by roadkill » Fri Oct 13, 2006 5:44 pm
While there hadn't been a thread devoted to it on this board, Highbridge has been discussed on the top ten courses thread.
I competed in the first Mid-Nationals at Highbridge held in 2005. I finished 9th in the Blue division which I was rather dissappointed in but my excuse is I was injured with a bad rotator cuff at the time.(5 out of 6 rounds shot were well below my rating at the time)
I played Highbridge Gold, Bluberry Hill and Granite Ridge, all in the longest layout. I liked all three courses. All had nice risk reward elements and a priority was placed on staying on the fairway and positioning your next shot. It was hard to pick a favorite as all three had some really nice holes and fun, challenging shots to play.
The only thing I thought that could be improved was the condition of the fairways. The grass was still spotty, especially on HB Gold when I was there and there were rocks and weeds growing in the fairways on a number of holes. I attribute this to it being a new course complex and should improve over time.
One of the strongest elements of my game is rollers, both off the tee and to get out of trouble. In 144 holes I played, I only threw three rollers. This was a large part of my game taken away due to the lack of more groomed conditions. I would expect these conditions to be improved by the 2007 worlds.
In any case these are amazing courses and I am making every effort to be able to attend next years pro worlds there. I just hope the parking and logistics are upgraded so that they'll be able to handle the volume of traffic, players, spectators and media.
Now that I think about, I think Blueberry Hill was my favorite, but Gold and Granite both run a close second.