Treyburn
Bad round today at Treyburn. 81 was almost my worst as a professional golfer. The lesson I had with Jack last week still hasn’t completely come together. I hit bad pull hooks most of the day…but still hit some very good quality shots. The main problem was on the greens. I had 35 putts and hit a majority of them exactly how I wanted to. I had a lot of trouble adjusting to the very fast, grainy bent greens. Since it was my first day on them (no practice round), my reads will probably adjust and I’ll have a good day putting tomorrow.
Given all this, I’m not discouraged. As mentioned, I’m making a change in my full swing that may take a few rounds to fully gel. This happens…sometimes you need to take a step back to take two steps forward. I’m also stroking my putts exactly how I want to. The problem today was simply adjusting to something completely unexpected. For example, on my first hole of the day, I left my 25 foot birdie putt 6 feet short and hit it exactly how I wanted. But, I was severely into the grain and didn’t see it.
I may give the impression that I’m frustrated with the lack of practice round. I received a piece of information on the first tee today that made the actions of Treyburn’s professional staff even that much more unprofessional. In my last post, I mentioned that I was told that players could not even be on the property Monday before the tournament. Therefore, we were not allowed to walk to course, use the range or putt on the practice green. I heard today that the professional staff allowed many players to use the practice putting green throughout the day and actually approached them to allow them to walk the course late in the day. So, through the week, they told players directly to stay off property and then allowed players to practice and see the course when they just showed up. This is completely unprofessional. To me, it meant a severe disadvantage…probably not enough to justify an 81, but a significant disadvantage nonetheless. As I mentioned above, the greens were very fast and peculiar in that they were very grainy. Simply using the practice green the day before the tournament would have allowed me to adjust better to the greens. If I had been able to walk the course the day before, I would have taken a putter and would have putted around the hole locations to get a good feel of how they rolled. Finally, I wouldn’t have had to run around the course this morning before my afternoon round.
I also mentioned in my last post that many of us have gotten the feeling that the professional staff is doing us a favor by allowing us to have an event at their course. Now that I’ve played it, I don’t feel that they’re justified in feeling they have a top-level course. Yes, it is a good Fazio layout and the greens are firm and fast. But, they’re also very grainy… something you don’t usually see in bent and is definitely undesirable. Also, they have some kind of disease in their fairway grass that causes brown patches of thin grass. I hit it into several of these today, two of which were virtually unhittable… in the middle of the fairway. Finally, bunker sand is very far from uniform. I made a good swing from the greenside bunker on number 2 and watched the ball sail over the green because there was absolutely nothing under the ball. Yet, there was plenty of sand under my feet.
Well, enough about Treyburn. It still comes down to hitting good shots and making putts…two things I did poorly today. It will straighten itself out quickly.
Oh, forgot to mention…avoid the Howard Johnson in Durham, NC on Hillsborough Ave. This is our “host hotel” for the week and its a nightmare.