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PALMYRA – Palmyra Golf Course (and RV resort … don’t forget about that branch of the corporate tree, whatever you do) is a misunderstood place.
Golfers? They sometimes think it’s still a nine-hole course. It isn’t. Hasn’t been since 1991. Campers? They think you have to be a golfer in order to set up your tent or RV on the pristine lots. You don’t. Never have.
About the only thing anybody really has figured out about Palmyra Golf Course, in fact, is this: The third hole will absolutely … eat … you … up.
“Everyone knows No. 3,” chuckles Brian Cayer, who co-manages the family-owned business with brother Brad.
“Everywhere I go, when people find out I work at the golf course … they say, ‘What are you gonna do with that No. 3? When are you gonna cut the trees on the corner?'” Brian Cayer says.
Good ol’ No. 3.
Palmyra is a well-maintained, challenging course that features water on six holes and plenty of white-sand bunkers that gobble up errant shots.
But while it’s generally a course filled with holes that are fair, interesting, or picturesque, No. 3 stands out.
It may be none of those things. But it will be one that you’ll talk about long after you’ve headed back home.
The third is (depending on who you ask) a beast, or unfair, or, simply, “that hole.”
It’s 575 yards long from the white tees (a hefty 595 from the tips). It doglegs to the left. Severely to the left. And after you bust driver off the tee and hit a long iron to the corner, one of two things will happen.
Maybe you’ll learn you didn’t hit your second shot far enough to give you an approach shot to the green (that’s the bad option). If you’re lucky, you’ll be standing over a third shot that will range from 160 to 190 yards.
Brian Cayer says his grandfather, Dick, designed the course, and knew it needed a signature hole. Dick Cayer originally thought lead billing would go to No. 11, a pretty par 3 over water from an elevated tee.
Then he laid out No. 3.
“He looked at that and said, ‘Why not?'” Brian Cayer says. “I mean, it should almost be a par 6.”
Brad Cayer says the secret to playing No. 3 is pretty simple: Treat it like the par 6 you always tell people it plays like, and you’ll be OK.
“I think a lot of people feel that ‘par pressure’ coming on,” Brad Cayer says. “If the number was six, I think people would be fine with the hole.”
Or, you could just step up to the tee and start flailing … and flailing … and flailing.
“I think the problem is, people hit their second shot, they’re short to the corner, and they get a little anxious and say, ‘If I want to make par, I’ve got to reach that green now. I’ve really got to go for it now,” Brad Cayer says. “That’s when they get burned.”
For the most part, the ribbing about No. 3 is all in fun. But it can get pretty interesting.
“We’ve had people threaten to come in on weekends or at night and cut the trees off the corner,” Brian Cayer says with a laugh.
Palmyra Golf Course sits on land that originally served as the site for Grand View Golf Course, a nine-hole layout that opened in 1956. That may be one reason some people think Palmyra is still a nine-holer.
In actuality, it’s a spacious par-72 layout that takes full advantage of the fact that the Cayers have 430 acres at their disposal on the site.
The golf course and campground occupy between 130 and 150 acres. The rest? Time will tell.
For now, it’s a course with plenty of good golf holes.
A couple that stand out: The challenging seventh, a 400-yard par 4 that demands an accurate tee shot through a pinched-in fairway opening; No. 10, with water to the front left and right of a narrow green; and No. 11, the pretty par 3.
The Cayers got into the golf course business long before they got into the golfing business.
That was back in the late ’80s, when, as kids, they’d make weekly trips from their family home in Hampstead, N.H., north to Palmyra every weekend.
“Every single weekend,” Brad Cayer says. “You get out of school on Friday. You get picked up in the car. You had all your stuff together in the bags, and you’d ride up and work.”
The Cayers’ father, Rick, still makes the weekly excursions after working a full schedule at his sheet metal business while Brian and Brad serve as the hands-on management team at the course.
The Cayer brothers learned a lot about golf course development early on, but not much about playing the game.
“We learned how to drive a dump truck when we were 12, 13 years old,” Brad Cayer says. “It’s gotta get done. You’ve gotta learn how to do it.”
But golf? That took awhile.
“This is only our second year playing golf,” Brian Cayer says with a chuckle. “Everyone finds it amazing that we don’t play much golf.”
That has changed, though.
“Our passion has been for development, not necessarily the execution of our own game, but trying to make it better for everybody else,” Brad Cayer says.
“Realistically, we’ve gotten to a place now where we want to bring it up another notch, and the only way to do that with any kind of clarity is to know the game real well. So we’re making a big effort to bring our own games along so we can stand back and say, ‘OK, we could do this and that would make it play better.'”
Of course, now that he’s a golfer, he has formed an opinion about the course’s infamous third hole.
“That has been changing our perspective. You know? No. 3 is definitely unfair to the average player,” Brad Cayer says to a round of laughter.
“It doesn’t mean we’re gonna change it. It just means it’s unfair.”
John Holyoke will be profiling a Maine golf course each Tuesday. Contact him at 990-8214 or by e-mail at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net
PALMYRA GOLF COURSE
Holes: 18
Yards: 6,617 (blue tees), 6,367 (white), 2,698 (red) par: 72
Slope: 120 (blue tees), 118 (white and red); rating: 70.1 (blue), 69.0 (white), 69.9 (red)
Greens fees: 9 holes: $10; 18 holes: $20
Memberships: $430 (single), $645 (couple), $790 (family), $390 (senior), $585 (senior couple), $200 (junior)
Tee times: Recommended on weekends; accepted at other times.
Directions: Take I-95 to Exit 39, proceed toward Route 2. Turn left onto Route 2, follow Route 2 west for 3.5 miles; turn right on Lang Hill Road. Palmyra Golf Course is 7/10 of a mile on the right.
Footwear: no metal spikes
Phone: 938-4947
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