Day two of our Ocean City golf trip brought us to the Newport Bay Course at the Ocean City Golf Club.  Even before arriving in Ocean City, Newport Bay was the course I was least looking forward to.  I hadn’t read anything negative, but also hadn’t read anything to get me overly excited either.  But hey, I’m in Ocean City, and I’m playing golf, so really, how bad could it be?

Unfortunately the forecast called for rain (it never did), but I left the camera in the car to be safe.  My apologies for the lack of photo documentation.

Course Information:

• Ocean City Golf  Club – Newport Bay (http://www.oceancitygolfclub.com)

• Par: 72

• Yardage: 5205 – 6657 yards (we played the white tees – 6307 yards)

Description (from the website):

None – No wonder I wasn’t overly excited.

Thankfully, the Harrison Group website has a description:

The newly renovated Newport Bay course is a hit. It has quickly become one of the most requested courses in the area. The change in design leads you through some highly challenging wetland holes and if played in the afternoon you can enjoy a spectacular sunset while finishing on 18.

We arrived at the course about an hour before our tee time.  We grabbed breakfast at the restaurant.  I had the sausage egg and cheese, which tasted a bit like cardboard, cardboard, and cheese.  Yeah…not so impressed.

Practice Facility

I didn’t see a practice area.  According to their website they have one…although they really don’t tell you anything about it.  It was too early for practice anyway.

Layout

Not unlike Eagle’s Landing, OCGC’s Newport Bay course features of mix of parkland and oceanfront style holes.  Although some target golf is required, Newport Bay is much more of a bomber’s course than Eagle’s Landing.  As you might expect from a bayside course, water plays prominently on several holes, with the ocean often not far off the back of  several greens.  Marshlands are also prevalent throughout, but seldom bisect fairways.  The driver is almost always the right club of the tee.  I like that.

Conditions

Once again, some consideration must be given to the fact that I played Newport Bay in early Spring.  Of course, there’s a huge difference in my mind between not yet green, and bare – and parts of Newport Bay were as bald as Jesse Jane’s moneymaker.  Large bare spots littered several holes, most prevalently along the edges of the the numerous bunkers on the course.  Don’t get me wrong, the course was far (very far) from unplayable, but there was substantially more dirt at Newport Bay than at any of the 3 other courses we played in Ocean City.

Like Eagle’s Landing, the greens had been recently topdressed.  The sand hadn’t come close to filtering it’s way down,  which made for slow putts.  Further complicating things, and diminishing my overall level of enjoyment; the greens simply would not hold approach shots.  I hit an exceptionally high ball, and have never had trouble holding greens in my life (at least not in temperatures above 30°).  At Newport Bay I probably rolled off the back of 5 greens with shots that would have held any place I’ve played previously.  Slow greens that don’t hold shots…the worst of both worlds.  Not fun.  Not fun at all.

Pace of Play

I have absolutely no complaints about the pace.  The group in front of us moved along at a brisk pace.  Unfortunately, so did the group behind us.  From what I could tell, we were sandwiched between two groups of women, all of whom members, and all of whom could flat out play golf.  We struggled to keep pace with the group in front of us (I don’t think we were overly slow), and tried desperately not to hold the group behind us too much.  At the turn, we stopped to use the restroom, the ladies behind us, however, made an immediate turn for 10, at which point we waived them through, which brings me to the staff.

The Staff

Our waitress in the restaurant was very nice, and I certainly don’t fault her for a lousy sandwich.  The guys in the proshop said little more to me than “You’re all set”, but I’m fine with that.  There’s something to be said for efficiency.  The starters/bag attendants were very helpful.  They told us a bit about the course, and actually engaged the other Tony in conversation when he realized that Tony’s old Wilson wedge previously belonged to an old buddy of his from his playing days (the name was etched into the blade).  Small world right?  Anyway, I would have had no complaints about the staff, if not for a confounding conversation that apparently originated because we waived that group of women through while half of our foursome was in the restroom.

Our little break at the turn lasted all of maybe 5 minutes, but as I said, the group behind us was playing quickly, and they were ready to go on the 10 with 2 minutes of the 4 of us putting out on 9.  So I figured the right thing to do was to wave them through…which is what I did.  And away they went.  No big deal, right?  Wrong!

As we were walking off the 11th green, one of the rangers comes rolling up and asks me what has to be the most thought provoking questions I’ve ever faced the golf course; “how did you get here?”.

Clearly unprepared to answer a question of that magnitude, I struggled with the enormity of his query.  Here’s my best recollection of the entire conversation.

