This year had been an adventure (sometimes exciting and other times scary) – one of the pleasant adventures this year has been exploring new places. My week in South Dakota was a venture into another new state and its points of interest.
Following the GreatLife Challenge, a fellow tour player and friend, Katherine, and I drove west to visit the Badlands National Park and then on to Mount Rushmore. The Badlands were interesting and I was very impressed with Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore was more spectacular in person than I would have thought. We got to see the light ceremony at night where they paid tribute to veterans.
The GreatLIFE Challenge in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
On Monday, I played in one of three ProAm events with three men who work for GreatLIFE. One of these men generously gave me two tickets to David Feherty’s Feherty Live! featuring Medal of Honor Recipients and LPGA Legends. I was happy that my tee times didn’t conflict with attending this event, and had a great time! David Feherty is a professional golfer turned comedian. He was a very nice and genuine guy, he told us stories from when he played on tour and when he commentated.
The course at Willow Run was tight and you had to place your tee shots. There weren’t a lot of holes where you hit a driver.
We had really good weather this week, it was sunny every day with a little bit of wind. However, the wind picked up some during the tournament days.
Symetra caught me while I was warming up during my practice round on Wednesday and recorded this video in slow motion:
Garden City Charity Classic at Garden City, Kansas
The course at Buffalo Dunes was in great condition, was pretty tight with long grass right off the fairways.
Friday was a rough day, the morning rounds were delayed for 2 ½ hours due to thick fog. Friday evening’s play was then suspended early due to intense winds. It was reported that the “35-40 mile-an-hour winds forced officials to suspend play due to balls not remaining at rest on certain greens because of the intense wind”.
None of the players who teed off in the afternoon on Friday were able to complete their second rounds and therefore Saturday brought an early round two tee time for half of the players and then round three started after noon that day.
I had to play way more for the wind than I am used to because it is so open on this course; there was nothing to block the wind, not even trees.
Home Sweet Home!
I headed home after this tournament very happy for the two week break, which is the longest I have been home since March. Next is the final leg of the 2016 Symetra Tour!