ALIEN SAVANTS -- An Intelligent SciFi Screenplay

Logline: Frustrated aliens, convinced that earthlings just don't get that climate change will end them, recruit a scientist and his autistic son to inform the world, in a nuclear way, that they are in real trouble.

Check out my new website for the complete screenplay and reviews at aliensavants.com using the attached link:

https://aliensavants.com

ALIEN SAVANTS -- the movie -- Act I

Please click the link below to read Act I of Alien Savants and post your comments.

ALIEN SAVANTS Act I

Highland Links

Highland Links

So, Tom Coyne, you played every links course in Ireland and Scotland, but you haven’t played the oldest true links course in America?* Highland Links is a little nine-holer far out on Cape Cod in Truro, MA. The scorecard says the course is easy – I mean how can you take a 5332 yard par 70 course seriously? But trust me, holes 2 through 7 could fit seamlessly into any of the best links courses in the world.

A drivable par 4 to start off, the course starts out easy, but why didn’t I make birdie? And then it really starts. As I stepped off the first green and walked toward the second tee, I thought I had been transported to the west coast of Ireland.

Before me was a steeply downhill drive into a transverse valley between ancient dunes overgrown by scrub pine and other native plants. The fairway was a 20 yard wide strip of short grass set at an angle to the tee shot lined with red fescue and native grasses. I should have known the aiming point for the drive should be over a scruffy bunker to the left of the fairway. That’s where I hit my second drive. My first was pushed just right and too long to be found among the scrubby bush. The second shot plays uphill to a green protected by an old-fashioned deception bunker that was 20 yards short of the small green, so, of course, I was short.

Next, we faced a seriously uphill par three of just 170 yards that played at least 190. You can see the flagstick on the fifth hole above the third green  -- I don’t know why, but seeing two flags in the distance makes me happy. You can’t be short on this hole, but you can’t be long either because the green sets hard against the slope behind.

Hole four is a short par 4/5 up a steep incline. A long hitter might drive it to the top, but for the rest of us, a good drive leaves a blind second shot and a pitch to the green.

 

From the tee, the fifth hole looks flat until you approach your drive to realize that the fairway drops off in the landing area, which is narrow and canted to the left.

The fescue in the left rough was not so wispy and grabbed my hybrid, smothering an attempted shot toward the elevated green that features an “infinity view” in the direction of Ireland.

Hole six is a challenging uphill par five of only 464 yards, but even a good drive leaves a blind second shot into the prevailing wind. A bunker just behind the green is well placed to catch an over-aggressive pitch to a back pin. Surrounded by scruffy fescue, the bunkers look about as natural as can be and play like a day on the beach.

The finish of this magnificent stretch of golf holes is the 171 yard par 3 seventh. The elevated green rejects any attempt to play a run-up shot and the wind pushes even well-struck shots off the green to the right.

Highland Links is a throw-back to an era when golf courses were a reflection of their environment – the fairways are not irrigated, and they use a concoction of kelp and molasses to fertilize the greens – seriously -- a sign on the first tee says so! The natural feeding must work because the greens have a lot of grass, which is to say they run slow. Yes, the greens at Highland Links can be slow and bumpy – the way I imagine the greens at the old Scottish courses must have been a century ago.  All part of the enjoyment of links golf.

*There aren’t as many true links courses as you might think. See:  http://migrantgolfer.com/the-true-links-courses-of-the-world/