After the debauchery of spending 2 days in New Orleans, I was excited to restart of golf road trip again. One thing I wouldn't recommend, driving 5 hours hungover after spending way too much time on Bourbon Street. I had never driven east and New Orleans before and I must say Alabama is a very beautiful state. The golf courses here are just absolutely breathtaking. I can only imagine this place in the fall when the leaves turn red and orange.
It's been 1.5 weeks since I played 6 straight days of golf in Texas and my body is still sore from that experience. However, that wasn't gonna stop me from heading east to one of the destinations I had set out from the beginning, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama. Robert Trent Jones, Sr. (1906-2000) has designed/redesigned about 500 golf courses in his lifetime including: Spyglass, Firestone, Augusta National (redesign), and Olympic Club (redesign.) He started designing the RTJ Trail in 1992 and his company added 2 additional courses after his death. What resulted was an 11 site, 468 hole golf trail that spans across Alabama.
I had originally planned to spend about 1 week in Alabama starting at the NW corner of Alabama at Muscle Shoals then heading SW through Birmingham, Montgomery, and finish in Auburn/Opelika. However, since my road trip might come to an end in a few weeks because of a career opportunity, I decided to cut the RTJ Trail short so I can enjoy golf in the Carolinas. So instead, I only played the Capitol Hill Judge Course in Montgomery and the Grand National Lakes Course in Auburn/Opelika.
The two courses I played were distinctly different yet shared some similarities designed the course. The over-the-water Par 3's and the tree lined fairways puts emphasis on accuracy. Each course has plenty of risk/reward scenarios that make you think if pulling out that 3-wood from the fairway was a smart idea (and it certainly wasn't for me today...)
The Capitol Hill Judge Course was longer of the 2 courses I played measuring 7813 yards from the tips. There was even a 711 yard Par 5!! I was humbled when I picked the middle tee box and it still measured 6517 yards. I ended up walking the course because I hadn't walk one since Palm Springs. It was some of the best 8.2 miles I've ever walked on a course.
The Grand National Lake Course was even prettier than Capitol Hill Judge! Even though it was not as long, there were plenty of chances to get in trouble around the course. The placement of the bunkers in the middle of the fairway makes you think to go left, right, or right over the bunker on the tee box. This is where course management comes to play. Instead of pulling out the driver on every hole, it was smarter to pull out a 5-iron or 3 iron and knock the ball down the middle. Too bad I wasn't that smart and my score definitely suffered today :)
The past few days my drives and irons would come and go. I can keep it in play and get myself out of trouble on most holes to have a chance to save par or bogey. My pitches and chips were pretty consistent for me to get the ball within 10-15ft of the cup, but here is where the trouble starts. I could not putt if my life depended on it!! It was just horrendous! Down right ugly and embarrassing! I just could not feel the ball with my putter, especially with that fat Superstroke grip I had on the putter. I think I'm getting to a point in my game where I'm not using my hands anymore on my putts and the feel of the ball on the putter face is more important. So after my round, I head over to the sporting goods store, ripped off the fatso grip and bought much smaller grip so I can have the feel back in my putts again. I'm also changing back my putting grip style to have the index finger one the shaft for more control. We'll see if that helps when I play on Friday.
Now one of the coolest thing happened today when I was paired up with this nice gentlemen. I was about to tee off by myself when he drove up and asked if he could join me. "My name is Ronald," he introduced himself. He told me he grew up here and now lives in New Zealand. I was thinking that is pretty cool and he still comes back home to see family. Throughout the round we chatted about travels, living abroad, and debated if there were alligators in the lakes around the course (there was.) It wasn't until the back nine when I asked what he did before retirement. He said, "I used to be the Bass player for The Commodores (Brick house, Easy, Nightshift) for 25 years playing with Lionel Ritchie." I was thinking, "Wow! I'm playing with Ronald LaPread and he just bought me a diet coke!" Now, that's pretty cool!
Here are the picture from the last 2 days. Enjoy!!
Awesome - R&B royalty! Nice looking courses.
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