OCEAN CITY, MD — I’ve got the ingredients you need for a successful spring golf trip.
After putting the holiday decorations away and watching the snow pile up in Eastern Ontario, it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.
My quick list:
•Getting to the destination with relative ease, whatever mode of transportation is to your liking.
•Decent weather (I’d even go so far as to say just not raining.)
•Interesting, well-conditioned golf courses which are, for the most part, near good accommodations.
•An unpretentious establishment with good pub food, a good selection of locally crafted beer, and staff willing to find me a hockey game or two on the televisions.
You can find a lot of destinations that can deliver those important ingredients for a good golf trip.
What kicks a good trip up to great status, for me, is each of those things ratcheted up just a touch and a few experiences on and off the courses that give a trip its character.
I had such a trip last April to this coastal destination. It ticks all the boxes and, as I said, provided the extras that made the trip an outstanding start to my 2023 golf season.
First off, getting there: If I can drive somewhere in a reasonable time with decent weather conditions, that is always my first choice. You can pack as much stuff as you like, stop as often as you like and once you’re there, you’ve got your own car for getting around.
My buddy Tim and I packed up and left from Ottawa at 8 a.m. on a sunny April morning and we rolled into Ocean City in time for dinner. It was just about all highway driving and took us a little more than 10 hours with a couple of stops (one has to be in Clarks Summit, Pa., about halfway to Ocean City from Ottawa, to fill up with gas and Krispy Kreme donuts. I learned you need two dozen for a five-day trip, apparently).
If you want to fly, Ocean City is a little less than a three-hour drive from Baltimore or Washington, D.C. or you can connect to nearby Salisbury, MD airport.
This destination might not be as well-known as some of the other golf spots farther south, but the fact you can get here in a comfortable day’s drive from Eastern Ontario is a huge advantage to me. Like they say, save the long drive for the golf course.
Once here, you’re going to find accommodations and golf courses that I bet can measure up with your current favourite East Coast destination at a better value. We stayed at the Commander Hotel and Suites, right on the boardwalk (at 14th Ave. at the southern end of the 16-km long coastal island.) I slept with the door to the balcony open, letting the sound of the waves drift in overnight.
What a start every morning having a coffee on the balcony and watching a spectacular sunrise.
Spring and fall are the best times to visit. Ocean City sees its population ramp up to about 400,000 in the summer months as its long stretches of beaches and that almost five-kilometer-long boardwalk attract seasonal residents from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. (There are about 12,000 full-time residents.)
In the spring and fall, it’s easy to get around. Our weather was spectacular in April, sunny with temperatures in the mid-to high teens. Be warned: it can get windy.
That was the case when we played Rum Pointe Seaside Golf Links, designed by Pete and P.B. Dye (No. 10 in Maryland on Golfweek magazine’s best courses you can play, 2022). It’s on Sinepuxent Bay overlooking Assateague National Seashore and exposed to the wind that was just whipping the day we played. As I was lining up my approach on the par-4 first hole, the wind lifted the flag out of the hole.
It’s said pirate captains Kidd and Blackbeard sought shelter from that wind in the barrier islands of Assateague.
In Revolutionary War times, Captain Charles Rackliffe built the two-story house to the right of the sixth fairway in 1740 (it has been restored and is open to the public) and the story goes that British troops came ashore during the War to conscript locals. When one of Rackliffe’s sons refused, he was hung from a tree. It’s said he still haunts the property. Nothing like a good ghost story to add some character.
We started our golf experience on the morning of our first day at the 36-hole Ocean City Golf Club on its Newport Bay Course. One of my favourite holes was the 520-yard par-5 12th, which swept around wetlands with a green perched in front of a spectacular view of Newport Bay.
In the afternoon we hit the Links at Lighthouse Sound, an Arthur Hills creation that is ranked No. 6 on Golfweek’s list of Maryland courses you can play and is in Golf Magazine’s top 100 public courses.
