Final Stage, Practice Round, Springfield Royal CC

[Ben]

Designed by Jack Nicklaus. This place is a real golf course. Not a single 58* wedge in on any of the par-4s, unlike Majestic Creek where I had three. Still managed to kick ass though. Five birdies and three bogeys. Two of the bogeys I probably could have saved though. We were a group of four and none of us were taking any time to hole-out putts. Missed two from 3 feet that I really could have made if I put my mind to it.

The last bogey was on the risk reward Par-5 18th. 522y. I was looking at the yardage book and said to myself, "the only way I'm going for this green in two, is if I can hit my drive to the 182y sprinkle." Where do you think I hit my driver, about 10 feet right of that sprinkler. 5i just to make sure I cleared the water, but knocked it in the water short anyway, little bit of background noise from my playing partners. Whatever. Anyway, this hole is going to be a real puzzle. I'll probably give myself the same goal, hit the 182 spinkler, go for the green.

Five birdies. Managed to birdie the other three par-5s. All of which I reached in two. The other two birdies came on par-3s where I hit 5i both times. First one, made a nice 9 footer, second one from about 3 feet. Thought I had a hole in one for a second.

The greens. Fast! Thank goodness! Rolling to about a 12 I'd say. Very delicate when chipping. And they roll true as well. This place is gonna be fun.

Springfield CC holds the last two days after the cut. There are Asian Tour gates up around the tees, sponsor signs in the fairways, leaderboards up and TV towers . I guess this is a pretty big deal!

Tomorrow I'm off to Palm Hills GC. Just 5 minutes down the road. The only thing I've heard of this place is that the greens are grainy and slow... Damnit!

[iacas]

(When you're on grainy, slow greens) "You love grainy, slow greens!" (When you're on normal greens) "You love fast, true greens!"

Sometimes the Gary Player approach has its merit.

[underparnv]

I really like that quote, iacas!

Keep it up Ben...only four more rounds to go!!

[Ben]

True that iacas. Turns out they weren't slow after all, but lightning fast