RSG OPEN - MARCH 9, 1996 - GREENSBORO

First off, a big THANK YOU to Mike Stanton-Rich for putting it all together,
and to MTC Jet Putters for sponsoring the event.  Great job, guys!

Since you've already seen the official results, complete with scores, my
article will necessarily be a personal account of the event.  And I'll
take the liberty of boring you with the whole odyssey.  (Hey, I didn't
drive 1000 miles for just 18 holes.  :-)

Friday morning's surprise was over 4 inches of fresh, unplowed snow in New
Jersey.  Guy "Coops" Cooper found the same problem in Pennsylvania.  We both
had some tough early slogging southward towards Alexandria, Va, where we
were going to meet up with Stephen Payne.  Stephen's driveway was also full
of snow -- and by now we were in Virginia.  Not a good omen at all.  We
piled into the big ol' 82 Caprice (chosen for room and comfort among our
three vehicles) and headed south.  The first thing Stephen noticed in the
car was the Metallica cassette in the back seat; he still doesn't believe
that it's my son's and not mine.  The drive through Virginia was fairly
uneventful, with Coops, Stephen, and me catching up on what has happened
since we met last year at Hershey.  (Hey, it's June 2 this year.  Great track,
fun tournament.  Show up!)  Everything was going fine, except ... there
was still snow on the ground.  We didn't see snow-free grass until we crossed
the state line into NC, only a few miles above where we were going to golf
tomorrow.

The Holiday Inn gave us a room and a rollaway, so we were set.  The desk
didn't have any check-in records for Brent Hutto or Jim Tims, so we took off
for Greensboro looking for a good Mexican restaurant.  We found an excellent
one called, unimaginatively, "Mexico".  I'm sure I couldn't find it again,
and retracing our steps would be more of an adventure than I'm up for at the
moment.  Then back to Reidsville and a surprisingly good night's sleep.

SATURDAY:
        When we awoke at 6AM, the first thing to impinge on our senses was
the guy on The Weather Channel telling us it's 13 degrees, a record low for
the area.  Just what we need: drive all the way South, to colder weather
than we left in New Jersey.  (Later in the show, we got our consolation;
the northeast was experiencing even colder weather -- a record there too.)

We dressed and headed for the dining room, but they weren't opening just yet.
Seems that the Reidsville power company was cutting off power to the town
from 8 to 9:30.  So we drove around town looking for a restaurant.  Finally
wound up in the Reid House, a little local diner that did decent breakfasts.
(Very little.  Very local.)  The power company was very prompt; everything
shut off at exactly 8AM.  You could tell because that's where all the
electric clocks were stuck.

Got to Bryan Park at about 9AM.  Finally got to meet Mike S-R and a couple of
other RSGers who had already arrived: Mark Georg and Brent.  The word we
got from Mike was:
 - We were down to 10 in the tournament; Jim Tims' party couldn't make it,
   nor could a couple of Carolinians.  (I understand, Jim, though I was
   really looking forward to meeting you.  But that would have been a hell
   of a drive from Rome, NY, especially given the snow.)
 - Due to frozen greens, the tournament wouldn't start until 11, an hour
   delay.  That gave us a chance to get to know some of the folks over
   coffee in the pro shop.
Mike, Mark, and Brent recognized us instantly as "The Three Musketeers".

For the next hour, the remaining RSGers wandered in and introduced
themselves.  John and Josephine Luce arrived, and Jim Preston and Steve
Criscione.  Now we were ten, sipping coffee in the pro shop and waiting
for the greens to thaw.

At about 10:30, we wandered out to the range to "warm up".  Warm, indeed!
I discovered I couldn't swing a club at all in a ski sweater and parka.
Couldn't even meet the ball.  So I took off the parka, and did much better.
I used to feel that, below 50 degrees, golf wasn't fun any more.  Now I'm
comfortable to play anything over 32.  The formula is:
 - Warm sweater, form fitting and with enough stretch to allow a good swing.
   (I had two along to select from: one turtleneck ski sweater, and one
   fleece bicycling jersey.  Either one worked fine.)
 - Cotton turtleneck under the sweater.
 - Long johns under normal golf slacks.
 - Winter golf gloves.  (Thanks, Coops!  Coops plays in a winter league, and
   brought along enough for the Musketeers, and then some.  Hey, Coops,
   there was still a pair in the Caprice when I got home.  Need 'em now, or
   should I just bring 'em to Hershey in June?)
 - Nice thick socks.  I wanted to double up the way I do skiing, but I don't
   own a pair of golf shoes big enough.  That's OK; one good pair was fine.

We went off at 11 sharp.  Well, almost sharp.  No matter; we were the only
ones on the course.  (I think another foursome did play at some point in
the day, but that was it.)  Imagine a magnificent course like Bryan Park's
Champions Course getting almost no play.  What a waste.  ;->  We went off
in three parties:
        Stephen, John, and Josephine.
        Coops, Mark, Steve, and me.
        Mike, Jim, and Brent.
(Jim looked like a winner just taking those beautiful practice swings on
the first tee.  Later, when a ball got in the way of the swing, he hit it
a mile.  He said he was being conservative.  If he can hit it that far and
be conservative, no wonder he turned in the low score.)

