A bit Mickey Mouse

Monday

As I am writing this at 5am Wed morning, it seems fair to say I am not over my jet lag. Last night (Mon) I had a solid 4 hours from Midnight then tossed and turned before giving up and reading on my iPad. I must have dropped off again as my alarm woke me up.

I took pics of virtually every tee and most greens but it often needs several pics stitched together in a panorama to give a realistic impression of what you are seeing.

My first round was at 9:33 on the Osprey course - one of a handful run by Disney, so they don't just cater for kids. I selected the course on my Tom-tom and headed off with plenty of time to spare. However I finished up at a dead end at the back of some condo complex. Possibly the other side of the river and fence was the actual course but I couldn't get there that way. I selected the Disney golf complex instead, which took me back on my original route to join the end of a traffic jam. Fortunately after 10 minutes we had cleared the 4-way stop sign intersection and it was plain sailing from there. Osprey is not at the main complex but on the way there and well sign posted.

The mouse is quite prominent - on the bag drop off signs on the way in and the pro shop has heaps of merchandise. The Osprey logo also features prominently on this course and is used as tee markers. There are a number of tall poles, well above the trees with small flat platforms on top for nests.
I was soon in a cart heading first to the putting green. The greens were on the fast side but evry smooth. On the actual course there were lots of slopes and undulations as well.

I then headed for the driving range, but unlike most private clubs here, where balls are free and you help yourself from large buckets, here you needed to collect your own bucket as we do at home. It was free but required a drive back to the service desk. Despite a week off I was hitting well and straight.

The carts had a GPS screen built in. I'd seen this before in Texas but these were more sophisticated. I use a laser range finder myself since that gives me the exact distance to the flag, or anything else I can see. The usual personal GPS devices only give distances to the front, back and middle of the green so you still have to guess the pin placement. This had the pin placements recorded and after checking with the range finder,i was confident they were accurate. They could be changed to m which is what I think in and you could touch any point and get distances to there and from there to the pin. It also displayed your distance from the tee.

There was a flyover option, an electronic score card which emails you the result at the end and a message option - lost club, found club, near a pick up and so forth.

Once again I was struck by how many people are helping on the course. Unlike home where Andrew more or less does everything himself and occasionally there is a drinks cart, there were people to pickup your bag, set up the cart, give you range balls and a starter at the first tee. Then they took your bags off, cleaned your clubs and drove you to the car park after wards. Also a drink cart we saw more than once.
I was in a pair with Dan, and aircraft engineer taking a break from the family who had been at Disney the day before. He was moved into my cart and off we went. I had heard part of the story being told to the previous group but they had constructed a new first hole. After playing this we drove back on a gravel path alongside the entry road to the clubhouse and out the other side to what was originally the first.

At the end we saw that the old 18th, a long curving hole along the river was now a construction site behind fences. Not sure whether this is permanent and I guess I'll never know.

The course cuts its way mainly through pine forest and it quite pretty. There is a fair bit of water about as well.The fairways are good and quite short but the second cut rough is about 1/2 to 3/4 ball height and quite soft - real velcro. I got caught a couple of times early and dropped 3 strokes on the first 2 holes. This was followed by 6 straight pars, so I was playing very well. The 9th was a bit of a mess up with a short shot out of the velcro followed by another 3 short shorts in a row to drop another 3 for a 42. The back 9 was pretty much constant double bogeys as my drives sprayed a bit, my short game went off in the velcro and I caught some bunkers. A bit of bad luck whine my tee shot was a bit long and finished under a bush with nowhere to drop didn't help either. Finished with a couple of bogeys for 53 and 95 over all.  I played from the white tees, the second longest of 4 choices so I would have liked something around 90 or better.

I had only taken new balls with me, mindful of excess weight issues on internal US flights. I lost 2 balls, one in the woods and one in the lake but only had 2 of my starting 5 left. I'm not sure if Dan may have grabbed one of mine by mistake and then lost it on a provisional.

The people who booked this for me had told me many multi course golf facilities offer cheap replay options. I asked about this before heading off but was told I could organise it afterwards. I was quoted $35 for a second round, which seemed like a good deal since Dan paid $125 for his round,although he did have rental clubs in that.

I headed for the main complex which is past Disney world, although all you could see was a vast car park, and several resorts. The Palm, Magnolia and I think 1 other were all serviced from the one pro shop Next to the Shades of Green resort. The fist 2 of these are used for PGA comps and I played the Palm. I had 45 minutes to the first available slot, so I did some shopping, buying a shirt and some ball markers for myself and a visor for a friend. I was able to pay with a credit cards since I had about $20 cash left. This mostly disappeared on several drinks and a wrap for a late meal some where on the course.

