Today's daily is a bit different. Rather than answer a question from the blog, I am going to indulge myself a bit with a personal after-action report from a Pro-Pro tournament I played a few weeks ago at Rock Barn Golf Club in Conover, NC. If you aren't familiar with Rock Barn, it's a great Robert Trent Jones, Jr. design that hosts The Greater Hickory Classic every year. That's a Champions Tour event and when the senior pros play it, the course sets up at 7,046 yards with a course rating of 74.7 and a slope of 140.
Rock Barn is a course I know quite well, having won two professional tournaments there. When we've played it in the past, the tournament staff has set up the course to play a little shorter than 7,000 yards. However, this year they really put it to us by playing from the tip of the tips. I've read somewhere that the course has a maximum length of about 7,125 yards and I'll bet they used every possible inch during this tournament. Add in a pretty good breeze both days and this course played like a beast!
So have a listen to the video as I review some of the challenges I faced during this event. My purpose for talking about this today is to once again encourage all of you, when not playing in a tournament, to find a course length that matches your golfing abilities and play from it. After all, you should expect to have some fun and enjoy yourself when you play. Torturing yourself by playing from tees where you can't experience the course the way the designer meant it to be experienced isn't right. So the next time you decide you want to move forward and your long-hitting buddies give you grief, invite them to move forward too. Chances are they won't play as well they normally do because the course requires different shots and strategies in order to score well. That's when all you short game wizards can really shine.
Keep it vertical!
The Surge
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