The Course

I’ve never played SN. It’s a fun course, wide open with some interesting holes, blind shots, water and Florida wasteland. Because the development never took off, this is one of the rare Florida courses where you feel as if you’re playing in the middle of nowhere. If you are on your game, you can score well here as the fairways are wide open and the greens are pretty fair. But as you can see from my score, you can also get into trouble. It was well maintained, but nothing spectacular by Florida standards. Greens were in great shape as were the tee boxes but the fairways were a bit spotty in places. I’d play it again, but only after playing other Sarasota courses.

My Round

Got in 18 with Chris which is always a good thing. My round was mixed. On the one hand, I was hitting some great irons and drives, but on the other was inconsistency and a bad short game. My 97 didn’t feel like a 97, but it was.

I had a 45 min lesson with Corey Pion before my round. I was hoping he could confirm I was on the right path. Setup was good, tempo was good, but we noticed I rushed the transition and hit fat shots. So he had me really focus on my backswing key of hitting my chin, then really bring the hands and arms down and focus on a low release. Watching him do it was key to my being able to see and feel the right move. That move was critical in my round at SN and my round at RS the next day. We also pushed my hands forward with my driver, dropped them slightly and focused on a square driver club face.

I hit some long and straight drives on the course, one tracked 275. I also flushed some irons with a really nice flight and subtle draw. It was fun to hit some good shots. But around the greens I was really poor. Chipping was spotty, putting the same. Had some unfortunate breaks out of the sand, but basically I need to work on chipping. I’ve been focusing on the full swing so much, it’s been neglected. Good to see some great progress with my game, I’ve put a lot of time into it,

Scorecard