Opportunity - Not Obligation
Have you ever played a course you haven’t played in years and just allowed yourself to see it in a different light?
A couple of weekends ago, my wife surprised me with a round at Cimarron Trails in Perkins, followed by a baseball game at the newly-consecrated O’Brate Stadium and a night on The Strip, the latter two being a story for a different time.
When we pulled in the parking lot, the course came back to me. It was chilly - much colder than I normally like to play in, but this was a memory for her and I, so a little nip in the air damn sure wouldn’t stop this moment from being great.
When I was in school at Oklahoma State, we played this course all the time. It was a break from Karsten and not as heavily trafficked as Lakeside. It was a place you always felt you could throw on some Turnpike, crack a cold one and enjoy yourself with some buddies. Little did I know, at that time, what a gem this course really is.
The Golf Club at Cimarron Trails
The greens aren’t overly complicated and the bunkers are in your standard muni course shape (terrible) but the layout? Boy, that’s a whole other story. For as mundane a hole as the opener is, No. 2 comes up and slaps you in the face with a long par three over water. No. 3 is no cakewalk either, especially if your normal shot shape isn’t a draw (mine isn’t), but it’s short enough to reach it in two (I didn’t). No. 4, from the tips, has a great tree-lined tee shot. The rest of the front nine is close to what you’d expect from a muni in Oklahoma. Out and back par fours. A par three with a barbed wire fence in play.
Once you get to No. 9, you start to feel the energy. You can feel the course shift. You’re about to embark on the signature stretch. The next few holes will take everything you have, be it skill, creativity or just dumb luck.
If you can get to the turn unscathed, the punches get heavier. No. 10 is a great test of a par three with the only dry land being the green or a pretty bad miss. Following this up with back-to-back par fives feels like half opportunity, half punishment - I guess this is where your own life philosophy comes. On this day? I viewed them as an opportunity. That is, until I topped a shot on No. 11 and found myself plugged in a greenside bunker on No. 12. Funny how quickly your perspective can change.
COVID-Era muni bunkers for the win (or loss).
By the time you find yourself standing on the No. 13 tee box, you can see the clear path to par - straight down the middle, in the little gully. I found myself in the fairway, looking up the small hill toward the green. If you look to the north and west, you’ll see fields and vast space. If you look up, you see a grand Oklahoma sky, ready to swallow you whole. This was where my thoughts turned to nostalgia. This 72-yard wedge shot took me down memory lane - the friends I made in school, the intramural tourney where everyone thought we cheated and the first time I heard the musician Adam Hood (which happened on No. 14) all took place on this course in college.
Opportunity was back.
From there you play on, finding yourself amongst houses, massive wooden Pistol Pete’s (I really should have snagged a picture of this) and a little breather down the stretch - which feels like a completely different course than it did a few holes back.
If you’re stuck on trying to find a course to play this weekend - I can’t recommend The Golf Club at Cimarron Trails enough. It’s affordable, a great layout and I’ve never seen it in bad shape. Perkins offers plenty of small town golf to enjoy. And when you’re done, head up the road for some world-famous cheese fries at Joe’s Jumpin’ Juke Joint and maybe a ball game or two.
This summer, go find a course you haven’t been to in a while. They say your taste buds change every seven years (I didn’t fact check this) so that track you took for granted years ago might look a lot different. It’ll probably be more fun. Those holes you used to hate will turn into your favorites. New opportunities, not old obligations.