The starter was just knocking off and I wasn't sure who or even how many I was playing with. There were 2 father son pairs and a couple of other guys turned up with Tee times different from mine but eventually my 2 guys turned up with a few minutes to spare. They were Playing more for fun than for score although there was a bottle of wine on the line and some other bets as well. They worked together  selling advertising for TV, online etc and had a dinner meeting with a golf site that night. In fact they left after 15 holes because they were running late and the bet had been settled.

I started with a great drive, was on the par 5 in regulation for a par.  This impressed the guys but it was the only one on the front 9 with a mix of bogeys and doubles for 46. Only 1 par on the back as well for a 48, 1 shot better than the morning. I was starting to question the wisdom of a second game as my hands threatened to blister and I was getting a bit tired.

This course is build in a mixture of pine and palms tress and what is quite dense rough.  I saw more of it than the morning too. The tree line is marked with red stakes and treated as a lateral water hazard. ie if you hit into the rough you drop out for 1 stroke penalty. A couple of times I went in a few metres looking for my ball or the other's and I found a handful of balls that way. Also picked up a couple at the edges of lakes or creeks.I proceeded to move these lost balls to different lakes, rivers or woods. However all this stopped when after looking for a ball on one hole. I found a nice white one, not mine, decided it was a fair swap and went back to drop it. About 3 steps away i saw a black snake, about 4 foot long. That was the last time I went into the woods. The best guess was a water moccasin, which is quite poisonous. (Google suggests it may be the harmless Blacker Racer snake)

There is a great sequence of holes from 12 to 16 around some lakes. This is quite a large open area away from the woods and there are 4 large fountains that you can see in different lakes.

After the guys left, I waited for the father son (12 years) to catch up and we played the last 3 holes together. Young Peynton played from the reds but was quite good for his age, paring a couple of holes. They got to use the "send a new cart" message when it ran out of battery on the 17th and by the 18th tee a staffer turned up with a new one for them.

It was a long and interesting day but I expect I'll just stick to one game from now on. The morning round took about 4 1/4 hours and the afternoon 4 3/4. It was getting pretty dark towards the end.

Now a change of topic - Money. We are spoiled in Australia with not only ATMs everywhere but the option to get cash from the supermarket as well. And on my holidays to Thailand and Bali, changing Aussie dollars to local currency is easy.  Last trip here, I found it almost impossible to change currency, even at a bank but was able to use ATMs. I have several cards and checked that I had remembers my pin on one I use infrequently before I left. However, I didn't actually try to withdraw money and apparently it is only at that stage the pin is checked, as I found out in Croatia, where I had to use my Westpac instead. I had used the card to pay for the holiday online and for some purchases that I could sign for.

When I tried the Westpac Visa at an ATM here, I got Unauthorised transaction. My plan to buy some stuff at a supermarket, get some extra cash (max $25!!!!) and sign to pay for it fell over when they wanted a pin. That cut out one card and the Westapc was also rejected. Since I had only $# in cash I had to leave the stuff behind. I then located a Bank ATM using the GPS. This had me leaving the shopping centre turning left doing a U turn and coming back along the same road. I decided the walk from the centre car park instead. As it turned out the ATM wasn't there and would have been inside the centre if it was. Bloody stupid tomtom. But now I'd wasted an hour and still had no food and no money so I went back to the hotel and tried their ATM. Again my Westpac was declined.

I was able to Skype the bank from my room and was told to try withdrawing from the cheque rather than the savings account. A walked to reception showed this was futile as well. Another call and a different girl said she would change the link on the CC to the cheque rather than the savings and to try again. Again no luck. I was rather pissed  off on the third call since each time you have to type in your customer name, pin no and go through the menu to get connected. I had specifically told them I'd be travelling to avoid problems as well. This time a guy helped me work out that I must have used my handicard not the credit card last year. Fortunately I remembered the pin and after trying the check account (after all thats what the second girl had done) with no luck i then tried the savings and let me tell you, the sounds of those notes being counted out was the sweetest sound I heard all day.

Back to the super market for supplies and then a steak at TGIF. Apparently the advantage of eating so late (9:15 by then) is that happy hours had started and cocktails were under $5. I had an Island something with rum and juice which was "sweet with a kick" according to the waitress.

Back in the room I started stitching the panoramas together but could hardly keep my eyes open. I had another 4 hours from 11 to 3 or so but after 1 1/2 hours awake in the dark gave up and started this. Now 6-30 and the alarm is set for 7 so no more sleep tonight.