Shamble at Stonebridge Ranch (Hills course)
On Thursday, I teed it up at Stonebridge Ranch on the Hills course for a Shamble tournament with customers. For this event, we played a shamble (everyone tees off, the best drive is picked — everyone’s drive must be used at least once every nine holes) and you play your own ball into the hole. However, on the par-3 holes, we played a scramble. We played holes 1-9 and holes 19-27 on this 27-hole course. The weather was heavily clouded with brief moments of sunshine, with blustery winds in the 20-30 mph range.
I played quite well, although I had an inauspicious start (popped up my first drive), but otherwise played very well. We were scoring two balls per hole, and my score was used (or tied with a score used) on about half the holes. We ended up at +3 on this pretty difficult and long course (blue tees, rating and slope 71.7 / 124, 6571 yards). My drives were used a couple of times because of positioning (not length, two of my playing partners out-drove me by 20-40 yds). I wasn’t able to attend the awards ceremony, so I don’t know where our team finished overall.
Highlights: The tournament started with a golf exhibition put on by the Long Drivers of America. On two of the par-5 holes on the front, Brian Pavlet (3rd hole) and Art Sellinger (7th hole), teed off for us, leaving us with either a wedge or a 9-iron into the green on those two par-5 holes. Unfortunately, we did no better than birdie on the holes, not hitting our eagle putts. On the par-3 8th hole, there was a team filming the hole like it was a PGA tournament, complete with commentators and 3 cameras, one on the tee, one behind the green and one to the side of the green. Of our group, I was the only one to hit the green in regulation. I hit a 6-iron about 40 feet past the hole, leaving a downhill putt. My putting attempt was pathetically short, but we were still able to get two par putts to fall. We each received a DVD of the entire tournament’s play on that hole, though I’ve yet to view it.