A Rough Landing

Jonathan's Landing Golf Club
Magnolia, DE
Yards: 3062/2575 - 5637
Par: 36/35 - 71
Rating: 65.6, Slope: 110
Score: 47/50 = 97
Date: September 4, 2018

My second round during my Delaware vacation was at Jonathan's Landing Golf Club in Magnolia, Del., just outside Dover, and about 35 miles north of Lewes. I had played the course once 10 years ago and I was looking forward to giving it another try.

Jonathan's Landing Scorecard

The two nines at Jonathan's Landing are starkly different. The front nine is more open and is often bounded by marsh areas and wetlands, while the back nine is tighter and winds through a housing development. The two nines have been reversed since the last time I played the course.

Par 3 Third Hole

My round couldn't have gotten off to a worse start: I hit my lay-up second shot at the par 5 First Hole into a marsh area and made double-bogey. I followed that up with double-bogey's at the par 5 Second and par 4 Third Hole. I righted myself a bit with back-to-back pars at the Fourth and Fifth holes, with another par at the 137-yard par 3 Eighth. I shot a 47 on my opening nine and felt somewhat optimistic heading to the second and easier nine.

My ball sits on sand on the Sixth green

One thing that made scoring a bit difficult was the fact that the course was topdressing the greens with sand in preparation for aerating them. This made putting to the hole difficult on many greens. The course's fairways also showed the effects of all the rain and extreme heat from this summer with many bare spots.

The Sixth green being topdressed with sand during my round

My back nine was worse than the first nine, as I double-bogeyed two easy par 3s in the first four holes. I also missed a 5-foot birdie putt at the 241-yard par 4 Twelfth Hole. After hitting my tee shot right and out-of-bounds, I made a triple-bogey 7 at the Fourteenth Hole. A bogey at the 138-yard par Fifteenth was the last gasp, as I proceeded to double-bogey the last three holes. This was especially frustrating since the Sixteenth and Seventeenth holes are par 5s where I hit perfect tee shots, but chunked easy layup and pitch shots. It added up to a back nine 50 and 97 for the round. This was two strokes higher than the 95 I shot in 2008, when I made a birdie and four pars.

The par 3 Thirteenth Hole

The most disappointing things about my round at Jonathan's Landing was I didn't take advantage of the easier holes on the back nine, I double-bogeyed every par 5 and I wasn't warned about the greens being topdressed before teeing off. I was happy, however, that I managed to shoot under 100.

Not just bugs buzz around the course

One interesting aspect of the course is its location. It is on the approach to Dover Air Force Base and throughout my round, Air Force transport planes continually flew literally overhead.