ORG (Old Ranger Guy): How did you get here?

Me: In what sense? (after all, the possibilities of the universe are limitless, I needed some clarification).

ORG: How did you get here?

Me: (Did he mean how did I come into being – my mother, how did I get to Ocean City – car, or perhaps how I got to this very spot – golf cart.  Really, I had no idea).  Finally I settled on: “I’m not sure I understand what it is you’re asking”.

ORG: How did you get on this hole?

Me: (fighting the impulse to answer “golf cart”).  We came from the last hole.

ORG: What do you mean? (great, now even he’s confused)

Me: We made our putts on the last hole, and then drove to this hole.

ORG: Are you sure you didn’t skip a hole?

Me: Yeah, I’m fairly certain we’re where we’re supposed to be.  We played 8, then 9, made the turn, played 10, and now we’re here.  Isn’t that how we’re supposed to do it?

ORG: Well those guys behind you want to know how you got in front of them.

Me: (So it’s about now that I’m finally piecing together what’s actually happening.  The guys behind us, who were looking at the backsides of the ladies behind us for the better part of 9 holes, and were now looking at our backsides, somehow got it their heads that we cut in front of them, and were concerned that we were holding them up).  “We let the group behind us through”.

ORG: You did what?

Me: We let the ladies through.

ORG: You can’t do that.

Me: Why not?

ORG: You can’t do that when it’s busy.  It slows things down.

Me: (Puzzled because not only did we let a group through in the hope that would avoid slow play, but now I’ve spent the better part of 3 minutes discussing god knows what with a cranky ranger, who for his trouble is apparently unaware of the fact that the exhaustive discussion he’s engaged me in is actually causing the slow play he’s trying so hard to prevent.  Ironic?)  “They came of the green at 9, while a couple of us were still in the bathroom, so rather than have them sit around and wait for us, I waived them through”.

ORG: Oh

Me: Yeah

ORG: That makes sense

Me: Yeah

ORG: Well those guys wanted to know.  I’ll tell them them you didn’t cut in front of them.

Me: Uh-huh.

That folks is 5 minutes of my life I’m never getting back.  Needless to say, I wasn’t blown away by my staff interaction at OCGC Newport Bay.  Worse yet, I got so wrapped up in the ridiculous conversation I forgot my wedge, and had to go back to the 11th green to get it.

Favorite Hole

The par 4, 18th requires a short carry over wetlands.  Water runs down the entire right side, with  large narrow bunker resting between the fairway and that water.  Water also comes into play beyond the green.  Simply put, I think it’s an absolutely great golf hole.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that I made par (fairway, just off the back of the green, chip and a putt).

Furthering my enjoyment on the 18th was watching my buddy learn one of those lessons that every new golfer eventually learns.  That lesson is, of course; you can’t throw a golf ball nearly as far as you think you can.  After duffing two balls into the wetlands, my buddy Norm decided he would just throw the ball over the marsh and on to the fairway.  As you can probably guess, he didn’t come close to making it over (he didn’t even reach the hazard), but he did nearly dislocate his elbow, which was nice.

Sadly, that moment, and my conversation with ORG were the only memorable moments of my day at Newport Bay.

Overall Experience

There wasn’t much I found enjoyable about the Ocean City Golf Club Newport Bay course.  Granted, I didn’t play particularly well (none of us did), which never helps.  Unfortunately some beautiful scenery and a couple of really interesting holes were largely wasted because of poorly conditioned greens, and my good friend the cranky ranger.

This brings me to the two fundamental questions of my golf course reviews:

If Newport Bay were dropped down in the middle of Saratoga, NY, is there any chance in the world I’d pay the $85 rack rate.  Nope…never.

Should I ever find myself in Ocean City, Maryland again, how likely would I be to play Newport Bay a second time?  Quite honestly, there isn’t a chance in the world.  Nothing turns me off a golf course faster than an unpleasant run in with a staff member.  I obey course rules, I don’t play slow, and I clean up after myself.  There’s no reason I should ever have an encounter like that.  It’s completely unwarranted.  Simply put, when next I’m in Ocean City, I’ll go out of my way to avoid playing at Newport Bay, and very likely the OCGC Seaside course too.

For layout and conditions, Newport Bay gets a C+ (good layout helps to balance sub-standard conditions).  For overall value, I’m begrudgingly giving Newport Bay a C-.  Overall, I wasn’t impressed, but admittedly, it could have been a whole lot worse.