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Golfing on Kineo in Moosehead Lake

June 01, 2007 - One of the finest golfing experiences in Maine is a day on the peninsula of Kineo in the middle of magnificent Moosehead Lake. It's wild and beautiful and is accessible only by your boat or by the Moosehead launch that you can charter out of Rockwood, just 10 minutes away.

Upon arrival, you can get on your cell phone, called the clubhouse and request a golf cart at the docks. It's a fair jaunt up to the clubhouse, snack bar and first tee, so you may not want to carry your clubs. It's usually not crowded during the week, so tee times are not required. As a matter of fact we've often played the first three holes, stopped at Pebble Beach and taken a swim and picnic there. Golfers behind us are allowed to play through, but often on a quiet day, no one comes by and all.

The fourth hole at Kineo is easily my favorite of any other in the world. It's nothing but tee box, watery lagoon and green -- no margin for error at all, but a 5, 6, or seven iron get you safely there, depending on how long a hitter you are. The incredible thing is the beauty of the shot. A high arching shot climbs right up against the dark cliffs of Kineo. The sight of that white sphere against that enormous backdrop will live in your memory all winter long.

Having said all this, let me hasten to explain that golfing at Kineo can be the pits. One beautiful summer day -- the sun was out, the wind was down and we had spied a deer and a fox -- golf conditions could not have been better. Blackie and I were lifelong friends, Sunday school classmates, basketball teammates, double daters and all that good stuff, but when it comes to sports, we were unforgivingly competitive.

Blackie had a pretty good game going out there on Kineo and appeared poised to give me a pretty good licking. Then, as luck would have it, his errant shot came to rest just barely off the fairway in a pile of fresh moose droppings. He chuckled as he stooped to improve the live.

"Hey! You can't do that" I exclaimed. "Your ball's in the rough. You have to play it where it lies!"

"But it's sitting on moose poop," he complained. "Tough!" I said. "Can you show me something in the rulebook that says you get a free lift off moose poop?"

Grimacing, he glared at me and took a swing. Everything flew into the air, the golf ball being the only exception. He swung furiously a few more times and not only lost the hole, but became so unnerved that he blew the rest of the game.

Fast-forward to the following summer. We were playing a round of golf on Blackie's home course in Massachusetts. He had just about stopped fuming from his experience on Kineo. He hadn't stopped fuming completely, but he was getting over it.

Then it happened! My golf ball squirted off the side of my club and hooked just off the fairway into the rough and smack dab on top of wad of fresh moose droppings. As I stood over the ball, half hidden in goose doo doo, I looked pleadingly at Blackie. He wore a smile you could see a mile and said, "Go ahead.Just ask!"

Getting back to Kineo, I was playing golf with another friend one day some years ago before the course was reconfigured a bit. Before it became a beautiful little nine hole course, it was in actuality a 12 hole course. Two of the final three holes went straight uphill, and one long par five stretched all the way back down.

Teeing off on the final hole a long, straight drive could reach a crest in the middle of a hill and then roll over 100 yards all the way to the green. My partner John McCatherine, now retired from Ma Bell and residing at Sugarloaf, belted a drive that cleared the mound, bounced, dove and ricocheted all the way to the final green. No one, but no one, drives a ball to the green on that hole, but he did! Four putts for par, three putts for birdie, two putts for eagle and one putt for double eagle - something that's rarely ever done.

So excited was John, that it took him four putts to get his par, probably the only time he four putted in his entire life. So, you see, golfing at Kineo can be the pits, but what an incredible way to spend a day on Moosehead lake.

This article originally appeared in a column written by Milton Huntington, June, 2007

Lakes: Moosehead Lake
Regions: Moosehead


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