December has been a month with sunny, cold and wet weather. I finally found the chance to play this Pete Dye gem. Located in Greensboro, The Cardinal is one of the few McConnell Group courses that isn’t completely private.
The layout is tough, the greens are tough, no question about that. This par 71 course can play upto 7,000 yards. Of course I would do no such thing, so we played the white tees at 6,000 yards. This Pete Dye track has a great variation in hole placement. Based on the handicap it goes: (front) 7,17,9,13,1,11,5,15,3 (back) 12 16,10, 18, 8,2,14,4,6.
My favorite hole had to be #11, a 325 yard, downhill par 4. If you have ever played Oak Hollow GC, there is a hole that has a similar layout. The approach is very intimidating as you have water on left, right and behind, as well as sand encasing all sides.
All the the greens sit up. If you landed you ball short or on the edge, it was surely going to roll back. There is a lot of sand on this course. Be prepared to play out of it. There is a green side bunker at the practice facilities. Be sure to get a feel for it, before you get on the course.
Pros: This is an awesome course. The price is very reasonable, especially for a course of its magnitude. The practice area is nice and they use high quality range balls. The staff there was very friendly and accommodating.
Con: When it’s wet, it is really wet. A portion of the course sits down in a flood plain, so whenever there is alot of rain in a short amount of time, the course feels it hard.
I have really lost my game during the month of December. It was never anything great to start with, but I’ve been playing bad bad. I shot well over 100 and I only had 1 par on the day and 1 bogey. Shout out to Jacob. It was his first time playing the course and he was patient with me as I had meltdowns.
