For some reason I have tried -- with the prairie courses especially -- to steer clear of getting too familiar ahead of time so I can discover it all with my own eyes.
Is there something to be lost by letting myself get just a little bit more excited by looking at pics of the courses in question? Or am I better to look at as little as possible before I am there in the flesh?
Well, I played PD for the first time last year, having looked at it for four days during the Women's Open, and lots of pictures on the Web.
And there was NOTHING in any of those pictures that prepared me for what it looks and feels like standing on a tee, looking at all that tall grass and gunch with a club in my hand.
Over Memorial Day weekend I went to Nebraska where I played Wild Horse and Awarii Dunes, and I can tell you without equivocation that as cool as the pictures are, they convey NOTHING about playing them.
The same thing applies to my first--and only--trip to Scotland.
I had hundreds of photos, and StrokeSaver copies for virtually every course we played. Dornoch, Brora, Boat of Garten, Nairn, Nairn Dunbar, North Berwick, and New, Jubilee and Old at St. Andrews.
I also have hundreds of pictures of them taken during the trip.
And virtually no picture I have ever seen gives me a real sense of what it's like to stand on the ground with a club in my hand.
Look at all the pictures you want, the land isn't anything like the pictures.
K