36 Holes at Firestone

Played the North and West courses at Firestone today. I wanted to play the South, the Championship course, but you have to stay at the resort there to play it under my Clubcorp membership.

I forgot my stupid camera cable, so I will try and get one in Louisville tomorrow and upload some pictures.

I played the North course first, went out as a single and finished in 3 hours. I caught the group ahead of me on hole #5, I played the back nine first, and could have finished in just over 2 hours. The North course was in great shape, the greens quick and hardly a mark. The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr and is a beauty. 10 of the holes have water than comes into play, including 2 of the par 3s with distances of 183 and 180 yards, all carry over water. The par 5s aren't long, one at 536, but there are a number of long par 4s, 430, 405, 416, 436, 416, 410 (those last three in a row, 12, 13, and 14) that tires you out pretty quickly in the heat. And the weather was perfect (cart girl was cute too!)

The West course, designed by Tom Fazio, is different. Where there was hardly a blind tee shot on the North, there were a few more forced carries over bunkers and a number of almost blind tee shots. It's a good thing this course is marked better than the North course, yardages on every sprinkler head to front, middle and back of the green, because you had to really trust thos yardages. I played the West course as a single again, and finished in just over two hours. I figured this course would be easier than the North, the slope and rating was 71.4/123 vs 73.3/129 for the North course, and I don't know if fatigue kicked in, or if it was the fact that the greens were way more slick than the North course. It was incredible! I had a number of chips where I figured I would be about 2-3 feet away from the pin. Nope, 15-20 feet away. A 3-4 footer wasn't safe! You would tap it and the ball would shoot by 6-8 feet for a longer putt then you started with! This course was immaculate also, but being later in the day and a busier course than the North for some reason, there were a lot of spike marks on the greens. Was Phil playing there today?!?

All in all, a great day for golf at a new course. Oh yeah, shot 82 on the North (41-41) and 87 on the West (42-45) stupid 3 putts...

When I get the camera cable, I'll get some pictures uploaded. Time for bed, I'm done!

You pig!!! :pig :pig :pig

Pictures...

First one is the green at the Par 5 #16 followed by the #17 Par 3, both on the North Course. Long shot over water...
Third picture is #2 on the North course, not much room to land the ball...
The fourth picture is the Par 5 #9 on the West course. 594 yards!
The last picture is the green at 18 on the West course. There were bunker complexes like that all over the West course.

I'll get the rest of the pictures up when I get back!

I totally agree with LongBallHitter but thanks for sharing anyway

You're welcome :P

You forgot to mention the practice facilities, wow. when I normally play the north course in april of each year I get there about two and a half hours early just to practice my short game. I have been very lucky at these large outings (over 100 people) and have shot low gross about half the time.

Nice pictures, looks like a beautiful course.