To: From: "Green, Jonathan D \(Jon\)" Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 11:28:24 -0400 Subject: RE: [RSG-OHIO] RSG - Hershey 2004 Thanks for organizing, Coops. Nice to see everybody. The RSG events are something I look forward to all year, sorry I haven't made as many as I would have liked to in the last couple of years. I had mentioned in a prior post how I like playing in non-annoying light rain because the course is empty, and don't you know there were a lot of people out playing at 4 PM on Friday in a rain I'd call semi-annoying because if we didn't have umbrellas, we would have been soaked. Plus it slows down play with all of the umbrella up / down, etc. From tee off to finish on Friday was about 5 hours (finished at 9 PM), although we didn't have to wait all that much. Of course there was about 20 minutes between nines because I walked ahead to get a head start up the hill after I x-ed out of #9 and I got lost going to the tenth tee. Then Coops arrived and he got lost going to the tenth tee. Finally met him on 11th. My game was typical all weekend for not having played, but I had started to get a semblance of a swing back from hitting range balls and swinging a weighted club for about two weeks before the event. I hit some really nice shots, and some really squirrelly ones. Same with my short game. Some really nice chips and putts, and some real clunkers and a couple of missed 2 - 3 footers in the tournament round. My bad shots were either pull hooks or I'd get ahead of myself and push it off right. My 15 handicap was in question after stiffing a 3 wood on the par 3 #3 at Groff's, but after 2 pull hooks OB and hitting it into the pond 3 times and bouncing one off of the rock wall on #9, I didn't hear much more about that. Groff's was a really nice course, and seeing that it's 3 minutes from Coops house, I'm surprised it hasn't been in the RSG Hershey rotation. Not a long course, but beautiful condition, scenic, and penal if you're not straight. I was with Thor and Bill for the tournament round, which was a lot of fun. Started off with a triple bogey, but pulled it together with a 42 on the front, even with a missed 2 footer for par on the tough par 5 #7. That was the best I played all weekend. Couldn't keep it together though. Triple bogeyed the easy 10th hole, and couldn't find par again until late in the round. Ended with 89, net four shots behind Thor. I played Mark G. for an 18 hole MPM in the afternoon, and may have won if it weren't for a few brain farts throughout the round, not conforming to the spirit of MPM. I was 3 up going into #9. Hit a really nice drive and had a six iron coming in. When I took my practice swing, a little tuft of grass landed a foot behind my ball, so I brushed it away, then thought, is that allowed in MPM. I won the hole, but when I asked Thor for a ruling a couple of holes later, he looked at me with a quizzical look that said, "Of course you can't do that, why even ask." Now I'm wondering if that's right, I put the grass there myself after my ball was at rest, aren't I allowed to remove it? No matter, just curious for next time. Anyway, instead of 4 up, now I'm 2 up. Then on #11, I'm on the green in regulation with about a 20 footer, and I mark my ball. Oops. I think Mark parred, so instead of 1 up, it's all square. Finally, on the par 5 16th, I'm on the fringe in 4, and brush a leaf out from in front of my ball. Oops. Instead of all square, I'm one down going into 17, and end up losing 2 down after conceding Mark's par putt on 18. Dave T was playing MPM against the MBG (mythical bogey golfer) after JFB left after 9 with a sore ankle, and Dave kicked MBGs butt. MBG is very consistent, but wasn't up to Dave T. Sunday, I was pretty stiff in the shoulders warming up, and the legs were probably a little tired too. Never really felt comfortable all day, and probably started over swinging due to the length of the course. I shot my worst round of the weekend. A five hour round never helps you get into a groove either. Great fun, nonetheless. Sunset plays LONG from the blues. 6328 par 70, but lots of elevation changes make the uphill holes play a lot longer. I hit at least 7 wood on 4 of the 5 par threes, and two of them are full three woods. The greens are pretty nice there, and were a little quicker than Dauphin, but besides that, the upkeep is very questionable. Looks like they haven't raked the traps for a while, and many looked like the deer were having a party in them. They were also totally packed down from Friday's rain, and hadn't even been raked for weekend play. I wouldn't mind not playing there again. Funny thing, though, either the ranger or starter seemed to drive to the par 3 #8 specifically to take a piss in the woods behind the tee, I think when Dave T, Mark, and Thor were teeing off. Again, thanks Coops. Great fun, good friends, good beer, hope to see you all in September. Jon G. _________________________________________________ After I posted my writeup, Jon sent this addendum... On # 9 at Groff's, I had a really good lie on my first drop, so I went for the green with a 7 wood and topped it back into the pond. The second drop was a bad lie, so I tried to chip out up to where everyone else was, and hit the one branch sticking out of the tree, and it popped back in. Three drowned balls. Finally chipped back out to about 80 yards, and hit it a little fat, just a yard short, bounced off the top of the rocks into the heavy stuff up to the right of the green. It was really unplayable at that point when Mark found it (what a ball hound), and I took a swack at it for the heck of it, then gave up. It was a nice course, but definitely requires some local knowledge. It had the best free yardage book / scorecard I've ever seen, with layouts of the holes and hints on how to play them. There were a couple of blind shots, or shots that if you knew the exact yardages to cut corners, etc., you would have played differently. Mark cut the corner (part on purpose, part on slice) on two of the par fives with OB stakes on the right to try and discourage that sort of behavior, but both ended up in play. Those holes would have probably played better from the blue tees where it would require a longer carry to cut the corner. I pushed my second shot on the blind par 5 Dave mentioned and ended up a yard from the out of bounds stake bordering the next hole. Part not knowing where to aim, and part bad shot. 10 yards further left, and I'm in one of those high grass mounds and I wouldn't have found it, so I'm not complaining. Those phone calls were completely par for the course, at least for me. Dph mentioned to me that the picture of me chipping from next to the cart path doesn't tell the entire story. The resting bench for the next tee and water jug were just out of the picture to the left, and a tree trunk was just left of my intended line to the pin. Nothing was right in my line, but close enough to make me think about it. I had an open shot to the green from only 20 yards away, but didn't get a clean hit on it and left it short, I think. I'm not sure where I would have dropped, but we did have the rules official with our group. If I could get relief from the bench (immovable obstruction, perhaps?), who knows where the closest relief was. jdg