Golf Channel Am Tour National Championship at La Quinta, CA

Sept 24-27: My Dad and I traveled from Boston to Long Beach, CA and then drove 2 hours to the desert city of La Quinta, CA to participate in the Golf Channel Am Tour National Championship. The tournament included 575 participants from all over the United States and Canada. It included former pro baseball players Mark Mulder and Orlando 'El Duque' Hernandez. It was attended by Golf Channel's own Charlie Rymer, Jason Sobel, Win McMurry, and Todd Smith (all pictured to the right). Needless to say, Win was the most popular guest. I think you can understand why! My expectations were exceeded over the entire week, including 72 holes on exceptional golf courses with unlimited access to practice facilities, nightly events, gift packs, professionally run tournament scoring from scoring to pairings to rulings, great resort, constant assistant from staff, easy access to information and scheduling, and much appreciation from the Golf Channel for our participation.

It was a 72 hole event at 4 different courses: La Quinta Mountain, PGA West Norman, Nicklaus, and Pete Dye Stadium. I shot 75-79-79-79 to finish tied for 32nd. The winner was a 4-day total of 2 under par. It was an amazing experience to play 4 straight days at 4 different golf courses, each having different challenges from deep rough to treacherous fairway bunkers to desert hard pan to fescue to island greens to fast and firm greens. You had to adjust your game slightly for each course. Also, add in temperatures between 100-109 degrees all week! We constantly were drinking water and applying cold towels to our faces.

My Dad walked the golf course everyday in this heat. No feat was matched by any other. Caddies were not allowed to drive in carts. We arrived two days early and played practice rounds at La Quinta and Stadium. Then, on the day after the tournament we played Silverrock Resort, home of the Bob Hope Classic 2008-2011. We dined and enjoyed the resort pools in between rounds. La Quinta Resort is an exceptional place with over 40 pools, nice restaurants, spa, tennis, etc. They even have a separate "over 21 pool" for those that like to party spring break style.

I played golf and made friends with people from Florida, Venezuela, New Mexico, Bahamas, NJ, Iowa, California, Washington, and South Africa. These people ranged from navy divers to auto dealership managers to pure drinkers! All were a pleasure to play with, including one of the long drive champions during the week's event. He hit it 360 yards!

One guy thought my Dad was from Australia with his accent. Another thought he had the best Boston accent ever. Another thought he was my brother. Many people thought I was younger than my age and got a lot of comments about my long hair. I spoke Spanish at the on-site Mexican restaurant. We woke up every morning to the coffee market on site with coffee, smoothies, bran muffins, and yogurt parfaits. It was an unforgettable experience. I recommend it to anyone who has the chance to compete in the National Championship. The competition is strong, its very social, and the location was top shelf.

Top 10 shots from trip are coming next

Swing Free!

Kurt

Dennis Four Ball !

Sept 17-18, 2011 - Murph and I made our annual trip to the Mullen household in Dennis to compete in the Dennis Four Ball. We drove through the Friday 5pm traffic from Boston and arrived to the house around 7pm, had dinner at Lost Dog Pub. Excellent greek pizza, sesame chicken, boneless buffalo wings, and Guinness. We even liked it so much that we ordered the pizza on Saturday night for the FSU-Oklahoma game.

During the two days, we made homemade baked nachos, walked the beach, created a fire, and played 36 holes of tournament golf. My good buddy, Porter, came to watch us on Saturday with the Brockton boys. One of em said after a crappy shot on the last hole, 'the first guy I see in the bar I am going to punch him in the face.' Albeit a joke, this 6'5" 270 lb guy had likely been in a few melees in his day. Porter bought the guy a beer right away to make sure he was on his good side. We had an awesome time. The other Brockton guy played 5 years of minor league baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays before getting injured. Lots of laugh were had at the bar after the round.

Mike and I played really well in Round 1. We missed a bunch of makeable birdies, but still ended up at 2 under par 69 (4 birds, 2 bogeys). Tied for 11th going into the final round. We closed with a 76 in Round 2 to fall well out of contention. It was a bad day for us, only making one birdie.

As usual, one of the best weekends of the year. Weather was sunny and partly cloudy in the low-to-mid 60s. Winds were relevant both days, especially Round 2, gusting 20mph+.

Good times,

Kurt

2011 Mid Amateur Finals

Sept 13-14: Result = MC

The championship took place at Pocasset Golf Club. Let me tell you, this golf course is exceptional for its condition, layout, and general atmosphere. It is a fair length at 6,600 yards from the tips with forgiving fairways. The greens protect themselves well with tricky, yet subtle slopes and are guarded by bunkers, false fronts, elevation changes, and fescue. All of these attributes play fair. The fescue is generally thin enough to find your ball and play it out safely. There is a mix of short and long par-3s, easy and challenging 4s, reachable par-5s, doglegs, uphills, downhills, you name it they have it. You feel like you can make birdie on almost every hole. At the same time, bogey or worse is only one miss away. It tempts you be aggressive when conservative is the better play.

We had warm sunny weather for the first two rounds (80s). Winds were a factor in both the afternoon (rd 1) and morning (rd 2) rounds I had. Gusts probably 20+ mphs. It didn't bother me mentally, but it certainly bothered my golf ball!! I kept the ball in play for 36 holes, but my lack of sharp ball striking left me standing over a plethora of par putts in the 6-12 foot range. I didn't see the lines and/or feel the speeds on the greens all week, tallying up an astounding 75 putts in 2 days.

My Dad caddied Round 1 and my Mom walked with us. The best part of the week. We had a dinner at a local joint in Pocasset with the thickest spinach dip ever and a pizza with the most buffalo sauce ever (my Dad's least favorite sauce).

I spent one night at the Holiday Inn in Falmouth watching America's Got Talent and other random TV shows. I also enjoyed lunch on the Cape Cod Canal during my practice round. I am starting to make more friends out on the MGA circuit that I hope to continue to see in the future. Played with S. Andrews (M. Murphy look-a-like) from Thomson and J. Powers (M. Stanley look-a-like) from Olde Scotland. I enjoyed their company.

My scores are too ugly to note. I was a bogey machine. The good news is there is so much ahead and many good scores to come.

Cheers,
Kurt