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June 25, 2018

Day 4: Great scenery ruined by CPO

It is, by far, the worst thing you can hear/see when you drive to the first tee box at a golf course: “CPO.”

It means your day is going to be slightly less enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. It means there’s a course superintendent who will be cussed in absensia. It means you better suck it up or turn around and go home.

“Cart Path Only.” (My feet got a little sorer just typing those words.)

Day Four of the Summer of John #6 through the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail brought us to the northwest corner of Alabama in Muscle Shoals. It’s 36 holes along the beautiful Tennessee River. Unfortunately, my feet trod way too much of it Sunday.

As chronicled here at the Daily Happen, our group has fought the weather all trip, but Sunday was sunshine with about 600 percent humidity. But since it has rained all week, the CPO signs were up. It means that you can’t drive your cart to the ball on the fairway; you have to keep the carts on the concrete path all over the course.

We begged, we pleaded, we tried to bribe the starter to give us Louisiana folk a break, but it didn’t happen. The morning round, I could understand. It was still a little soft under our feet. But the afternoon round, after it had baked all day? Who is this sadist they call the course superintendent?

I don’t care what some golfers say, when it’s CPO, the thought goes through your head that you might want to try to hit the ball in the direction of the cart path to cut down on the walk across the fairway.

When you are on the “wrong” side of the fairway, you have to guess the yardage, grab 3 or 4 clubs to bring with you, walk 60 yards, hope you can find your ball, hope you have the right club, hope you don’t die from heat exhaustion and the hope you don’t shank it 30 yards because then you have to go BACK to the cart and do it all over again, only this time with a different club.

If your feet are going to be miserable, they might as well be at The Shoals, a great mixture of both links and parkland-style golf courses. I mentioned about seeing turkeys on a course a few days ago; on a previous trip here, we saw a peacock behind the 17th green. Who’s the pro here, Jack Hanna?

CPO couldn’t have been so bad because one member of our group shot 74. Sadly, that man wasn’t me. Happily, though, my feet did return to their original form on the way back to the hotel.

We wrap this baby up Monday with a trip to Philadelphia … (Mississippi) … to play Dancing Rabbit. Better not be CPO or somebody is going down.

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June 24, 2018

Day 3: On the Road Again

By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Golf Traveler

Unlike any of the previous trips to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, we have had to deal with weather. Lots of it.

Usually, it’s the occasional afternoon shower that will call us off the course. But this year (so far), weather has been a factor every day.

After leaving Birmingham Saturday morning in a rainstorm on Biblical proportions, we made our way 80 miles to the northeast to Gadsden. That same storm seemed to be making its way down I-20 and headed toward us again.

Silver Lakes is Gadsden is in the foothills of the Appalachians and has a beauty all its own as you look out over the 27 holes from the top of the hill. When a tornado hit Alabama in April, 2011, it destroyed 10,000 trees on the course. Run those numbers again. So the course did a massive makeover and was ready in six months, though with a complete redesign.

In Saturday’s round, it rained, it stopped, it rained, it stopped but we kept playing until we were called off the course on the back nine due to rain and lightning. Which was fine, because it was time for lunch anyway.

When we went back out, the sun was shining and all was good … until the sirens sounded again on the last hole. Tornado warning, and as I said before, they are a little touchy about tornados around here.

But we didn’t drive all this way to play 17 holes, so we played speed golf for the final hole, added up the embarrassing scorecards and took off for our next destination.

Hurrying to the Clubhouse on 18

We didn’t have to go through Guntersville, Ala., to get from Gadsden to Muscle Shoals, but since the driver of our foursome is Peter Gunter, of course we did. Pete always reminds us that his great, great, great, great grandfather (who’s counting?) is whom the town is named for and it is a very scenic town on Lake Guntersville (ask a bass fisherman).

We stopped for a picture and then again at a convenience store, where Pete was anxious to tell the cashier all about his heritage. I was concerned about a more pressing question for the cashier – Auburn or Alabama? “Auburn,” she said.

I asked which was more popular in Guntersville. “Alabama,” she replied with an eye roll.

We finished the Gunter Heritage Tour and arrived two hours later in Muscle Shoals for our next stop.

The morning round on Sunday is the one I’ve looked forward to the most: the links-style Fighting Joe course. Many of the courses on the RTJ Trail can look alike (parkland style), but the Fighting Joe is dramatically different. It finishes with a par 3 18^th hole that has an amazing view of the Tennessee River.

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