{"id":109,"date":"2017-06-25T05:50:53","date_gmt":"2017-06-25T05:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/?p=109"},"modified":"2017-06-25T05:50:53","modified_gmt":"2017-06-25T05:50:53","slug":"harleyford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/2017\/06\/25\/harleyford\/","title":{"rendered":"Harleyford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Harleyford-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Harleyford 1\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Harleyford 1\" src=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Harleyford-1_thumb.jpg\" width=\"410\" height=\"329\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\">This is where it all began.&nbsp;&nbsp; Our first golf lesson.&nbsp; Our first golf game.&nbsp; Our first round of dog golf.&nbsp; Our first companion dog golfing.&nbsp; <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.doggolf.info\/DogGolfDB\/Golf%20Course%20Profile.aspx?resort=13\"><font color=\"#008000\">Harleyford Golf Club<\/font><\/a><font color=\"#008000\">. <\/font> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\">Harleyford is our \u201clocal\u201d.&nbsp; The only golf course in our home town of Marlow.&nbsp; Many of our friends play there.&nbsp; And it was the logical place to start when Lori decided that, with all the invitations to golf days back in my corporate life, I should know how to make my way around a course (so she bought me a set of golf lessons there).&nbsp; I did indeed enjoy the game and thought Lori would, too.&nbsp; So the following Christmas, I bought her the same set of lessons at Harleyford, as well.&nbsp; We had played there a couple of times as guests of friends, but it wasn\u2019t until we joined black lab, Bella, for a round that our eyes opened to the possibilities of dog golf.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\">Bella is, in many ways, the perfect golfing dog.&nbsp; Quiet and calm, she ambles from hole to hole with Jane and Stewart plopping, herself down on the side of the greens or fairways while they take their shots.&nbsp; She even impressed us with her in-the-ruff ball sniffing skills (which sparked our imagination\u2026more to come).<\/font> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\">So once DogGolf.info got set up, it was just a matter of (short) time before we got Rusty and Grace out onto this elegant course.&nbsp; The reasonably wide fairways are framed with relatively long grass.&nbsp; So plenty of opportunity for Grace to practice her ball sniffing skills.&nbsp; Stewart was impressed with her going 4 for 4 in finding balls hit deep in the rough.&nbsp; They did have their patience tested (as did we) having to sit off to the side while Lori and I wrestled with the sloping, undulating greens, taking extra time trying to line up the tricky reads and far too many 3 putts.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\">Harleyford was our first and definitely won\u2019t be our last time there.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\"><i>Walk<\/i>:&nbsp; The course is perched atop the Thames-side Chiltern Hills so you get some significant inclines to traipse at various points.&nbsp; The literal \u201cupside\u201d is that there are some pretty spectacular vistas to enjoy overlooking the Thames Valley.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\"><i>Water<\/i>:&nbsp; No water hazards and being on a hill, not a lot of standing water.&nbsp; The 9<sup>th<\/sup> hole has a rest building with toilets and vending machines, so you can get water for the dogs there.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Harleyford-dog-golf-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Harleyford dog golf 2\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Harleyford dog golf 2\" src=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Harleyford-dog-golf-2_thumb.jpg\" width=\"424\" height=\"283\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Harleyford-dog-golf-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Harleyford dog golf 3\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Harleyford dog golf 3\" src=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Harleyford-dog-golf-3_thumb.jpg\" width=\"427\" height=\"356\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is where it all began.&nbsp;&nbsp; Our first golf lesson.&nbsp; Our first golf game.&nbsp; Our first round of dog golf.&nbsp; Our first companion dog golfing.&nbsp; Harleyford Golf Club. Harleyford is our \u201clocal\u201d.&nbsp; The only golf course in our home town of Marlow.&nbsp; Many of our friends play there.&nbsp; And it was the logical place to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}