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Finally, after 11 years of speculation, stories, pictures, and video, I got to see the Winthrop Gold course for myself. And as is usually the case, the reality didn’t match up perfectly with my preconceived notions. Pretty close, but not exactly. Here are a couple things that surprised me a little:

• Based on the online caddy book (course map), I expected more of the holes to be ‘wooded’. In reality, almost the entire course is nice, mowed grass, and most of the trees you need to play through have high canopies that make it so you’re just dealing with the trunks.
• On the other side of the coin, the OB on most of the holes increases the degree of difficulty much more than I thought it would. In some spots, my feeble arm forces me to advance my disc 200 feet or less (when I need much more) to ensure I don’t stray across an OB line.

By way of analogy, I can compare Winthrop Gold to a heavyweight boxer that uncharacteristically doesn’t look, sound, or act imposing. So you go into the fight thinking you’ve got a shot, that maybe you won’t get as seriously mauled as your opponent’s 52-0 record with 45 knockouts would indicate. Then the bell rings and you get hit with that first devastating – but polite – right cross. That’s the first impression I got from Winthrop Gold. Now, the question is, will this insight help me at all?

Since it debuted 11 years ago, playing in the USDGC has been first a wish, then a dream, then a goal, and finally an obsession of mine.

For the first few years, I wasn’t even cashing in Masters Cups and Faultlines regularly, and my scores were usually 20 strokes off what I’d need to qualify for USDGC. So it was kind of a ‘maybe someday’ kind of thing. Then I began to figure things out on the course, and eventually I’d make getting one of those five qualifier spots in the Masters Cup one of my objectives. By the time my player rating peaked at 999 (arg!), I had missed qualifying by either one spot or one stroke (or both) three years in a row. So last year, as my age hit 42 and my distance seemed to diminish a bit, I decided to bite the bullet and find another way to get in. I served as an assistant tournament director for the Masters Cup this year, and Daviar graciously gave me his spot.

Be careful what you wish for.

Tee off in Rock Hill, South Carolina is now nine days away, and my throwing arm is not just sore and feeble, like usual. It’s got something seriously wrong with it, and I don’t know what it is because I won’t see a doctor until after I return (because he/she might tell me not to play, and obsessed people always play).

So now I’m committed to playing this course that is long, exacting and, according to all the stories, potentially demoralizing- without my ‘A’ game. And everything being relative, my ‘A’ game in the USDGC is realistically a ‘B-minus’ game at best. But I do have a plan, and if I can pull it off I might even make the cut or even beat more than half the field. Hey, a guy can dream!

I’m going to try to post some entries in the coming week, but they’ll most likely be about things other than me and my game (we’ve heard that before, you say).

Wish me luck. Or better yet, wish me endorphins.