Date: June 05, 2008
Author:

Foster begins American quest

Well it&aposs great to be back in the US. I am travelling with Ray Beaufils and Brett Rankin this week with Justin Roach completing the Aussie contingent. Between us so far we have managed five delayed flights, two lost bags (Roachy&aposs), two bouts of a mystery virus and an average of 40 hours in transit but we&aposve finally made it! Justin&aposs bags are due to turn up tonight so hopefully he won t have to wear his host family&aposs clothes for the rest of the week! Ray and I are returning to great memories of Sunnehanna from last year and Brett and Justin are seeing the course for the first time this week. The course doesn&apost measure overly long (par 70, and about 6800 yards) but for some reason it seems to play much longer than the card suggests. There are only three par-fives (two of which measure over 600 yards uphill!) and five par-threes which are definitely the key to the golf course. If we can play the par threes in even par this week we won&apost be too far off the mark. It&aposs a fairly typical US course with the fairways being fairly generous in width and the rough being much more penal than we are used to back home. It&aposs not as thick as last year but still tough to control shots out of and the committee is hoping to thicken it up with some good weather over the next couple of days. The greens are ridiculously sloped, similar to Monash or Riverdale back in Australia. They&aposre not as quick as last year yet but again they&aposre only going to get quicker and tougher. The greens are definitely the other key to the week as on many holes, if you are above the hole or miss the green in the wrong place your only chance is to hole it or it&aposs going off the other side! They will be a nightmare by Sunday afternoon! The boys all seem to be in solid form and the course is great so there&aposs no reason why we can&apost get off to a flying start in the US this year. We play the sponsors day tomorrow and have the welcome dinner where we are presented to the members tomorrow night then we are ready and raring to go for Thursday morning. We can&apost wait to get out there and start playing again! The hospitality at Sunnehanna is some of the best we get to experience all year! It&aposs an awesome change of scenery to be back over here again being treated like royalty and playing on some amazing golf courses! Watch this space for news of (hopefully) an Aussie one, two, three on Sunday afternoon!