Lefty78

It looks like I will be riding more due to hip, leg, and foot problems. My orthopedic doc says he doesn't have an easy (surgical) fix and my best bet is to alternate walking and riding the course.

Sweeten's Cove is an hour from here and worth the drive. The club house is a small trailer, the location is a nice quiet country setting. Easy to get to, just off I-24. Grass is pretty good, a little rough around the fringes. Layout is interesting, No parking lot as such, just a field. It's a fairly flat course except for those greens, wow, those greens. Huge, with humps, bumps, and lots of pin locations. Bring some food and drink, the trailer doesn't have much. As long as you aren't looking for some manicured, la-de-dah "experience", you will have a good time at Sweetens. There is another highly regarded nine hole course less than hour west on I-24 toward Nashville on Monteagle Mountain, The Sewanee golf course at the University of the South. I haven't played there but plan on a trip this summer to play both courses instead of playing Sweetens twice.

For the most part, I walk four or five rounds per week, probably will ride a time or two per week when the heat/humidity gets cranked up, too old to fight the heat stress. The only times I've rode was when the knees were bad and leading up to knee surgery but after each of the knee replacements, I was back to walking the course within six weeks of surgery. On the road, I usually ride unless the course has a caddie program.

Three-way tie for best shots of the day, all putts. After solid putting performance yesterday, today was better with a number of times the putter bailed me out. The three best were: a 10 ft, down hill L to R saved bogie after a stroke and distance penalty, a 15 footer with 3 feet of break to save par after driving it deep in the woods, and an 8 foot double breaker down hill for birdie.

Yesterday was a perfect day to play here. I had a most unusual round since I usually drive the ball pretty well. To get the game right, I moved back to the blue tees (70.2/133). As usual, when I move back, the first three drives are terrible from trying to hit the ball hard. So, second hole, my drive skipped twice across a lake to the front tee box, escaped with bogie. Fifth hole, drove it through the dogleg into woods, second shot hit a tree and went toward 6th tee, pitch got through the trees and made the putt for par. Seven, hit a tree right found the ball behind a tree on the left in roots, popped it out, hit the green from 165, made putt for par. Eighth hole, hit in trees right off the tee, only able to see the front of the green, pitched it on, two putted from 50 feet for par. Nine, skipped it across water again! Eleven, hit through fairway, hooked it around trees to tough pin and made the birdie putt. Made par on 15 from roots behind a tree right. At the end of the day, I had a solid 79 (42,37) after being in trouble off the tee all day. Strangest day I can ever remember. I do prefer playing from the fairway, maybe tomorrow...

A Ping G-400 7 wood from 2ndSwing.com this past week and it has been a great addition to the bag so far, replacing a 3 hybrid that is pretty erratic for me. That G-400 is soooo easy to hit, straight, high and long.

The second day of our spring tournament, two man team with my son in law, fourth flight. First day was better ball, we finished +2 (74), middle of the flight but two teams went out to a pretty good lead. The greens yesterday were at 11.5 and pavement hard with plenty of undulation so we felt pretty good about +2. Today rain was forecast and it started on our first hole, .7 inch fell while we played. The greens were "only" at 11 today and eventually the rain softened them a little. Today was two man scramble format, we did a good job except never made a putt, burnt the edges off the hole time after time but nothing dropped. Again, finished at +2 with 16 pars and 2 bogies. With 4 over for two days, we finished third, second place was even and the winner was one under. There were a lot of putts that could have fallen in over the two days but that's the difference in winning and finishing third.

Glad you were able to jump through all those hoops with the VA. Ya might not want to wear them to the golf course. A buddy lost his in some leaves the first day he wore them. Luckily we found it, that was the last time he wore them to golf.