My Other Cardboard Collection: Tee It For Ten

"My Other Cardboard Collection" is a series of posts in which I show off golf scorecards that I have accumulated over the years from golf courses I've played.

During the 2010 golf season, I took advantage of the "Tee It For Ten" program at a pair of local courses, Pacific Springs and Shoreline.  For a nominal fee, I bought a "Tee It For Ten" card which allowed me to walk 18-holes of golf at either course for $10 or I could play 18 with a cart for $22.

As a self-proclaimed golf addict and a fan of budget golfing, I chose to walk most rounds, thereby allowing me to play twice as much golf that summer than I could have had I rented a golf cart.  Genius.

These two courses are on opposite sides of Omaha.  Pacific Springs is located on the west side of town and is probably the higher quality course of the two.  It has a bit more character and is a bit more challenging.  The course uses the hills and valleys it is built upon to its advantage with a mixture of forced carries and awkward lies.

I like that Pacific Springs provides scorebooks rather than the traditional scorecard. 

I may be one of the few people who enjoys playing golf by myself.  I often try to schedule my round to ensure that I can get onto the course when no one else is around and I was able to do that often at Pacific Springs.

 The only problem with this strategy is that once-in-a-lifetime moment when you're standing on the tee box and are watching your tee-shot track toward the cup for an elusive hole-in-one.  It is during these times that it would be handy to have a playing partner around to be a witness to your ace.  So far, I've not scored a hole-in-one, but I've had a few close calls.

Last year, I nearly had an ace on Pacific Spring's par-4 15th and I was alone on the course.  It's a downhill, wide-open, driveable par-4, which are my favorite kind.  I striped my drive and watched as it bounded down the fairway, onto the green, and rolled by the pin and stopped a few feet away from the hole.  Close, but no cigar.

Pacific Spring's sister course is Shoreline.  What Shoreline lacks in character it more than makes up for in tree-lined fairways.  Shoreline is on the eastern edge of Omaha near the Missouri River.  Shoreline is built on a flood plain, next to Carter Lake, so it is a relatively flat track that is perfect for a lazy round of 18 on a Sunday afternoon.

When the wife and I first moved to Omaha, Shoreline was the first course I played.  I took my dad out to the course after he helped us get moved into our new house.  Dad used my wife's clubs and he had the round of his life.  He kicked my ass from one end of the course to the other.  It was a great way to start my love-affair with the Omaha golf scene.

If playing these two courses for $10 all summer wasn't good enough, the "Tee It For Ten" card also had a bonus feature.  With it, I was able to play three private high-end courses for a discounted price.
The first course I played was Arbor Links in Nebraska City, an hour south of Omaha.  This Arnold Palmer designed course is a true work of art.

I waited until fall to play the course and it was a great decision.  With less than stellar weather (there was spitting rain all day) and a Nebraska Cornhusker football game in Lincoln, I was literally the only person on the course my entire round.  It was the perfect way to play a spectacular course.

The "Tee It For Ten" card got me onto another Arnold Palmer designed, the Players Club at Deer Creek.  While this course is not quite as nice as Arbor Links, it was still a pleasure to play.

The Players Club is a 27-hole course and I ended up playing the Front 9, which had a few interesting and fun holes, as well as the Highland 9, which is the highlight of the course.  While the Front 9 is your run-of-the-mill course that weaves through a housing development, the land surrounding the Highland 9 has yet to be developed, which gives it a more links-course feel.

The third course I was given the opportunity to play with the "Tee It For Ten" card was the Platteview Country Club.  I ended up skipping this one because I'd already played it twice the previous summer when it was the host of the Omaha Metro Golf Championship.

All-in-all, the "Tee It For Ten" card was probably the best investment I made for my golf game last year.