Trying Out: Wayne Golf Course Bothell’s Brand-New Park (Week Fifty-Three)

Snow to end your year with.

I had never walked through a golf course.  Oh sure, I had taken the one week course in high school P.E. which consisted entirely of trying to hit a ball across a field, ideally in a straight line.  But golfing?  Completing nine, let alone eighteen holes?  Nope.  I had watched Happy Gilmore on a few occasions and thought that would be more fun.

I used to walk past a golf course on a regular basis.  I say “used to”, not because I stopped walking past it, but because the space ceased to be a golf course.  They put up an “applying for a permit” sign.  The golf carts started to disappear.  I assumed that, as always happens, the big beautiful space would be paved over and turned into a hundred new houses.  All of them would be shaped the same, all would be overly industrial-looking, and all would be out of the local population’s price range.

That almost happened.  It did not.  In mid-December I walked past this sign.

A new park!  Not a housing development, but open land!  Thank God.

So, for my New Year’s Eve activity, I took a stroll through the new park.  (New year approaching, new purpose for the land; it seemed appropriate enough.  Out with the old and in with the new.)

Even with my long legs, it took me an hour to walk through it all.  The park is adjacent to a major walking/biking trail.  It is located on both sides of a river.  And within walking distance are two more, much smaller, local parks.

I kept thinking of all the potential the park had.  The hard work had already been done.  Thanks to the golf carts, paths already ran through the entirety of the space.  There is a walkway that goes underneath a local street.  Trees are plentiful.  The grass is a little squishy and muddy, but it works fine for now.  All they really had to do was add a few garbage cans and some signs.  Plus, it comes with the requisite, “What does that shed exist for?” building that all parks need!

The city can do whatever they want with this park.  They could put in barbecue shelters.  They could add basketball courts.  Or honestly, they could leave it as is.  Acres and acres; room enough for all.  Although if the morning I visited was any indication, this park will go to the dogs.  I was the only person there without a canine companion.

In short, I got to walk all the holes without the nuisance of carrying a heavy bag or keeping score.  The city got a new public space.  And the year ended with trees and fields getting priority over three-car garages and cookie-cutter residences.  Huzzah!