Harbour Town

We were met with a beautiful Sunny day for our round at Harbour Town today.  It was our day one champion John MacKenzie, who led the field away.

This certainly was a step up in quality from yesterday.  A very impressive layout, beautifully manicured, very narrow from the tee with small hard greens.

Today all groups had a forecaddie.  The forecaddie provides assistance with your line from the tee, and information about the hole.  He then runs down the fairway and watches where all the balls finish.  he gives yardage information and assistance at the green.  Our forecaddie Gary was brilliant, and was very helpful.

Much like Augusta, large areas of the rough are actually pine needles.  The lie in these needles can be quite unstable, making clean contact quite difficult.

Being a sunny day the wildlife was out in force again, on nearly all of the lakes there were turtles sunbaking on the emabnkments, and of course also sunbaking were our alligator friends.  Joe Dason found this one on his way to his approach shot.

The hardest hole on the course is hole 12, very tight from the tee and then you are faced with an unusually shaped green with a massive bunker that has all of its faces lined with sleepers.

After negotiating the 12th, you are faced with this shot.  The par 3 13th.  Anything right of the flag ends up in the water, and if you bail out left, then it is nearly impossible to hold the green with your pitch shot.  I think Pete Dye was a bit grumpy when he designed this section of the course.

The tournament infrastructure is starting to take shape, and many holes had grandstands and marquees set up on them.  Coralie Cazaly is pictured here approaching the Par 5 15th.

The last three holes change from the early structure, as they head out towards Calibogue Sound.  Don't hit it right on 17 or you are in the grandstand.

One of the most famous images in tournament golf is the lighthouse behind the 18th green.  Here is the view from the 18th tee.

The winner today was Jenny Lucas, who scored a magnificent 40 points.  Jenny (pictured below) teamed with Pam MacKenzie (36pts) to comfortably defeat their husbands in their match today.

We head off to Kiawah Island in the morning and play Turtle point in the afternoon.