Finally on the Right Track?

[Bama Duffer]

I'm in the busy travel portion of my job these days. One benefit is that it provides me a chance to play courses around Alabama. The past two days, I was in Oneonta and Scottsboro, and got to play Limestone Springs and Goose Pond Colony.

We didn't get to finish the round at Limestone Springs due to darkness. But I shot 44 on the front nine and was doing well on the back. I've changed a few things in my swing, so I was curious as to whether it was just a fluke.

It may be, but I'll take it. Yesterday at Goose Pond Colony, I had the best round I've had in years. Another 44 on the front nine, and a 40 on the back. Four pars, eight bogeys and three (count 'em, THREE) birdies, one of which was a chip for eagle on a par five that stopped at the edge of the cup.

If I could have hit my driver (usually one of my best clubs), it would have been a record day for me. I had to chip out of trees back into the fairway at least six times. I figure I could have easily cut five to seven strokes from my score with better driver play.

Goose Pond recently hosted a national junior college tournament, so they had narrowed the fairways and allowed the rough to grow. The fellow I played with from the area told me before we started that it was playing tougher than usual right now. I thought it played just fine.

This is the best I've felt about my game in a long time. Wish me luck.

 

[Bravo]

Congrats on your game...three birdies is always a great day for me...

How did you like the courses?? I have never played Goose Pond.

 

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

I still haven't had a birdie since picking up the clubs again, although I've had some close chances. Still, I think I'm making more pars than I've ever made in my previous attempts at this game of swinging a long stick at a small ball.

Funny, I still remember the clubs and hole of the first birdie I ever got, probably 14 or 15 years ago. It was hole 6 at Loch Nairn, a public course in southeastern PA. I roped a 3-iron straight out about 190 yards off the tee, and hit a 7-iron into the green, about 8 feet right of the cup, pin-high. I sank the putt with an old prehistoric putter.

 

[Bama Duffer]

Limestone Springs is a great layout. The terrain is beautiful, with tree-lined fairways. It'd be fantastic to play in a month or so when the leaves change. I definitely want to play it again.

It's difficult for me to judge Goose Pond. It was a good course, but like I said, it wasn't in its usual shape. In fact, somehow they had killed a strip of grass on either side of most fairways, leaving twin brown lines. I don't know if they had misused a pesticide or just what they did. The local guy I played with called them racing stripes.

Greens were good and I liked the way they included plenty of dog-legs that required some shot selection, rather than grip it and rip it. Fairways were narrow and balls settled into the rough. Often I had to walk directly over my ball to find it.

If you go to the Goose Pond web site (http://www.goosepond.org/hole1.htm), you can take a hole-by-hole tour to give you an idea of the course.

 

[Bravo]

Thanks...20 years ago (before the explosion in great public golf in the state) - Goose Pond was considered one of the top 5 public-access courses in Alabama. I've never had a chance to see it, much less play it and wanted a reference/comparison...

Glad you are playing well and would like to get together sometime in October if you have a chance. I am traveling to Miami next week and to Vegas the last week of the month.

 

[Big Brother Dunk]

Sounds like you've got a good thing going. Hope it keeps up.