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August 29, 2006 7:23pm
32,000 feet
Delta Flight 1433

Greetings from flight 1433 at 32,000 feet in the air. I’m returning from the most amazing golf trip, and possibly the most amazing single day of golf I’ve experienced.

Today I woke up in Sterling Colorado, about 60 miles east of the Colorado/Nebraska border. Jay Flemma, Eddie Peck and myself drove to the town of Holyoke and met our pal Adam Clayman 12 miles from the Nebraska border.

From there we drove straight into some corn fields, literally on dirt farming access roads. After about 15 miles of dirt roads and a few dusty turns, we made it to Ballyneal Golf Course. This course is in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Ballyneal Golf Course

This is where I had one of the best golfing days I’ve experienced. The short version (long version to come after my plane lands and I can decompress for a few days): I played an absolutely amazing course designed by Tom Doak. The course isn’t even open yet. It opens in about 2 weeks. The design, routing, terrain and especially my playing partners were 2nd to none. By the way, “routing” is a buzzword I learned on this trip by hanging out with 3 golf course architecture geeks. A few more buzzwords to come.

Witnessed a hole in one, the first at Ballyneal

I was cruising along at -1 when we got to the 5th tee. The 5th hole is a par 3 at 165 yards uphill. My buddy Eddie teed off with an 8-iron. The shot was pure butter and never left the flagstick. It bounced on the front of the green and then released into the hole for an ACE! Not only was this ace Eddie’s first, it was the first ace recorded at Ballyneal. Historic event to say the least. Jay Flemma jumped up in the air with his hands raised and did his best Phil Mickelson ‘04 Masters jump imitation. I do think Jay got a little higher in the air than Phil did, about 3 inches.

Read Jay’s version of this story here.

Final descent

Oh, I have to “turn off all electronic devices” now. The plane is starting to descend on home. I do wonder about the whole “cell phones may interfere with the plane’s navigational systems” comments the flight crew says though. So… if I send a text message to my girlfriend the plane might go off course and land in Russia or something?

More to come on this amazing golf experience, much more.

My friends I can’t get time or a decent internet connection. I’ll have to cover the ground I’m missing on my big trip with Jay Flemma and the rest when I return home Wednesday. Stay tuned!

Once I got to Denver I finally met Jay Flemma in the airport. He’s exactly what I expected, a small framed guy with a ton of energy and a NY accent. Jay is as passionate and educated about golf course design and architecture as anyone you’ll ever meet. He talks about courses and architects I’ve never heard of and I just nod my head like I know what he’s talking about.

I also met a new pal Eddie Peck, owner of Black Mesa Golf Club in Arizona. Having checked out Black Mesa’s site and now meeting Eddie, I HAVE to go there.

Red Hawk Ridge’s 18th hole not only has a lake, it is a lake!

Day one had us scheduled to play at Red Hawk Ridge in Castle Rock Colorado. Castle Rock is about 45 minutes south of Denver. We managed to get to the 4th tee box of this neat course before the rain, lightning and finally HAIL hit us. It hit us hard. We were completely drenched (see pic of Eddie and me below) and frozen. We wisely called it a day, rather than freezing our tails off trying to battle the weather.

I plan on doing course reviews of all the courses I play on this trip. I’ll do a review of what I can about Red Hawk Ridge, but the review will be about 25% of what it should be since I only played 3 holes (16.7%) plus checked out the practice areas and clubhouse.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped by Pradera to check it out and buy some warmer clothes. Pradera is where we’re playing Sunday with a group of 12 including the band Bowling For Soup and golf course architect Jim Engh.

READ MORE ->>

Travel log:
Saturday, August 26th, 7:50am
Salt Lake International Airport

Sitting in the terminal drinking my $5.00 coffee from Starbucks I struck up a conversation with a nice lady sitting next to me. I was almost blinded by the large rock on her wedding ring. She was heading to Portland to meet her husband. I asked her if she was from Atlanta (detecting her accent) and she said yes. I told here I’d been to Atlanta a few times, but I really wanted to go to Augusta and perhaps see the Masters.

She then asked if I was into golf because she saw my TaylorMade backpack. I told her I was a golf freak and let her know about my golf sites. She then informed me that she was the wife of PGA Tour and now Champions Tour player Tim Simpson. She was heading up to Portland to watch Tim play the last two days of the Geldwen Tradition. He’s currently tied for 14th place.

I asked her a bit about her husband playing on the Champions because I know how hard it is to get exempt status on that tour and he hadn’t played for a while due to illness. She told me through his many top 10 finishes on the PGA Tour he was able to get in. He’s only been on the Champions for 9 weeks and has had several top 10’s.

Unfortunately my new friend Lee Ann had to run to catch her flight, but she got my contact info and hopefully I’ll be able to do a blog post or two on Tim.

The karma is already happening and I haven’t even gotten on the plane yet!

Welcome to the last post from my home state for a while. I’m jumping on an airplane early tomorrow morning, destination Denver. I’ll be hooking up with fellow golf blogger and friend Jay Flemma, the big time rock band Bowling For Soup and amazing golf course architect Jim Engh.

We’ll be playing at the following courses:

Fossil Trace

Red Hawk Ridge

Pradera

Bally Neal

Next post from Denver!

Matching lavender outfit: $400

New pair of French sunglasses: $150

NIKE products Endorsements: $10,000,000

Having a “special place” to hold your putter . . . PRICELESS

I had a lot of fun in Queenstown Maryland last week. Of course you always enjoy the game of golf a little more when you play well.

Birdies galore

The first day I took advantage of the par 5’s and birdied every single one of them but had a couple bogies to finish with a 2 under par 70. I was very satisfied with that score for that day because I had only hit 3 fairways. I hung in there though and put in a real grind because I knew that I had left a lot of birdies out there that I could get the next day.

31 on the back nine, 1-off my 9-hole record

I worked with my driver on the range after the round and got a lot more confident with it. I hit 13 fairways the next day to shoot 69 for a 5 under par 2 day total for 4th place. I shot 69 with a triple bogey. An errant tee shot into the hazard for a 7 on a par four to shoot 38 on the front nine gave me a little more determination to go low on the back nine. And I did just that, with 5 birdies for a 31 on the back nine. My lowest score for nine holes was a 30 which was during a high school match. That finish gave me a lot of confidence going into Sunday. It’s funny how difficult this game is but when you play that well it just seems so easy. You just know exactly where every shot is going to go.

Comfortable at the top

On Sunday, I unfortunately made another big number by hitting the ball in the water twice on number nine to finish the tournament at even par. Of course that was a disappointment but I wound up finishing 13th, my best finish this year. Unlike Lima, Ohio on Sunday when I was very nervous, Last week I was more determined and comfortable at the top of the leaderboard. That is an accomplishment.

Ready for Q-school

This week is my last tournament of the season in Gettysburg Pennsylvania before Q-school in. My friend Andy is caddying for me this week so we are going to go out there this weekend and play hard but most importantly have fun!

Cheers,

Megan Heckeroth
www.megangolf.com