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Iām having a couple Modelos with dinner tonightā¦maybe that will soothe the savage beastā¦
Oh manā¦I regret having made Round #4 an afternoon tee-timeā¦ The wild winds coupled with the sunlight casting tree shadows is making for a trippy experience. It is nauseatingā¦LOLā¦
I wasnāt expecting that. 
Itās an interesting course. Very good to look at, but the punishment of going slightly off is brutal.
The first time I went into the mangrove weeds and heard the āplopā of the ball into the water was such a shock as I expected it was just dense foliage. 
Will get round 4 done later and see what happens.
All going sweet. Iām 10 shots ahead. not going to blow that. No wayā¦ Hole 13.
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LOLā¦what happened there? (I think that is the / spare symbol in bowling!) I think at some points I needed an air-boat to look for my ball in the mangrovesā¦
We need a Tac-View for golfā¦hahaā¦
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I hit my drive into the mangrove, took my medicine and laid up on the fairway. All good so far, par achievable.
Hit my next shot to the green, all good and it ran over the back into the mangrove. Undaunted and encouraged by the fact Iād hit the green, I hit the same shot, but this time it was slow and went into the mangrove on the right of the green. At this point I started to worry and hit a safer shot.
Finally, I hit the green, then hit three putts past the hole before my caddy put his arm round me and said āson, have you thought about a different game?ā 
I still canāt believe I snatched defeat from the jaws of victoryā¦
Haā¦ youād have been watching my replays saying āWhat the heck is he doing?ā
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OK, a new event is up. Normally, this time of year Iād put up an Augusta National type course to track The Masters. This week though, in a rejection of efforts to restrict voter rights in Georgia that are targeted at repressing the minority vote, Iāve decided to play the historically significant Freeway Golf Course - the first African-American owned golf course in the United States. We will play Augusta next week instead.
Freeway Golf Course located in Sicklerville NJ is the first African-American owned 18-hole golf course in America. Clyde Evans is currently the president of the Greater Philadelphia Golf and Country Club, which owns and operates the Freeway Golf Course. In 1967 four black businessmen, who were also golfers, heard that a golf course was up for auction. With segregation still upon them, they felt owning their own golf course was a good idea. These men were Al Letson, a realtor, Maxwell Stanford, a business owner, Robert Salsbury, a motel owner, and James Blocker, vice-president at First Pennsylvania Bank. They decided to bid for the golf course. This was a major decision and a very expensive objective. They decide to involve the black golf clubs. It only took a few months to get 100 golfers to pledge $1,000.00 each for the down payment. In many instances, First Pennsylvania Bank loaned the individuals the $1,000.00 that was needed. An offer of $250,000 was accepted and Freeway Golf Course was purchased.
The story of Freeway Golf Course is a part of black history. Many well-known golfers have played at Freeway. The first Sammy Davis Jr. Open was held a Freeway Golf Course. The tournament was such a great success that the next year it was moved to Hartford, CT. and was added to the PGA Tour. The tournament is now known as the Travelers Insurance Championship. Since the purchase the course has been continually maintained and improved. The largest improvement was a computerized irrigation system that enables us to irrigate all or part of the golf course at any time day or night. Our golf legend Bill Bishop is our Class A PGA Pro. Each year for the past 41 years he has hosted the Bill Bishop Benefit Pro-Am Golf Classic bringing professional golfers to Freeway. The tournament proceeds benefit the Bill Bishop Golf Foundation, which fund the Bill Bishop Junior Golf Program. Freeway Golf Course is the home course for many of our golf clubs, Freeway Golf Club, Green Ladies, Del-Val Golf Club, Philadelphia Chapter of the National Negro Golf Association, and others.
Unfortunately, it looks like the course was put up for sale in 2016 and it appears that the property is up for redevelopment. Regardless, it was an important part of starting inroads to inclusiveness in the golf community.
The reason this story hits me is that my very first exposure to racism and that it even existed as a thing was when I was about nine years old, living on Ft. Belvior in Virginia. My father was an avid golfer, even in his early 70s today he is a scratch (zero handicap) player. My brother is a certified PGA Professional. I played a bit, but was more interested in the bugs in the woods and the salamanders in the creeks.
