STATE FARM CLASSIC

THE RAIL GOLF COURSE

SPRINGFIELD, IL 

My player this week is Siew-Ai Lim

Monday: Played nine with Kimberley Freeman after the Pro-Am. They were short LPGA players and filled it with members of the Futures Tour. If you pay to play with a LPGA pro that's what you should get.

Nothing changes at The Rail. Same goes for the weather. Hot with afternoon t-storms expected the next few days.

Had some work done on my car with more due next week. With all the miles we put on preventive maintenance is a must.  

Tuesday: IT'S A HOT ONE! But relief is on the way. We beat most of the heat with an early practice round. They're soaking the course in the morning so it plays totally different depending on the time of day. Most of the greens held quite well today but yesterday afternoon were extremely firm.

Wednesday: The Pro-Am was delayed for an hour due to a t-storm but continued, with no other nasty weather expected for the rest of the day.

Short day. A few hours of practice including a lesson from Siew-Ai's teacher Hank Johnson. A little lead tape on the bottom of her 4 iron produced a higher trajectory but an ongoing tug-of-war with Siew-Ai favoring the 4 iron and Hank the 9 metal endured.

Thursday: Carded a respectable -2 but with a little luck could have been much better. Hit it well but left a few putts dead in short.

I whiffed a yardage on the 2nd hole, a par four. We were in a bit of trouble and the 2nd shot came up about 70 yards short. Instead of using the correct pin placement I automatically went to the 3rd hole's pin , since the 2nd was crossed off,  which was short by about 7 yards. Just made it onto the green well shy of the hole. But to Siew-Ai's credit she didn't blink an eye, no pun intended, made bogey, then birdied the next two.

We're DFL tomorrow and I'll be picking up the pins on the back nine. Rain expected tonight and Friday which may soften the greens for the late groups. As I write this, today's afternoon players are not meeting with the same success as the early times.

Friday: The morning groups suffered through off and on rain and we expected to bear the same fate. Just before we teed it up play was delayed for 20 minutes but miraculously, the rain disappeared and conditions were perfect for us. 

Unfortunately, we couldn't take advantage of our good fortune and shot 2 over to miss the cut by one for the second week in a row.

Made double right out of the hopper, fought back to get it even for the event but couldn't cash in on a short birdie putt on the 5th, our 14th. To be fair, the course played easy and another bird may have been had anywhere. It was just one of those rounds when the putts didn't drop.