Tour 18

Sun 20th

Today's golf was at the Tour 18 golf course and since I recharged my camera overnight there are lots of photos. Unfortunately it was overcast early and they didn't all come out as clearly as I would have liked.

This course consists of copies of holes from different courses used for the PGA competitions. Each hole has the name of the course and the hole on the course that is copied and usually a little story about some particular professional who won or lost a tournament on that hole.

There were a lot of holes from courses that I didn't recognise but there are 3 holes that duplicate Amen corner from Augusta and they seemed quite familiar.

I had booked to play at 10:20 and after about a 40 minute drive arrived around 9:45. When I checked in I was told I'd been moved to an earlier time slot, if that was OK. I joined a pair of Indian guys who were brothers in law. Both were in IT in the finances area.

Unfortunately my record of parring the first hole came to an end today. Despite a decent drive that finished on the fairway and a second shot that was also on the fairway but short I couldn't finish off and I had a double bogey.

The next hole is a spectacular left hand curve around a lake (Bay Hill #6) and I had a bogey after having to chip sideways from the rough and then had another double next hole for 3 6's in a row.

Then I got my act together and parred the next 4 which included the 3 Amen corner holes. Another double followed then on the 9th (Sawgrass 17) I hit the Island green with a 9 iron and was unlucky not to birdie when my putt hit the back of the hole and just jumped out a few inches.

I finished with a 43 just under my target for the 9. I played the blue tees which actually had a ladies rating of 77.8 and a slope of 137 making 87 my target again.

The second 9 was nowhere near as good, with balls in lakes and too many bad shots out of bunkers. The latter was mpartly due to the bunkers having very little sand and I kept over over shooting the green. I managed only 2 pars.

It was nonetheless an enjoyable game with pleasant company who also had their fair share of bad holes as well as some good ones.

The concept for the course is interesting and it seems as though they have carried it off well enough. However it was a slow round - about 5 hours - and we seemed to be waiting nearly every hole.

Panorama shots - 2nd, Amen corner x 2, and the lake that borders #9, #16 and #18 and the club house