It’s peaceful here at The Wilderness Club in Eureka, Montana.  Ruth and I had a light dinner and were on our way to our room for the night when I overheard the Chef talking to a couple of women sitting at a table out on the patio.

“Have a good golf game!” he told them as he left their table.

Hmmm?  wondered to myself. Might these be the two women we would be paired to play with for our Wednesday morning tee time?

The Wilderness Club

Of course, curiosity got the better of me and I went over and asked them if they were golfing tomorrow. They were. And at what time?  The one lady said 9:06.  I said, “Hi, I’m Maureen O’Shea and we’re golfing with the two of you tomorrow!”

We chatted a bit till their food came and, when it did, we said, “See you tomorrow!”

As I’ve already told you, we had a really nice room, great queen beds (with Corsicana mattresses), a lounge/lobby connecting the total of 8 rooms that made up Cottage 4 – four rooms on one side, and four rooms on the other side of the cottage.  Great, cosy furniture on the patio and a view of the lake through the trees.

Adam Long, Director of Golf at The Wilderness Club

And I told you before about Adam Long. He’s The Wilderness Club’s Director of Golf and he was so nice to me on the phone when I booked our tee time and our night’s stay too. I found out he’ll be opening the pro shop tomorrow morning. They have a very nice pro shop. I couldn’t wait to meet him.

Wednesday Morning

We had a light breakfast and after breakfast, we made our way to the pro shop. Adam was behind the counter. I told him my name, (except I said I was Eve (ha ha ha!)) and he beamed and said “Welcome to The Wilderness Club!”

Turns out, he’d already read my blog post about coming to The Wilderness Club, and I was pretty proud about that.

Ruth and I hit some balls on the driving range and then we went for some practice putts. The practise putting green was very fast with huge undulations.  Wow! I was really intimidated by the thought of what might lie ahead for us on the greens on the course, judging by their practice green.

The first hole was not long but uphill and well bunkered.  I made the mistake of being above the hole and two putted.  As for the greens’ undulations, I made out rather well since I never had a three-putt all game. How lucky was that? We had no wind at all and it was quite smoky from the fires in Washington State.

The two women we played with were good golfers and very comfortable to play with.  They live in Idaho, but were on a little get-away from their husbands. One of them whispered to me that “They can be soooo overbearing sometimes,” the “they” referring to “husbands”, and that made me laugh!

Our play was quite slow though, as the bunkers came in to play very often.  All the Par 3’s were long.  In fact, although on the card they were between the 120’s and the 130’s, they played like 150’s.  I managed one birdie and had hit my 5 wood on that hole.  Ruth had quite a few hits out of the bunkers but since the bunkers were everywhere, they were quite hard to miss.

Sir Nick Faldo

Nick Faldo’s Golf Course

I told you before that this was the first time I’ve ever golfed on a Sir Nick Faldo design and, boy, can he ever build a challenging course. I’m a fan of Nick Faldo as a commentator – I like him much more as a commentator than I did when he was a tour player, if the truth be told. He’s very knowledgeable, and very, very funny, in that dry, British way.

In fact, Nick Faldo’s Golf Course VHS tape is the only golf tape I ever bought, and if you want to get a copy, you’ll have to be fast as Amazon only has 1 left in stock. Didn’t he look cute back then? That must have been in the 80’s. Faldo himself will be coming to The Wilderness Club on September 3rd to put a clinic. Looks like Ruth and my road trip to Eureke, Montana was just a bit early, it would have been wonderful to get some tips from Sir Nick.

Adam was more than happy (he is a happy guy) to give us a mini-lesson after our game. You can see some of the work he did with us by the pictures on the left.

And there’s something else I wanted to tell you. The Wilderness Club is going to be featured in a 3-page spread in next week’s Golfweek Magazine. So, if you want to learn more about the course, you can read all about it there. They’re headline for the the article is Into The Wild.

Ruth with Adam Long at The Wilderness Club.

Any time is a good time for a golf lesson at any age!