[67VIP]

I played the Blue Monster at Doral this past Friday and it was alot of fun. Even saw Greg Norman running around the course as his wine company was hosting an employee outing. The course was in fantastic shape, which was surprising considering it's late August and it's hot and humid as hell down there. The greens were amazingly smooth and rolled very true, but they were also quite fast...in fact they got faster and faster as the round progressed. The Blue Monster is an old school Florida - type course...there aren't many of them left and it was nice to play a course like that again, I remember playing the West course at Grenelefe numerous times years ago...brought back alot of memories. I played from the blue tee's (6700 yards) and did fairly well on the front 9, but once we got to the back the wind started gusting to about 20 mph, the greens dried out...and it was down hill from there. The golf ball does not fly near as far in that humid air as it does in south Georgia where I'm from, I was consistently hitting almost two clubs more into the greens...added to the fact my GPS unit was off by 20 yards and I didn't catch it until the last few holes. I knew something was wrong but didn't figure it out until the 15th hole when I was standing next to a sprinkler head that said 149 to the middle and my GPS said 127 (the course does not have alot of markers). Go figure. The thing that struck me the most is that there IS NOT as much water on the course as I thought there would be. Altogether it was a fun round...I'd like to play it again, but the next time I go down there I want to play the Great White course, too. Had dinner at the original Shula's Steakhouse in Miami Lakes the same day, too. What a trip!