The Champions Course is a great layout, with plenty of water.  The mounding
on the edge of many fairways suggests a stadium course, and indeed they are
shooting for a PGA Tour event.  The GGO already has its qualifiers there,
and there's talk about moving the whole tournament there when the greens
mature.

But the greens do need maturing.  Or something.  Maybe mowing?  The
rough at Colonial Terrace (a goat path where I live) has shorter grass.
Nobody in my four got even a par on the front nine, at least in part because
nobody could internalize how much of a whack it took to get the ball to the
hole.  A few greens were also bumpy, but on most the roll was nice and true,
just REAL slow.

We got the hang of it on the back nine, which is a striking piece of course
architecture.  Holes 10-15 make the most of Lake Townsend, which they run
along, sorta' like a freshwater Pebble Beach.
 10. From the tee to the green, this short (363 yd) par 4 drops dramatically.
     You don't see Lake Townsend yet, but the pond in front of the green is
     an inlet of the Lake.
 11. A 501-yard par 5 starts across a steep, deep ravine.  The drive must
     carry a good 170 yards to completely cross the inlet and get to the
     fairway, which is elevated even more than the tee.  From there, it makes
     a sharp right and heads for Lake Townsend.  From the fairway, you look
     across an arm of the lake on the right, to the marina.  (Bryan Park is
     a diversified recreational center run by the Greensboro Parks Dept.)
     Don't lose it right, or you'll be lucky to stop in the light woods
     rather than running all the way down to the lake.  (This is the first
     course where I found myself thinking, "Get in the bunker."  Not that
     I'm any great shakes from the sand, but the bunker was the least bad
     thing that could happen to most green-missing shots.)
 12. A par 3, measuring 175 from the whites, but playing longer.  For one
     thing, the wind was mostly into us, with a strong right-to-left
     component.  For another, the cold was making us definitely shorter.
     I'd estimate I was losing 1-2 clubs on every shot, and others were
     experiencing similar loss of distance.  Coops and I hit the green
     with a 3W and a 5W, respectively, hit right on the button.  Anything
     less just didn't get there.
 13. A par 4 dogleg right, 435 into the wind.  The hole bent enough to
     tempt you to cut off the dogleg (over Lake Townsend, which is the right
     side of the whole fairway).  But in that wind, it would have been a
     fool's errand.
 14. A par 3, 210 and dead into the wind.  The Lake is the whole right side,
     and wraps around the back of the green.  The championship tees are on
     the other side of the inlet; 230 yards and all carry into the prevailing
     winds -- and all lake from tee to green.  Steve CRUSHED a driver and
     reached the green; the rest of us didn't even get to the green-front
     bunker.
 15. An absolutely lovely target-golf par 5 of 458 yards along the lake.  You
     have to cross two inlets, with a fairly narrow landing area between them.
     If you boom a driver off the tee, you better hit a Nicklaus-sized power
     fade; otherwise, you'll either hit through the dogleg into the woods
     or drown it in the second inlet.  Better to lay up between the inlets,
     and go for it on the second shot.  (No risk on that one, but it's long.
     Steve almost got it there, chipped it close, and putted for a bird.)

While this is possibly the most impressive 6 consecutive holes I've played,
there are other holes well worth mentioning:
 - The par-3s on the front nine aren't very long.  At 127 and 136, they are
   easily reached.  But #4 has Lake Townsend on the left, and also fronting
   the leftmost 2/3 of the green; going for a left pin position means a
   carry.  And #7 goes from an elevated tee (elevated? try "cliff") to an
   equally elevated green, over a ravine that must be about 100 feet deep.
   Fail to reach and you BETTER hit the bunker, or you'll have a really
   interesting straight-up second shot.  On this hole, Josephine Luce hit
   the green and sunk the putt for her first-ever birdie.  (Right behind
   their party, I hit the same spot and three-jacked.)
 - The par-5 508-yard sixth has water up the whole right side, that wraps
   around the front of the green for an 80-yard carry.  Gorgeous!

These are not the only pretty or dramatic holes, but they're the most
memorable.  What a wonderful course!

After all the noise on RSG about slow play, let me share with you "The Shame
of the Open".  It took us six hours -- and we were the only ones on the
course.  I believe the third threesome could have done it in less.  But my
group (the second, a foursome) felt slow and was slow.  Even so, there wasn't
a hole open in front of us at the end; the group ahead wasn't any faster.
Reasons?
 - Early season golf.  None of us were hitting reliably straight, so there
   were a lot of lost and/or drowned balls.
 - Polite golf.  We weren't playing ready golf.  We honored the honor.  We
   marked putts and waited.  We did nothing to speed play along.
 - Cart golf.  If cart golf is slow, cart golf with mandatory cart paths is
   excruciating!  And I KNOW I walked (and frequently ran) as far as I would
   have if I never saw the cart that day -- just getting between the cart
   path and the ball.  I HATE cart golf.

