AUBURN – Tough. Crazy. Bordering on unfair.

Some of the many words (some not suitable for print) used to describe the hole locations on a few of the greens at Fox Ridge Golf Club during the first round of the 90th Charlie’s Maine Open on Wednesday.

“You could get to them, but once you got there … yikes,” Topsham’s John Hickson said. “You had two-footers sometimes that were like, ‘alright, trust that it’s going to do what it looks like it should.’ There were some tough ones.”

“They were very tough,” New Hampshire’s James Gilleon, a former champion, agreed. “They’re bordering on unfair, but it’s the same for everybody.”

With all of the rain, and players’ abilities to fire at many of the greens from just about anywhere in the fairway, MSGA officials and the Fox Ridge staff placed many of the pins in tough locations on some of the greens.

And then they cut the greens down and rolled them.

“Still, to make the ball marks that we’re making, and get the spin we’re getting, and still have it that fast, it’s amazing,” Fox Ridge’s Bob Darling said. “After we got the pace down on the first few holes, we were fine, but there’s still a couple of pins out there that you have to be careful of.”

Still, after most golfers were done discussing where the holes were cut, most of them reached the same conclusion.

“It’s a great golf course,” Gilleon said. “I just wish it was a bit drier. I think we all do.”

Cart golf?

What good is a cart when you have to walk the course anyway?

Good question, said some golfers Wednesday.

With the soggy conditions, Fox Ridge implemented the ‘cart-path only’ restriction on driving motorized carts around the golf course. This left many golfers with long walks from their carts to their balls, sometimes nearly as far away as if they’d walked the course without help.

“You have to walk like 80 yards sometimes to get to your ball,” Hickson said. “That’s kind of a twist in there.”

Easy does it

There is little doubt that Fox Ridge plays tough, especially in big tournaments such as the Maine Open. But there was one hole in Wednesday’s opening round that was a brief respite for many of the players.

The eighth hole, a par 5 that usually plays as the course’s 17th, is a 543-yard, uphill test, but is dead straight. That hole played the easiest on the course Wednesday, with a stroke average under par at 4.954.

On the flipside, of course, were the tougher holes. Surprisingly, while the island green hole playing as the tournament’s No. 14 claimed its fair share of golf balls, it wasn’t the toughest. Heck, it wasn’t even in the top five.

The toughest hole with relation to par Wednesday was actually the first hole, regularly the club’s 10th. The par 4 played to a stroke average of 4.855 and saw 18 double bogeys and 10 “others” to go along with 48 bogeys. Fifty golfers managed par there, while the hole yielded just five birdies. The majority of the harder holes on the