Trull Brook, Tewksbury, Massachusetts

Last weekend I made a 52 mile jaunt northwest of Boston to play Trull Brook with a buddy of mine. The course is what I would call "Fool's Gold". Ranked as one of the "Best Maintained" courses in the state, it looks good but there's really nothing to it. The grass is lush and stands out only because they have irrigation - unlike a lot of other courses up north. But if you remember, one of my Hacker criteria is "You're more concerned with the beauty of the course than your score."

I couldn't give a hoot about how green a course is - especially this one.

Apparently the lush fairways really do attract the Hackers. It took us an astounding 40 minutes to play the first two holes. I have never, in my 20 year golfing career, seen it so bad. It was October 20th for crying out loud. Hackers abound usually in April and May (usually inspired by Tiger at the Masters) but by the end of the year, they've mostly tired of shanking and losing balls. It wasn't just one slow group either. We had a whiffer in the threesome ahead of us and meandering slicers, hookers, dubbers, and loafers visible in the groups ahead of them. I approached the ranger who was out there on the 3rd hole, I hadn't even said anything and the guy started screaming at me. At me! He told me that I wasn't going anywhere; it was weekend golf; and he was doing his job. I hadn't been patronized like that since perhaps the 7th grade. If it wasn't for the beautiful fall day and my high level of chi management,...I would have punched this Jurassic jerk upside his head. In fact, if he ever took that tact on certain other courses, say in South Philadelphia, he might be floating in a water hazard. This is an endemic problem in Boston - these losers have never been anywhere else, they are ignorant and unworldly - they are everything a "redneck" is supposed to be. I call them "bluenecks".

(One of my old Philly golf buddies did, in fact, strike an ignorant ranger with his 6-iron and started dragging him over to the "crick" to drown the scumbag. This was over at Cobb's Creek - a tremendous track that all true golfers will appreciate.)

It was a five hour round that while starting out inauspiciously, ended up not being so bad. Luckily the foursome behind us proved as just as slow as the Hackers in front so we were able to hit multiple balls and videotape almost all of our swings. In the course of all this tinkering, I figured out, er remembered, the X-factor. That would be referring to the hip turn as the first move from the top of the swing. The hard part is to turn the left hip without spinning the shoulders out; there has to be a small lag. If you do it properly you'll really feel the X-factor in your abdominal muscles, you know, they are under your beer gut.

I had two birdies and shot an 87 from the back tees. There were a couple of really tough holes, like the 200 yard par-3 pictured above. But there were plenty of crap little holes like a wedge par-3 and a 470 yard doglegged par-5 of which it was easy to cut the corner. I hit a driver over the short trees and only needed a 7-iron to reach the green. My buddy and I both missed every single put over 3 feet. The greens were green but TERRIBLE - bumpy, inconsistent, and as slow as my living room carpet.



Who cares how picturesque a course is when it takes 5 hours to play, Hackers are ubiquitous, and the greens suck? To boot, it cost me over $20 in gas and two hours in the car to make the 110 mile round trip.

What a shame, what an otherwise spectacular 70 degree day in October.

But you can't let the Hackers get you down!