The course starts to open up to the water on the fourth hole when you get your first view of the Ocean City skyline.
It really pops on the par-3 fifth, totally exposed to the elements with a push-up green and an imposing bunker guarding the middle front approach.
The layout has 10 holes that embrace the marshlands. In the interest of leaving the marshlands as undisturbed as possible, many cart bridges were constructed including the longest in the USA, the 1500-foot (457 metres) span that connects the eighth and ninth holes.
The back nine hugs the St. Martin’s River. One of my favourite holes on that back is the par-3 11th with Smokehouse Cove looming in the background.
Our second day found us at Bear Trap Dunes, just over the border in Delaware and another top-five course you can play in that state as voted by the golf publications. It’s a 27-hole facility and we tackled the Grizzly and Black Bear nines.
Dunes separate numerous holes and contribute to the movement of the hole. There aren’t too many holes that are right in front of you, and you need to choose your route depending on your shot shape that day.
It was a challenge for me and my friend Tim. As we played the dogleg left fifth hole on Grizzly (our 14th hole of the day), I looked up and saw some big birds circling overhead in the cloudless sky.
“The vultures are here,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Tim, “they’ve been watching my game.”
We started our third day in relatively calm conditions at Eagles Landing, one of the 400 golf course projects in which architect Dr. Michael Hurdzan has been involved and which he places in his top 15 creations.
It has a strong finish with the 17th and 18th (The Beast of the East) holes playing over the salt marsh.
We played Rum Pointe in the afternoon (that’s one of the other good things about playing here: the courses are nearby, allowing you to get in 36 holes a day if that’s your thing).
We wrapped up our golf itinerary at GlenRiddle Golf Club, a 36-hole layout with a cool backstory. It is on the site of the Riddle Farm which produced legendary racehorses like Man O’ War (the horse of the 20th Century as voted by the Associated Press) and War Admiral, his son (Seabiscuit is his grandson.)
The clubhouse is the former main stable and it is a tribute to the legacy of the property as a place that changed the history of American horse racing. Stall doors from the stable have been preserved for use in the walls and for tabletops in the bar and grill rooms.
It was a great place to walk around after our round on War Admiral, a stern test of the parkland variety compared to the more open Man O’ War (on which you can see the old starting gates for the racetrack by the sixth green).
War Admiral is narrow with water up the left side of the first two holes and woods on the right. That pretty much sets the tone for your round. As my friend Tim said, he measures his game by a different standard. Translation: make sure the zipper on your ball pocket is in good working order.
MAIN COURSE OFF THE COURSE
The golf is only about half of the fun here in Ocean City. You can cap your day at GlenRiddle with dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in the clubhouse. That’s one of the best steaks you’re going to get, anywhere. Some great one-stop shopping.
The rest of the time, I’m good with some pub food (I do mix in some occasional lettuce), some local craft beer, and a game or four on the television.
I like the local places for lack of a better term (compared to the national chains).
At the top of my list here was Pickles Pub (8th St. and Philadelphia Ave.). Open until 2 a.m. every night, kitchen open until 1 a.m., happy hours 3-6 p.m. The staff was quick to put a couple of Stanley Cup playoff games on the TVs (we had a pool going every night, drafting players from the teams playing that evening).
The local breweries I sampled included Burley Oak Brewing Co. from nearby Berlin (their “Lost” IPA has a nice citrus/floral thing going on) and Evolution Craft Brewing’s “Lot 3” American-style IPA which is aggressively hopped, which I like. Their “Primal Pale Ale,” dry with some toned-down hoppiness, was also pretty good after a day on the golf course.
Another good local spot was Harborside Bar and Grill, which lays claim to the home of the original Fresh Squeezed Orange Crush, the local concoction. Harborside is a rustic place on the commercial harbor where you can see the fresh seafood coming ashore. My kind of spot in that is has beer.
For more information and a quote for your trip to a way-underrated destination, check in at Oceancitygolf.com.