My Dad was an enlisted Army Engineer in charge of a company of men stationed at Ft. Belvoir that operated huge electrical generators for emergency operations (wartime and peacetime). He would regularly gather up some of his troops to take golfing to introduce them to the sport and camaraderie of it. On a TDY to Ft. A.P. Hill in central Virginia my dad took some of his men to a golf course to play a round. This was the early 80s. One of the men in my dadās foursome was a black man, and the course manager told my dad that ācoloreds were not welcome hereā. I canāt repeat what my dad the Master Sergeant had to say about that.
When my dad recounted this story to me I was amazed. The Army in my orbit and my dads was pretty integrated - particularly being the enlisted side of things. We all went to school together, played together, cooked out together. Iām sure there was racism present, but this one external event brought home that things were weird outside the gates of the military base.
Anyway. A lot of writing to say I support voter rights for all. Voter fraud is so statistically insignificant that protestations about ease of voting are easily proved to be fear mongering. I enjoy the Masters and can understand the separation of sport and politics.
This version of Freeway might not be completely true to the original, but I think it feels pretty right for New Jersey. It is a tight track that will reward accuracy, but none of the crazy zaniness that we faced last week!
Weather for the event is not terrible. Thunderstorms blow in on Round 2 making for some soggy conditionsā¦with the cold front causing breezy and drying conditions for Round 3 and 4ā¦good luck!!
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A great piece of history and a fantastic idea. Thanks too, for sharing. 
Does your brother do the PGA tours?
Iāll try and get the first round done this evening and a couple tomorrow. My putting is still woeful. The worse it gets, I start getting yippy and talking myself out of sinking the putt. 
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He is an old man like me nowā¦ He is three years my senior at age 52. He played a bit on the Nike Tour many years ago, but never broke onto the full PGA tour. He now runs a golf course in Myrtle Beach, SC and seems happy doing that. It is a clinic whenever I go play with my Dad and brotherā¦I should just sit there and drink beers and provide commentaryā¦
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As good a round as I could probably ask forā¦ Definitely an honest course that is not full of tricksā¦ Some of the doglegs are a bit severe, so youāll have to get a good initial shot placement or youāll end up having to bend some shotsā¦
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Hmmā¦with it being wet I thought I could have scored better in Round 2 - you can definitely stick the ball if you get the wind correction and power right, but I was just not hitting my 10-15ā putts to make progressā¦ The result was a +1 roundā¦
-1 for the first round, where I should have taken a bucket and spade for all the time spent in the sand.
5 shots adrift already. Letās see what I can do on round 2
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A much better round, with less sand involvement.
The difference was the back 9 where some long putts were drained to salvage par and make the 4 birdies. I think youāll pull ahead in round 3.
Nice choice of course.
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Donāt know if you know this, but this was pretty much literally in my back yard growing up.
Just got an invite, Iām looking forward to giving this a shot- I havenāt played any of the golf simulators in well over a decade! My siblings all play golf in real life, while Iāve tried to pick it up several times.
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Well Iāve finishedā¦ I wonāt spoil the journey or the thrill of the chase.
I think youāve nailed the conditions with this course BTW.
Coolā¦Iām gonna wrap up my rounds tonightā¦!
Congrats on the win - I played my last two rounds while at lunch (cough) at work today. My laptop play isnāt quite as good as my desktop playā¦but I canāt really use that as an excuse because I was hitting the ball OK. I thought the win would be out of reach starting the back nine of Round 4, but I was still within 3 strokes of you as I hit #16. I think that one was a par 5. My third shot hit, bounced twiceā¦and just barely bounced OVER the holeā¦it would have been an eagle that could have brought me within 1 stroke going into 17ā¦ Alas, after that it was all over and I couldnāt scramble back. But it was nice to be in the hunt all the way to the last holes. I did see one weird thing where I get an out-of-bounds on the right side of one of the holes where it looked like it shouldnāt have an OB. But that only accounted for one lost strokeā¦I shouldnāt have been over there anyway
Fun course and a great matchā¦! Iāll set up something for later in the week and next weekā¦
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