The New Road

Completely Zonked

The East Bay is chock full of tough hikes in the hills. Toughest among these is the Mission Hills hike which goes up about 3,000 vertical feet in around 2 miles. The first time I ever tried that hike it wiped me out for two days. Months later I was hiking it twice a week.

This even I feel like the aftermath of that first Mission Peak day. I'm completely wiped out by walking the Lake Chabot course. It's not long. It's just hilly. Very, very hilly. It's the golf equivalent of a miedevil torture device. There is almost never a clean shot. And getting from shot to shot will tire you out so much that even swinging becomes a problem after a while. It even has quests, like finding the blue tees. Which are often set so far back as to require their own paths. I can only think of two holes where the tee and the green were on the same plane. On the 9th hole the green is a sheer 300 foot drop from the tee box. Were it not for the scrub you could probably tee of with a putter!

I got there at 6AM, tee'd off alone around 6:45 and finished around 9:15. By the 11th I took my jacket off to find my shirt was just all sweat. The Dungeon Master, er Marshall, finally found me on the 15th just after I had a great drive. He said that even at his fittest he only walked 9 holes before getting a cart. The 16th was a hellish affair where you drove to a fairway across a wide unplayable ravine. And then there was the par six 18th. I lost three balls on that hole alone.

That's not to say that I hated this course. Quite the opposite. I loved it. And for $22 it's an absolute steal. The dilemna is this, you either walk the course and get a super workout, or you drive the course and get a super game. Unless you are a fitness freak with a locked in swing I don't think you can do both for 18 holes.