Lab. I tried to divine some golf meaning from this apparition. He managed to get himself around pretty good, in spite of being hit by a car and losing a leg. Did this mean I would overcome my usual problems and produce a good game for once? Or did it mean I was about to get slammed by the difficulty of the course?
Instead of dwelling on this for too long, I went to hit some balls. Raspberry Falls bills itself as "an upscale daily-fee" course. This means a couple of things. You pay $50 on a November weekday, but the range balls are free, and handed to you in a cloth bag by an attendant at the driving range, where you hit off of grass tees. You’re not allowed to walk, but the cart is included.
By our tee time at 10:30, quite a few more players had shown up. Vranko and I were paired up with two old geezers, uh, I mean, older gentlemen, Wes and Dave. Actually they were very nice and polite as we made the usual pre-round conversation that you generally make when you’re paired up with strangers: "Hope I play well today, though I’m not very good…" and "Boy, I hope I don’t slow you guys down too much…." Well, at least that’s my usual conversation in that situation.
The starter directed us to the 10th tee. Vranko, who’d played this course before, said "Uh, oh!" The first tee is supposedly a lot easier. At least for Vranko. Nothing’s easy for me. The 10th hole is a slight dogleg right bounded by water to the left. The first tee shot of the day is always a little nerve-wracking, but I managed a nice shot on the right side of the fairway. It was better than Wes’s or Dave’s shot, so I felt good. This feeling wouldn’t last, as the two semi-retired gents consistently hit the ball better and further than I did the entire round.
There was another piece of advice my dad gave me: "Never play a course where the bunkers have names." Well, actually, my dad didn’t really say that, but he should have. The railroad-tie-lined deep bunkers at Raspberry Falls carry such names as "Lee’s Bunker" or "Grant’s Tomb." The one I got stuck in—eight feet deep—gave me "Montezuma’s Revenge." Though Raspberry Falls also sponsors fox hunting, it’s a good thing there were no guns to be found right then. Vranko and the other guys just grimaced as it took me four strokes to get out of the sand. Some advice was offered: "Maybe you should stay out of the bunkers." Words to live by.
Since it quickly appeared that this wouldn’t be my day to break 80, let alone 90 or 100, I tried to relax and enjoy the scenery. The course, even in November was gorgeous. There are trees, ponds, hills and dales. Above one fairway, Raspberry Plain sits in majestic matrimonial splendor on a hillside. I told Wes and Dave about my impending wedding, possibly hoping to gain some sympathy for my poor game. It did no good. Wes continued to make me not only shout out my score, but also to publicly count my putts. On the front nine, which we played last, you can see a stately white mansion sitting up on a hill above the course. The third tee is especially beautiful. A par 4, the green sits 200 feet below you. Vranko hit a whopper of a tee shot there. Mine was not so whopper.
My favorite holes were nine and eighteen. Nine was where I found a bunch of golf balls in the mud track of a stream, which during the summer, guards the green. In November it was just a muddy resting place for assorted Titlelists, Pinnacles, and even a nice hardly-used Nike. The green at eighteen is guarded by a rock-strewn gully. I tried a lob wedge from about sixty yards and hit it short. As I was cursing, my ball hit one of the rocks in the gully and took a nice bounce onto the green. What a great hole!
On the par-three fifteenth, as my tee-shot was in the air, a hunting party bounded onto the green, chasing a fox. My ball bounced off the bugle of one of the horsemen, and bounced into the hole for an ace. Wait…that was just a daydream while I was waiting for the other guys to tee off first. Actually I think I got a 7 there.
Overall the course was very challenging. We played from the men’s blue tees at 6296 yards (69.8/126). The gold and black tees are longer, black at 7191 yards (74.3/134), and there are white and "raspberry" tees that are shorter. Maybe the shorter would have been better for me.
As we headed for our cars, Vranko and I said goodbye to Wes and Dave. With smirks that only retired people can master, they said, "Have a nice day at work tomorrow!" As if this wasn’t bad enough, Dave asked me if I’ve ever considered taking lessons. I’m sure he meant it in a nice way.
What higher praise for a course than to say: "I definitely plan to play there again." And, as I drove home, I made two solemn promises to myself. The first was that I wouldn’t play Raspberry Plain on my wedding day. I wanted to make Linda happy. The second was that I wouldn’t be a thirty-handicapper when I came back to play here. Twenty-nine would be fine!