Free Golf

One of the greatest things about working in TV is the chance to get free stuff. This past Friday I got a chance at free golf at 12 Oaks in Holly Springs. I've mentioned a few times about my golf game or the lack there of, so what better way to see how bad I suck than going to a new course that is not even open. Oh yeah and it's suppose to be one of the toughest in the state if not the south. I kid you not I brought 20 extra balls so I'mnow packing 45 balls and I'm thinking I'm losing most.

We get to the course and we are actually doing a story on the course so I load up my cart with my clubs, camera, tripod, extra battery and hip pack full of cables and microphones. We start out and of course my first shot... straight into the woods, left me restate that hooked into the woods.

For the story we have to keep acturate score and I'm playing with Justice and I do not think he has ever kept an accurate score in his life. After the first hole I shoot an 11 and Justice gets an 8. Penn the sports director I beleive got a 6 (he's the ringer in the group). The next hole is a little par three and my first shot is a nice one... straight into the sand. I hate sand traps and this one is 5 feet below the green and it takes me 7 shots to get out of the sand and I finish the par three with a 12. This is going to be a long day. To make things worse it starts raining, and it's getting colder. Penn wusses out after three holes and Justice and I struggle on.

After Penn left I started to hit the ball better, and by better I mean I'm no longer getting 11 or 12 I'm getting 7, 8 and 9s. The rain lets up and we start feeling better, then it pours. It was like that all day, I finally get fed up with pulling my rain jacket on and off and I leave it in the cart, I'm already soaked why bother. We get to the dreaded 6th hole it's suppose to be the hardest hole, there's this swamp grass crap all over the place and you have to get over some of it off the tee. Look at the video below, I actually got over the stuff and got a 7, my best score of the day.

We get through 12 holes before we decided to call it off, we were just too wet and cold to play off. I don't want to know my score, but I had to be over 100 and the most important score is the balls lost. I lost 12 balls, but I did find 4 so it was an 8 ball day. Not too bad for a crappy golfer like myself. I was asked by Penn if I would go back and play the course again. My answer was yes, was the course tough... yes, but fair and I could have fun there. If I could afford the membership fee (we are guessing it has to be over $10,000 a year) I would sjoin, but since the membership fees are probably going to cost me almost the same as my mortage per month, I'm going to pass. Unless everyone out there chips in and gets a membership for me... come one people, it's for a good cause.