Golfing in Manette

There’s no place to play golf in Manette. But depending on your range of thinking, there’s a place to practice. At least there is for the man in the photo.

Manette is a funky neighborhood of older well-kept homes in East Bremerton bordered on three sides by salt water. Although the lots are small and the area lacks amenities like parks and open spaces, it’s a desirable place to live because many of the homes have stunning views of Puget Sound. While Manette is a great neighborhood for walking, expecting to play golf there would be on the order of thinking you could hunt tigers in downtown Seattle.

Finding a place to practice your golf shots there is a lot easier.

Last Friday I ate lunch at Bachman Park, a small waterfront park at the tip of lower Manette. The park, which is maintained by the East Bremerton Rotary Club, has a gazebo-like structure that extends out over the water. There’s also a small beach and parking area separated by a grassy strip with a few trees. From the park you can watch the boat traffic through Rich Passage headed in and out of downtown Bremerton.

As I ate a sandwich from Kate’s Jersey Subs, an enthusiastic lefty with a three-iron provided some noontime entertainment. I don’t think he would mind if I give his name—it’s Jordan. Jordan only brought three golf balls along, but he made the most of them. He took numerous practice swings and then waited patiently while a kayaker and a small outboard passed by on the way to Bainbridge Island. The giant ferry in the middle of Rich Passage wasn’t a concern as it was out of range for even a long hitter like John Daly.

The shots he finally hit were straight and flat although a bit short for a three-iron. With an incurable slice I’m impressed by any shot that travels in a straight line.

Later we got to talking. He told me loves to play golf and is self-taught. The best parts of his game are his short irons and putting. His driving, he admitted, needs work. When he lived just a few blocks from Bachman Park, he used to work on his swing there all the time. Now that he’s moved farther away, he mostly goes to driving ranges. No, he had never seen anyone else hitting golf balls at the park.

I told him people hit golf balls at Mud Bay regularly and that any good golfer can reach the other side with a medium iron shot. In fact, one of the windows in my house was broken by an errant ball from the Marine Drive side when the former owners lived here.

So, environmentally, is it a bad idea to be hitting golf balls into Rich Passage? Probably, although golf balls sink and likely don’t look like food to curious fish. The recent campaigns to ban plastic bags didn’t mention stray golf balls as a problem in Puget Sound. But all the same, hopefully no golfers other than Jordan would think of working on their games at Bachman Park or at the dozens of other potential driving ranges along the Manette waterfront.

Good luck with those irons, Jordan.