Just about every golfer in this area has played Tyee, the unique track at the south end of Seatac Airport. Many years ago I played it pretty often.
That was when George Puetz was the pro, it had a driving range, a sizeable pro shop and lot of interesting holes. It was then as now the noisiest course in the world with jets landing and taking off at probably a hundred feet overhead.
It is now owned by the port and undergoing major surgery in the whole layout, and last week I got in nine fascinating holes. Serious golfers who play for reasons other than exercise and communing with nature like I do would be impatient with the bumpy, weedy fairways and the lack of sand traps. Or the bulldozers and backhoes. I didn't mind. The greens were soft, and the many ditches you had to detour around provided an adventure trip well worth the $10 price for as many holes you wish to play.
On the third hole you are staring at a big brick maintenance house about 200 yards out. I don't know why it was there.
Son Tim could hit it over the roof and did. I had to go around it, a detour that took me nearly to Normandy Park.
When I got to the green I could see the Federal slammer up the road. It is another big brick house. About half a mile away, this one was more like a very tall condominium and has hundreds of little windows too tiny for anyone to slip through.
It was spooky knowing that maybe a lot of bad guys were watching me three putt the green and were hooting and hollering at my discomfort.
Hole number six brought back a moment of thirty years ago. I was playing with Tim then, also. It is about a 290-yard hole and some players were on the green so Tim thought it was safe. His ball hit a golfer still in the bunker alongside the green.
"Good shot, son," I said, "Don't tell your mother."
Best moment for me was on number seven. I ran in a thirty-foot putt for a par just as a 747 roared over so low I could see the pilot. I swear he saw that putt and gave me a thumbs up.
Mark Olson is the pro now and says play is pretty steady in spite of the heavy equipment the port is operating in building a drainage system to preserve some wetland. He said the new 18-hole layout will cross over to woodlands south of 200th.
Golfers at Glenacres and Rainier are so used to low flying jets nobody even notices them anymore. That will happen at Tyee also.
Preserving a public golf course is a wonderful thing for the port to do.