Well, you saw the scores, so the less said about that the better.  :-)}
But one thing to keep in mind: Brent's astronomical score is explained if
you remember his post of about a month ago.  If you recall, he was told
by his doctor to not play golf for many months to allow his right toe to
completely heal.  Since that much time away from golf would have a severely
deleterious effect on his mental health, he got a set of lefty clubs, and is
playing this year from the other side.  I know I couldn't have kept it under
200 playing lefty; good work, Brent.

After the scores were posted and the MTC putters and other prizes given out,
everyone scattered.  I was hoping we'd be able to all have supper together,
but the only ones planning to sleep in the area Saturday night were the Three
Musketeers and Mike (who lives there).  Mike showed us a cozy local
restaurant in Reidsville (the "Home Dining Room"? don't remember), and joined
us for dinner.

SUNDAY:
        Positively balmy weather; it almost got to 40.  ;->  John Luce had
arranged a foursome with us at Mill Creek in Mebane.  Unfortunately, Mill
Creek was closed, so we drove to Stoney Creek.  Another lovely course; if
I hadn't played Bryan's Champions the day before, I'd have been even more
impressed.  And another empty course.  We did see two other parties on the
course during the day, but that was all.  Lots of water, but creeks and
ponds rather than the shoreline of a large lake like yesterday.  And lots
of elevation change; much more so than I'm used to in NJ.

This was a residential course, so there was a lot of carting from green
to tee.  It would have been very hard to walk, given the distances and
the altitude changes.  The starter sent us to the tenth tee to start, saying
he wouldn't inflict the first hole on newcomers right away.  I think that
the course SHOULD be played in that order, for several reasons:
 - Yes, the par-5 first hole is wildly dramatic, with a cliff to negotiate
   after your drive.  You have to drop the ball on a landing area framed
   by a meandering creek, then pitch across the creek to the green.  A
   course should start a little slower; give you a chance to warm up
   before it gets wild and scary.
 - The eighth and ninth are good finishing holes, the toughest par-3 on the
   course (the rest of the par-3s are undistinguished), followed by a
   not-very-long but picturesque par-4.  A straight drive will land
   between a long bunker on the right and a lake down the entire left side.
   The longer the drive, the less room between the bunker and the lake.
   The second shot must avoid the lake which continues to the left edge of
   the green (and even cuts in front of the left side of the green).  If
   you bail right, you're in a trap; the out-shot has to stop short of the
   lake.

The only bad thing about reversing the order of the nines is that both the
first and eighteenth holes are par-5s, and then they'd be consecutive.
A couple more tough holes:
 14. A tight driving hole, with a steep downward slope.  Keep it low and
     straight and it'll roll a long way.  But you'll still have 160-180 to
     the green.  And by now, the green is significantly elevated and across
     a huge ravine.  The hill to the green is so steep you BETTER either hit
     it or one of the 6 bunkers below the green in the hillside.
 5.  An uphill drive to a dogleg right.  You can clear the bunker at the top
     of the hill with a well-struck fairway wood.  And you better clear it,
     because you'll need every advantage for the second shot; if you were
     just over the middle of the bunker, you're on the crest of a ridge.
     There's a 170-yard carry over a deep lake, to the green on the other
     side.  You're looking down on the green, so the shot isn't hugely
     demanding, but better strike it flush or you'll drown it.
 6.  A long straight par-5.  Houses on the left, and woods with a creek on
     the right.  You can carry the drive 160 over a lake, or lay up right.
     If you bail right AND hit it 160, you're in the woods or the creek.
     (Don't ask me how I know. :-)  After that it's a long overland trek
     to the base of the hill to the VERY elevated green.

All in all, a fine course.  A good time was had by all.  And better scores
than yesterday, (though nothing to write home about.)  Puttable greens made
all the difference.

When we finished, Andrew in the pro shop gave us a restaurant recommendation:
The Brightwood, right down the road.  Turned out to be a tiny bar and grill,
that did have a dinner menu with 4 entrees.  Not much selection, but the food
was excellent.  They raise their own beef and chicken.  (Well, not too much
chicken; they're still looking for a way to keep the little red fox out of
the henhouse.  Yeah, it was that kind of place.)  Even the salad lettuce was
unusually fresh and crisp.  The coffee was very good, and the banana pudding
was homemade.

Over dinner, we found an amazing coincidence.  (John and Coops keep calling
it "karma".)  I'll leave out the details; let's just say that John, Coops,
and I discovered we had a common and intense interest in an obscure product
from an obscure company that most of you out there never heard of and never
will.  And John and my older son have an interesting thing in common
professionally.  Likewise John's son and my younger son.  Small world!

After dinner, suitably "wired" with caffeine and pure-sugar banana pudding,
we all hit the road for home.  We reached Stephen's place by 1AM, and crashed
for the night.  Coops and I headed for our respective abodes Monday morning.

End of a great adventure!
Cheers!
Dave