Brennans Caddy Report-Stanford St Judes Championship

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:14:23

After nine years of caddying on the PGA Tour there are not many events that I have never worked but this week happens to be one of them. The Stanford St. Jude Championship is played in Memphis, Tennessee and it is also the first time I have ever visited this town. I have become a country music fan over the years and really wanted to visit Nashville but this week Memphis will have to do. Memphis is the home of Graceland where Elvis lived and it is a must see from what I hear so I will check it out!. It is not often that I do any tourist stuff the week of the event as the sun and time at the course tends to tire me out.

This Stanford Championship use to be called the Fed Ex Championship but since Fed Ex has taken over the point system on the tour this year, they gave up their tournament sponsorship and Stanford stepped in. The TPC Southwind golf course is located on the Fed Ex worldwide headquarters, which is a huge property with all kinds of buildings as you can imagine for a company that big. It is neat to see just how big a company property can be and then to have a great golf course on the same land is very impressive. TPC Southwind is one of the better courses in the family of TPC courses. They have made some significant changes over the past few years and in my mind this is a great test of golf.

The golf course features a little bit of everything from doglegs left and right, lots of water and a good mixture of short and long holes. It is a not a bombers golf course like a lot of the tracks we play on tour, and there is going to be some strategy needed to play well around here. I think one thing that jumps out here to me is that the winning score has never been very low in fact it is usually single digits under par to win. The greens are the real reason scores never get too low because they are quite small and tend to get very hard and fast. They use to be bent grass greens and with the extreme heat here they had to keep a lot of water on them to prevent them from dying. They are now a type of bermuda grass which is a much more durable therefore they can keep the water off and let them firm up.

The front nine is not as difficult as the back nine in my opinion but there are a couple of really good holes. The par 5 third, is a narrow drive between two big trees then an approach shot that has water all down the right side of the fairway. The bail out area on the left side of the green makes for a difficult chip shot to get close to the hole. The ninth hole is a big dogleg right and a must to get the ball in the fairway off the tee in order to be able to get the short iron approach shot close. It also plays over water and once again it is natural to try and take a little extra club to be sure to carry the water but over the green is also a very difficult shot. On a lot of the holes they force you to be a little more aggressive than you normally would be because with such fast greens the chips become very challenging.

The back nine has some great holes, 11 is a 165 yard par three that has an island green which always makes for some good excitement. 12 is a dogleg right par 4 that has water all down the right on off the tee and in front of the green and is probably one of the toughest few holes on the course. 14 is a 237 yard par 3 that also has water down the right side, 4 pars here and you will be far ahead of the field. 18 is very similar to 12 but its a dogleg left that has water all down the left off the tee and left and in front of the green. As I go over all these holes it makes me aware of just how much water there is on this course and how much it comes into play.

Mike and I got into town on Monday and had a good practice session with his teachers all afternoon. He was fine tuning a few things with his swing and then spending a lot of time working on his short game. On Tuesday we played 18 holes early in the morning with Dean Wilson and fellow Canadian Jim Rutledge. I am looking for some good things from Jim as the summer goes on and he gets in a rhythm of playing several tournaments in a row. It was a very pleasant practice round as everyone gets along well and then there was a little more practice in the afternoon. Wednesday is the regular pro-am and then we are ready for game time!

Thanks for reading,

Brennan Little