Bring Your Old Buddy

I was fortunate enough to play golf for the second weekend in a row. Unfortunately, my concerns about frigid weather came true. Temperatures for this year's Bring Your Old Buddy Scramble started out very chilly and only warmed up to the low 50's. But it takes a lot more than cold weather to scare me off!

My good friend Clay Branch (his wife Emily's blog is here) and I decided that we would play in this event several weeks ago. The deal included a round of golf, our 2010 Robert Trent Jones trail card and lunch for a very reasonable price. Clay convinced his dad and one of his brothers to join us and we decided to take on the Senator course at the trail's site in Prattville - Capitol Hill. The scramble was on Sunday, the day after most of the Birmingham area receive a light snow dusting. As we were making our way toward our first hole, Clay and I quickly discovered that a windshield is very nice thing to have on a golf cart in December. (By the way, RTJ - what's up with that? Windshields are the standard now, aren't they?)

This was my first trip to Capitol Hill and I have to say that I wasn't blown away. I can't speak to the appearance of the Legislator or the Judge courses but it doesn't take a lot of words to describe the Senator: long, treeless, mounds. Each hole was divided by large, grassy mounds and featured zero trees. Most of the greens seemed to be uphill and the par 3's were amazingly long. The tee boxes were the widest I've ever seen. The winterized conditions of the greens and fairways (seen in the pics and vids below) were understandable but made me long for greener sights.

I had a blast and we made a great team. We shot a 55 and were one stroke out of 3rd place for our course. We only parred 3 holes and birdied or eagled every other hole. Everybody contributed and I can't emphasize how much fun I had. Here's some of the action:

Money was raised for charity from purchases of mulligans and throws (throw the ball to extend the position of your last shot). I'm not sure if we executed the throw concept properly but here's Clay warming up. This was on the par-5 17th:



Clay is already used to performing on camera. He's getting ready for the Champions Tour.

Here's a fairway approach with one of my new irons. I thinned the shot a little bit but the ball ended up in about 4 feet from the hole. The team owed that birdie to Julie!

Here's a new view of one of Clay's big bombs off the tee box. This was one of his longest drives of the day and as his dad attests, it was right down the middle!

All in all, a great day! Grand National is still the top RTJ trail site in my mind. Thanks to Clay and his family for two great weekends of golf and a BIG thanks for my wife and family for letting me venture away for a few hours!