- Publisher: Smithsonian Magazine
- Editor: April, 1997
Standing at the tee Cloverdale Golf Club’s ninth hole on a summer evening, on can’t help but absorb the surroundings. On the verdant floor of the Stillaguamish Valley, you’re enveloped by the foothills of Washington’s Cascades, off which reflect twilight hues of sage and purple. TO the left, screened by cottonwoods and maples, is the valley’s namesake river. Ahead, on a rise behind the ninth green, is a classic red barn. The pastoral quiet is broken only by the screech of a nearby eagle.
Such reverie must pass, for the 390-yard, par-4 hole demands a golfer’s full attention–if only because about 80 yards shy of the green and to the right lurks a hazard that might take the “Tiger” out of Eldrick Woods, the wunderkind of the professional tour. “It’s the lagoon,” says Cloverdale co-owner Cynthia Witscher. “Although it’s dry now, at times we’ve had to tell city folk they shouldn’t go in there looking for lost balls. You see, on a dairy farm, a lagoon is where you store the barn’s washed-down manure.”