WGC-American Express Championship
02 Oct 2003 - 05 Oct 2003Woodstock, Georgia
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The Crabapple course is a new design (1year old) featuring large, rolling greens that are in beautiful shape. Mike played 18 holes on Tuesday and plans to play 9 on Wednesday in preparation for this event. The driving areas off the tee are somewhat generous with the rough at about 3”. That is not very high for Tour standards but the ball sits down in the rough making it difficult to judge how it will come out.
With no rain in the area lately the course is playing hard and fast. The par-3’s are very difficult; with the hard and fast greens club selection will be very important, as we will have to allow for the ball to run out after hitting the greens. I expect that we will have plenty of 15’ to 20’ putts, as it will be hard to get it close with some of the pin placements that they will be using.
The finishing holes are challenging. Number 16 is the best hole on the course in my opinion. Converted from a par-5 for the members, the 486 yard, par-4 will require a precise drive to find the fairway. The fairway tightens up at 280 yards making it very important to find the fairway and leaving a long iron in for our second shot. Par will be a good score here.
Number 17 at 470 yards is not as difficult a driving hole but a tricky; undulating green makes it tough to get it close to the pin. The 466-yard, 18th is a good finishing hole with a green that is 46 yards deep making club selection tough especially with a back pin placement.
One of the things to look out for this week is with only 72 players in the field we will be playing in twosomes beginning at 8:30 and the last group going out at 2:30. That is a big gap in tee times and can be a distinct advantage to those players playing early in the day. We start on Thursday at 9:20 with playing partner, Bob Estes.
Note: Due to a forecast of frost, the second round will be played in groups of three off one tee. Starting times will be from approximately 9:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.
It looks to be a good week here in Atlanta. It feels great to be back at it and competing.
Thanks for reading,
Brennan Little
