December 7, 2010 - River Ridge Golf Club, Victoria Lakes Course, Oxnard, California

I had never played River Ridge before.  They have two golf courses, the Vineyard Course and the Victoria Lakes Course.  I'd heard that the Lakes course was more difficult than the Vineyard course from several sources.  Stan found a deal on GolfNow.com, and since I wanted to play at River Ridge (and a deal's a deal), he booked three tee times, for Stan (SB), me and Stan Weiner (SW), our good friend and neighbor.  River Ridge Golf Club

The pretty River Ridge clubhouse.

We had pretty high expectations for our play since we had just come off a three-day lesson with Joe at PGA West in La Quinta.  Those expectations were soon dashed to smithereens.  SW was not enthusiastic about playing on this course, and I can now see why.  In his words, the Lakes is a "stupid course."  In the first place, the fairways were pretty much dead grass and it wasn't very pretty.  That could be because they are re-seeding, aerating or preparing the course for spring, but, in any case, in SB's words, "it didn't inspire."  

The Stans on the brown fairways.

Before I go on, all three of us have decided that we will not play this course again, so that will definitely color my description of the day.  

I started out with two 9s on the first two par 4s.  That should give you an indicator of how the day was headed.  I talked to myself, though, and bogeyed the next four holes, doing better on the rest of the front nine, ending with a score of 55.  Not too bad, and I had some decent drives and fairway shots, though I hit only 3 out of 7 fairways.  I had some disappointing putting, though, with two four-putts on the front and back nine each.   

SB's first four holes were not stellar; they went 7, 9, 7 and 10.  He bogeyed the 6th and made par on the 7th, but the last two were 7s, for a score of 60 on the front nine.  He made 5 out of 7 fairways - pretty good, but didn't do well in his putting.  He had a stellar moment, though.  On the 6th hole, he made an up-and-down from a bunker for a bogey.  That little yellow ball just rolled into the cup, like it knew where it was going.  We all whooped and hollered - it was so very exciting!

SW never shot over a 6 on the front nine with a score of 49 on the front.  We didn't keep track of his tee shots to the fairway or putting, but he is a very good golfer.  He made some excellent shots, but still had trouble on this course.  His putting was just OK; he wasn't happy.  The greens were very fast, which he usually likes, but for some reason he just couldn't make it happen today.  


The back nine was gruesome for me.  Although I made one par and one bogey, I did much worse than that on every other hole, including a 9 on the 13th and a 10 on the 18th (losing a ball in the water on both holes didn't help).  I wound up with a 61 on the back, for a total score of 116, making 3 out of 7 fairways, and had a total of 44 putts.  

SB did about the same on the back, with a score of 59.  He got a 9 on the 18th hole (he lost a ball too).  His total score was 119.  He hit 3 out of 7 fairways and had 44 putts as well.  I have never heard him say he wanted to pack it in and leave the course, but he said it on the back nine.  I think he was frustrated and disappointed, which I could certainly relate to.  He did hang in there and finished, but would have loved to have torn up our score card, I'm sure.  (No can do.  We need a record for the blog!)


SW shot a couple of 7s on the back nine and everything else was 6 or under.  He had a score I would have been excited to have, a 99, but he wasn't too thrilled.  

After our game, we drove over to Golfsmith so SB could get more balls and introduce SW to Joe.  Joe was surprised that we did so terribly, but was upbeat about our future with the game.  I feel it is best to put this round of golf under lock and key and just forget about it.