Month 119 - Kenny Perry's Country Creek - 1/30/2014

In January 2014, we were introduced to the term “Polar Vortex.” As you can imagine, Polar Vortex and golf are not a match made in heaven. As the month progressed, there may have been 1 playable day, but work and travel schedules did not match. As the month drew to a close, the due had 3 possible days. The weather on Monday January 27th was playable in places like Richmond, VA or Charlotte, NC, but the schedules did not match. On Tuesday January 28th another storm hit the US and snow started in Knoxville, TN and wiped out the south. As the duo checked the weather in Boonville, NC, Charlotte, NC, Richmond, VA, Columbia, SC, Atlanta, GA, the concerns grew. After some more tracking, we started to look west for openings which lead us to Louisville, KY and south. After many calls to courses as far as Nashville, TN, the plan was set. We left Pittsburgh on Wednesday night and made it near Cincinnati. The early morning temperatures were not much better and we hit the road by about 7 and continued southwest through Louisville. The snow was still on the ground and as we continued to drive, we had crossed into the central time zone. The temperatures were at 28 when we arrived at the course in Franklin, KY so getting off the tee was still in doubt. Greeted by some classic southern hospitality, we were able to tee off at Kenny Perry’s Country Creek Golf Club. The logo ball had been signed by Perry the day before and we had a new favorite golfer. The greens were frozen and the ground was almost too hard to get a tee in, but that was hardly a deterrent after the effort that was just made. On a par 3, Quat flubbed one into the water, but a friendly winter bounce off ice landed him close to the green. Nuttall shot a solid 80 in some less than ideal conditions and after an eight hour drive, the round lasted 2 hours and 10 minutes. Just your old fashioned story of 2 Penn State grads playing their 1st round after the hire of James Franklin, sneaking in a round close to Vanderbilt, but in the town of Franklin, KY. We headed home and stopped off for a nice meal in Cincinnati at a place called The Senate. A stop at Tim Horton’s in Columbus and a west coast Penguins game carried us for the last hour. Home just before midnight our toughest month came with a great reward, 119 was in the books.

A sign we never thought we would see while heading to just golf.