River's Edge Adventure Golf (Highland Park, IL)

July 9, 2005, afternoon

There's really nothing all that adventurous about this course, whose layout recalls the Diversey course in its heavy use of rocks and green contouring in lieu of actual obstacles.  It's like the Chicago and Highland Park park districts have the same supplier; I guess Skokie bought up all the fiberglass African wildlife before anyone else got a chance.  Anyway, neither Alma nor I played that well, though at least we managed to put up a mere three scores worse than four between us.  Like other courses, though, River's Edge's par seems a bit low (42) considering its length and difficulty.  I might have been closer if I'd gotten anything to drop, however; whereas usually I'm pretty good with long putts, here it seemed like I couldn't hit anything outside of three feet.  Alma and I got locked into a pretty good battle - when I opened with a double bogey and she made par, she took a two-shot lead which she made stand up, leading by one shot at the turn.  After we each doubled a hole to open the back nine, it was all tied up and stayed that way for two holes.  On the fourteenth, however, Alma had trouble on the green and took a six, which ended up providing most of the final margin.  Still, neither of us played that well, though the course itself didn't help, with its slick cup edges (helping borderline putts roll past instead of sliding in), mediocre design, and too-small par.  At least I get to check it off the list of Chicago-area courses I've played.