Trail cards reduced to $34.95

By Joe McAdory

RTJ Trail cards, regularly priced at $39.95 are on sale for $34.95 through the rest of the year. The card allows golfers to play at all Robert Trent Jones courses for a much reduced rate than the normal greens fees, and the opportunity to save on merchandise and driving range balls.

Blog turning all golf, all the time

By Joe McAdory

Henceforth, this blog will be all golf, all of the time. I didn’t want to keep the name Average Joe, so I changed it to Par 4 The Course.

Those looking for political information or opinion, please visit Jennifer Foster’s Clarion Caller blog also on this Web site. She’s a political junkie.

What can be found on this blog in the future? I can’t say it will be updated daily (though it might), but expect to find local golf announcements, thorough reviews of golf courses locally and regionally, announcements of people’s personal achievements on the course and anything else golf-related that comes to mind.

Made a hole-in-one? Let me know.

Scored a personal best? Let me know.

And, of course, email a photograph.

Local golf course officials and club pros: if you’ve got an upcoming event, special or anything else you’d like publicized—let me know. There’s no reason why we can’t tell the world, or at least folks who visit this blog.

There’s no reason why we can’t turn this into a local golf forum or bulletin board.

Probably next week I’ll begin posting reviews of golf courses in the area, and other courses I’ve visited or played in the South. Yes, I will finally post my review of TPC Sawgrass. But I’d rather get the local courses out there first.

Until then, I’m taking myself and terminal slice to Florida. I might swing through Sawgrass again while I’m there, except this time I won’t be playing.

BYOB Golf Tournament Dec. 6 on RTJ Trail

By Joe McAdory

I received this note from the folks at the Robert Trent Jones Golf trail and thought I’d pass it along:

The fifth annual BYOB Charity Golf event will be held on Sunday, December 6th at ALL of our RTJ Golf Trail locations. The event is filling up quickly with teams coming from all over to take advantage of this great offer and to help support our Charities. Charities we support include Children’s Hospital, Big Oaks Boys and Girls Ranch, Exceptional Foundation, Alabama Ear Institute, Nature Conservance. Please visit our website to read more information. http://www.rtjgolf.com/tournaments/byob/

Last year’s event had over 1,100 players only slightly down from the record of over 1,300 in 2007. We currently have over 900 players with only two weeks left to enter. The weather has been holding up well so we are hoping for a huge turnout again this year. Get your team together and enter soon to make sure you get to play the course you want. Several sites have already filled up. I would encourage you to go to the website and pay online to make sure your spot is secure.

This year, along with our charity donations, we are asking each player to bring one can good or other non-parishable item that we can distribute to needy families .

You and your friends can sponsor a hole in someones honor, your family, your team or in your companies name for $50. The deadline for that will be Friday.

You or your company can become a site sponsor for a donation of $100 or more. Your company logo or family name will be added our list with “sponsored by” on information sheets at the event. You will also get a hole sponsor sign.The deadline for that will be Friday.

WHO:
Everyone is invited and single players will be paired by our staff.
The field is limited to the first 120 participants or 30 teams per course.

WHEN:
Sunday, December 6th at 10:30 AM (Shotgun Start).

WHERE:
Any of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail locations in Alabama:
Cambrian Ridge, Greenville, Sherling/Canyon
Capitol Hill, Prattville, Senator
Grand National, Opelika, Links
Hampton Cove, Huntsville, Highlands and River
Highland Oaks, Dothan, Magnolia and Highlands
Magnolia Grove, Mobile, Falls
Oxmoor Valley, Birmingham, Ridge and Valley
Ross Bridge, Hoover, Champions
Silver Lakes, Anniston/Gadsden, Heartbreaker/Mindbreaker
The Shoals, Muscle Shoals, Fighting Joe and Schoolmaster

COST:
$75/player or $300/foursome
Ross Bridge teams will be $440.
(Local taxes will apply to entry fees.)
Sponsor a hole for $50 and we will provide the signage.

PAYMENT INFORMATION:
You can make your Credit Card payment online at: http://www.rtjgolf.com/tournaments/byob/
OR
Make your check payable to BYOB Event and send to the address below.

CONTACT:
Paul Rohrbach - 1.205.769.1332 or

MAILING ADDRESS:
Paul Rohrbach
SunBelt Golf
167 SunBelt Parkway
Birmingham, Alabama 35211

Furman ... a tough ticket?

By Joe McAdory

Have trouble finding tickets for the Auburn-Furman game last Saturday? From what I saw, there were plenty more fingers in the air begging for two or three tickets than tickets in the air begging to be purchased. Hundreds of folks scoured the outside area of Jordan-Hare Stadium, mostly with children in-tow, looking for cheap seats to an unheralded game. It was going to be a blowout. Everyone knew that. Everyone knew plenty of tickets would be available outside for dirt cheap.

Except they weren’t.

Inside the stadium, the majority of seats in the corners of the east upper deck, which is most often sold to the visiting schools, were left unfilled. So, if these seats were unfilled, why were tickets so hard to come by? I have two theories.

1. Furman’s unsold tickets—and there were plenty—went back to Auburn’s ticket office to sell back to the general public. Face value of these tickets was $35 a pop. Now, would you rather pay $35 for a ticket to the Furman game, or find one outside the stadium that morning for $15 or less? That seemed to be the game plan. After all, it had worked before. But if these $35 tickets remained unsold inside the confines of the ticket office, then they weren’t available for purchase outside the stadium from folks trying to get rid of them.

2. Through September, Auburn’s season ticket book had not been sold out. This included the Furman game, obviously. It also included the Alabama game. It’s feasible to think Alabama fans would scoop up remaining Auburn season tickets to ensure themselves of these seats for the Iron Bowl.

Changes coming

By Joe McAdory

Thank you for reading this blog over the past few months. In coming days or weeks, this blog’s focus will be re-launched and old entries will more than likely be scrapped away into some technological trash can. The blog isn’t going anywhere, it’s just going to change its focus or genre.

We have good blogs already on politics by Jennifer Foster, high school sports by David Morrison and Auburn University sports by Andrew Gribble. This blog about whatever the heck I feel about blogging about never had a real direction, or perhaps its lack of direction made it interesting. I don’t know. Writing about goofy things is fun, but I’m not sure how appealing it was. Instead, I’d rather attempt to appeal to a target audience. I may right about goofy things every now and then cuz that’s just how I am.

Until then, just know you’re always safe in the fairway when I’m in the tee box.