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Formosa Golf Course, near Auckland, New Zealand

1/19/2020

I feel bad about writing a review about offseason golf in Auckland, New Zealand because we were playing golf during a long period of drought. The Formosa Golf Course kept their greens well watered but many places the grass had turned brown. This is always good for a nice roll so all is not bad. Formosa Golf Course had many touches of Asian gardening that added color to the course and I chose this golf course because it offered scenic views.

The hole pictured above is one of the course specialties. It's a short par three downhill and if you miss the green, well, you're down on the mucky tidal beach below. To make it more difficult, the green is sloped to the side and it is a large green so that even if you land on the green with your drive, you still might have many long putts. The view however is spectacular. For a first taste of New Zealand golf it offered lots of birds, views, plant life and challenge.

The first challenge we encountered was our lack of car. We thought, no problem, take a taxi. The taxi driver was willing to wait at the course and earn the return fare for no extra gas, but the cost of play was much less then taking the hour to and from drive from our hotel in Auckland. Live and learn. This wasn't the case for most New Zealand golf because after this, we had a rental car.

The above hole was my favorite with exotic trees to look upward at, lots of sand, and some large zen stones in a sand garden along the side, or maybe that was a slightly different one. The course plays with lots of uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies. It features many sand traps, many views of the coast and bay, and several large duck ponds.

The course is somewhat more challenging for women than for men. The clubhouse is large with friendly staff.

The video below shows a better view.

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Golf in Baden-Baden, Germany

6/26/2014

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On our recent trip to Germany, we reached the lovely spa town of Baden-Baden and it was incredibly hot, so hot you didn't want to move unless you were perhaps a true German and wouldn't even mind wearing leathers to ride your motorcycle on a 90F+ day.

As I flipped through the hotel's guide to where to find the wonderful parts of town, I spotted an ad for golf. So I said, "Why not?"

My husband agreed, somewhat hesitantly. The price turned out to be about 200 Euros at the local golf course, the Baden-Baden Golf Club but because it was a holiday, and there was a tournament, we would start about 10:00 on the first come first serve schedule.

The hotel got us a taxi who dropped us off at the Pro Shop/Sekretariat, the later served since the Pro Shop was closed due to the holiday. The woman in the office very kindly found us rental golf clubs, sold us golf balls, found us some tees, checked us into a golf cart (most people were walking but it was hilly and extremely hot), and rang us up for it all along with 18 hole fees.

The good news is all those trees offered welcome relief from the heat. The course is rather short and our main challenge from the narrow spots in the course and from rental equipment and from creative use of the hilly terrain.

Many times the hole was out of sight, around a hill, over a creek or below a drop. We had fun and I can say that the small golf club restaurant served good food--Bob had a cold salad, me a Cornish hen.

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Review of FREE Android App for Golfers Swing by Swing

12/2/2013

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My first tryout of the Free Android App for Golfers titled Swing by Swing, started out fine. I opened it up, picked the golf course local to my region and found the one where I was playing.

I added myself as a golfer using my email address then added by husband as a partner. You can add a foursome.

So what's the bottom line on this App?

It works well but it's not the best choice. Why?

It uses a aerial view of the golf course for providing GPS readouts along the golf course hole by hole. These readings don't seem very accurate; we had better results with our golf range finding device. Maybe it was the course we were on or availability of GPS satellites, others might get better results.

The golf pad portion of the application allowed you to record your score, but if you moved away from the end of the hole, it would move on to the next hole. The previous hole would use a default value (I had the wrong score at the end of 18 holes) and it was complicated to go back and change it. Admittedly, you're supposed to record your score before you leave the hole, but practicality wise, Android device records are slower than writing it on a score pad and my husband always moved on to the next hole while I was typing. Frustration city.

The recording of scores is pretty easy, it assumes par with appropriate number of putts and these are easy to add to. There was no record of penalties.

Tracking shot by shot didn't work with ease.

My vote is still on the Free Android App Golf Pad.

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Formosa Golf Course, near Auckland, New Zealand

Golf in Baden-Baden, Germany

Review of FREE Android App for Golfers Swing by Swing

Sheri Fresonke Harper

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