I’ve been blessed with another opportunity this year by becoming a Golf Digest Panelist. My job is to travel around playing and rating the country and state’s best golf courses. I’m lucky enough to play in golf tournaments around the nation but on days I want to get away from the tournament site and see a new venue, I’m able to call up an extremely famous and nice course to play and rate it. It’s many people’s dream come true.
The courses that are considered on or near the list want Panelists to come rate their course so that they may have the chance to be on the Top 100 Greatest Courses in the Golf Digest Magazine. The Panelists do not receive payment by the Magazine but it usually results in free or reduced green fees. Not a bad gig!
I’m pretty goal-oriented and have always said that I want to play golf in all 50 states. I’ve now added another goal to the list. I want to play every single Top 100 Greatest Courses. However, that goal is a moving target. The list comes out every two years and some of those courses can fall out of the Top 100 and some can jump up into the list. However, the more great golf courses you play, that moving target gets smaller and smaller. As of today, I have played 5 of the Top 100 Greatest Courses but I’m in my first two months of business. I’m a rookie! I have some tournaments coming up that are in states and areas of the country that I’ve never been. I’m excited to venture out and come away with some wonderful stories and photos!
I had a whirlwind trip yesterday, May 28, with three older men up to Kansas. I met Alex Brown and Freddie Moore at 6:00am in Edmond and headed north for a two-hour drive to Wichita/Andover, KS. We found ourselves teeing off at Flint Hills National Golf Club at 8:30am joined with Coach Mark Cline. Mark drove 14 hours from West Virginia in order to accompany us for this fun Friday journey!
Tom Fazio built Flint Hills National Golf Club in 1997. Fazio’s designs are some of my favorites: Karsten Creek in Stillwater, OK, Caves Valley in Owings Mills, MD, The Madison Club in La Quinta, and Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, GA. When you play Karsten Creek, you don’t feel like you’re in Stillwater. When you play Flint Hills, you don’t feel like you are in Andover, Ks. You feel like you are far away playing in a beautiful area such as Baltimore where Caves Valley is near. Tom Fazio makes gorgeous courses but they do favor one another. He built very demanding golf courses yet the smart, straight player will be able to score. Flint Hills’ rough was ROUGH but the zoysia fairways were absolutely perfect and the greens rolled very nicely. I lost four golf balls but shot a 78 from the back tees. It doesn’t look like a good score but I can’t wait to go back again now that I was punched in the mouth by it the first time. I’m awake and ready to go score low on it! Every hole had white poles at the beginning of every fairway and down near the green. It was an in and out for the carts to go through so that the grass won’t get worn out by the riders. I loved that idea! Here are a few pictures of Flint Hills on Friday:
Flint Hills Par 4 #2
Flint Hills Par 3 #10
Flint Hills Par 3 #17
Once we finished out on the 18th hole, the GM (who happens to be a big OU fan) had turkey sandwiches waiting on us so that we could get on the road and make it to our next tee time at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, KS. I was so thankful because I didn’t know if these crazy guys even ate on their extreme expeditions but food comes first before golf with me. A girl has got to eat! The weather was calm but very hot and humid so we were downing the Gatorades and water. I’d take heat over wind any day, especially on those two courses!
We sped a tad and made it with 15 minutes to spare. Perry Maxwell designed this course and was extremely creative by using the natural land it gave him. He adopted Donald Ross’ idea of the upside down bowl greens and placed the greens into the side wall of the sand dunes that were already there. On a few holes, you would have to take the clubs needed to finish the hole as well as clubs to tee off on the next hole before you made it back to your cart. A lot of the tee boxes were built on the top of the sand dunes, which added to the pleasure of the round. I never thought I would see gorgeous views in Kansas but check it out:
Prairie Dunes Par 3 #4
Prairie Dunes Par 4 #5
Prairie Dunes Par 5 #9
Prairie Dunes Par 4 #12
Alex told us on the tee that the green had two hippopotamuses and Dumbo's little sister buried under it.
This is the green...
Prairie Dunes Par 3 #15
We finished in four hours and headed back south for Oklahoma. I rode back with Freddie and had a little excitement as we left the parking lot at Prairie Dunes. We had no gas! And when I say we had no gas, WE HAD NO GAS! I’ve never seen a running car with as little gasoline in the tank as I saw yesterday. Thankfully we came across a gas station as the last second. Grabbed some more Gatorade and beef jerky and made it back to Edmond in four hours.
Our gas tank in the middle of nowhere...and the car was running!
I know how blessed I am to be able to make trips like this but it’s because of the people I have met along the way in this sport and also with my time at OU. It opened many doors for me. I’m going to try my hardest to play some amazing courses while I’m out traveling this summer in places and states that I’ve never been. Fishers Island is one of the courses I'm dying to play. It's on it's own island in New York where you can only get to it by boat or helicopter. It's $100 boat ride and an all day trip but well worth the time. I'm caddying for my friend Lucy in the US Womens Open at Oakmont Country Club so I'm going to stay one extra day and play it to knock it off the list. It's going to be a fun adventure and one I hope to accomplish in years to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment