A hidden gem in Ajax
If it wasn’t for my good friend Oliver moving to Pickering I would never have known about some of the great golf available just east of Toronto. One such particular facility is Carruthers Creek Golf located in Ajax Ontario. It has something to offer every Golfer no matter the skill level or amount of free time available. Carruthers Creek Golf has a 9 hole Par 3 course, 9 hole Championship length course, and a driving Range. Groups consisting of differing skill levels can all go together and find a suitable activity. I’ve had the opportunity to play every part of Carruthers Creek Golf this year, and wasn’t disappointed with any of them. The only criticism I have is with the Right handed layout of the 9 hole Championship course Lake Breeze. I will get into that more later.
Carruthers Creek Golf Range
I’ve been to this particular Golf Range twice now. Once was on a weekend, and once during the week. Both times hitting bays were available, so I didn’t have to wait at all. The mats were in great condition, and there are more than enough targets to take aim at from any bay location. It wasn’t too windy on either of the days I went, but the Range is well positioned with a number of wind blocks so I’m sure that windy days shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Bucket prices are more than reasonable. Their “small bucket” is about the size of most Golf Range large buckets and significantly cheaper. If Carruthers Creek was located a little closer to me their Driving Range would be my Golf Range of choice. If you are located in the GTA East and are looking for a great place to practice your swing i would strongly suggest that you give Carruthers Creek Golf a try.
Whistling Wind 9 Hole Par 3
As far as Executive Par 3 courses go, Carruthers Creek is a long one. This isn’t your typical Par 3 course where the challenges are determined by the bunker placement, speed, and break in the greens. What Whistling Wind challenges you with is making long precise shots into traditional sized Greens. Five times I tee’d off with a Hybrid. Now keep in mind that I have a 3, 4, and 5 Hybrid in my bag, and wouldn’t consider myself to be a particularly long hitter. I hit my 5 Hybrid an average of about 155 yards so it could be a different situation for you depending on your skill level. There were two holes that day that played over 180 yards to the Pin so that’s definitely a long Iron or Hybrid for most. Due to the length my short game chipping, pitching, and hitting bunker shots around the Greens was truly tested. Quite often on a traditional length course I’ll play a full 18 holes without landing in a bunker once. The Whistling Wind course is cleverly designed to force you to contend with the bunkers, or lay up on a Par 3. Lay up on a Par 3! Yep you heard that right. I did it once on my second time around and saved 2 strokes over my first attempt on that hole. Over the 9 holes you will deal with mild elevation changes, water hazards, tight shot lanes, well positioned bunkers, and of course the varying lengths of Tee shots available. If you can navigate around this course successfully. You will not only feel immensely satisfied, but you will also have greatly improved your approach shots into Greens on long Par 4s, or maybe even acquired the confidence to go for the Green in two on Par 5s.
Lake Breeze Championship 9 hole
When I had mentioned to a couple of my golfing buddies that I would be playing Lake Breeze at Carruthers Creek, they either hadn’t heard of it, or said that it was a fun but challenging 9 holes. Fun but challenging is exactly the kind of course I’m looking for. I’ve played a few courses where the Fairways are so wide, and the hazards are so few that the default play is Driver off the Tee for anything but a Par 3. Courses like that don’t interest me at all. I much prefer courses that dare you to pull Driver, but punish you for anything but a perfect strike if you use it. Where the safe play is to hit a Hybrid or long Iron off the Tee, and leave yourself a controllable shot out of the Fairway to a specific yardage or the Green. That way how you choose to play the hole can be effected by the situation. Say you were playing a Match play round against a friend. If you were 2 holes up with 3 to play you would probably choose to play it safe. Adversely if you were 2 holes down you would reach into your bag for the Driver. The Lake Breeze Championship 9 is exactly that kind of course. Something I haven’t mentioned yet that applies to everything that Carruthers Creek Golf has to offer is excellent course conditions. The Greens were in excellent shape, and rolled true. The edge of the Fairway was easily identifiable, and hitting from the Fairway was a pleasure. The light rough wasn’t so thick that it made locating your ball difficult, but still thick enough to affect your ball flight. Just everything was top notch, and better than I expected considering the low price.
Now I do have one minor issue that a small few of you should be aware of. If you are a Lefty like me the difficulty level on Lake Breeze is double that of a righty. That may sound like a strange observation to make so let me explain myself.
First a few statistics that have particular relevance here. Only 11% of Golfers are Lefties. I can’t remember where I read that but it was from a reliable publication. I could go on and on about why being a Lefty Golfer is unfortunate but I’ll leave that for another time. As a result of this small percentage, courses tend to be designed with Righty Golfers in mind. Now depending on how difficult the course architect intends the course to be for a Righty will determine how easy it is for a Lefty. The most popular Driver miss hit in golf is the slice. Over 70% of amateur golfers normal miss with the Driver is to slice it off the Tee. There are a number of factors that contribute to this and I’ll be sure to go over them another time. What’s important to this discussion is that it’s not a secret. Everyone knows about the dreaded slice, and that includes course designers. Now a Righty slice goes to the right, and a Lefty slice goes to the Left. As a course designer if you intend to make a course a little easier for the majority of Golfers. You will create Fairways that open up to the right. You might even add a few holes that dogleg to the right, or dogleg left with a hazard on the left. This way if a Righty slices a ball off the Tee they won’t be severely punished for it. Got it, now back to Lake Breeze.
Over the 9 holes at Lake Breeze their are two Par 3s and I don’t factor Par 3s into swing bias. Out of the remaining seven holes; Holes 3, 4, 5, and 8 have the potential to punish a Lefty slice, while only Holes 1, and 6 could punish a Righty slice. Obviously the course designer was attempting to design a course that requires good shots to score well, but wouldn’t leave you pulling your hair out in frustration if you made a bad one. That’s if you are a Righty of course. As a Lefty I realized that the smart play all day long was to leave my Driver in the bag unless my confidence level was extremely high. Of course like I stated before I like challenging courses that provide you with Risk/Reward opportunities. Still at times on Lake Breeze the Risk doesn’t feel worth it as a Lefty.
That being said I would highly suggest that everyone except the newest Golfers give this course a try. There are a lot of water hazards on this course so a total hacker could end up losing far too many balls to enjoy themselves.
A great place to practice and improve your Golf game.
Carruthers Creek Golf is to me one of the best places to play often if you are serious about improving your Golf game. You can develop your swing on the Range. Take the time to learn your distances with your clubs by sniping targets. Then when you are ready you can test your on course ability by playing the Executive length Par 3 course Whistling Wind. If you aren’t a long hitter, play them as Par 4s to begin with. Then once your swing is ready start going for the Greens. If you can get around the Whistling Wind course in 40 strokes or less, give the full length Lake Breeze Championship 9 a try. Trust me you won’t be disappointed.
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