I long ago dubbed myself the worst golf-playing golf writer in the world, yet I love monster golf courses. There's nothing quite like a track that's geared toward leaving bruises. I've played some of the toughest courses in the world and left feeling better about golf after most of them.
Only one golf course has ever made me consider walking off in utter frustration. Only one ever had me raising a club to seriously consider flinging it - a la USA Today golf blogger Larry Olmsted. That one was Montreux Golf and Country Club.
Which happens to be the same course that Michelle Wie will be teeing off on this afternoon in her latest playing-with-the-men sideshow.
Now, I usually think it's silly for average golfers to compare their games to pros - even a pro who still somehow fails to realize she's never proved she deserves these shots on the PGA Tour. But I'd stack my self confidence up against Wie's (you have to be pretty secure to play like I do) and I know Montreux is one of those courses that can yank it from you quickly.
It's been amusing to see the Wie Warriors cite yardages on par 4s and the like in arguing that Wie has the slightest chance of making the cut. Montreux's not a course where mere yardage tells the story - though at 7,500 yards, it's certainly daunting there too. It's an intimidating course with canyon carries, big drops and tall trees to mess with the truly horrid drives.
I played it from the back tees - with three other golf writers who thought they were better than they were - and was the shortest hitter in the group, which Wie will surely be in hers too despite the distance myths that came with her false hype legend. Montreux intimidates more and more as the day goes on and the relief never comes. The altitude of the course can be more confounding than comforting as well. You think being so high, more distance will be added to your shots than actually is. You get a boost, but not as mega a boost as you expect.
This just shows all the great "scouting" that goes into Team Wie's decisions. They could scarcely have picked a worse course, one that's more likely to produce another carted off on a stretcher from "exhaustion" scenario.
I gutted it out and finished my round that Montreux day. Will Wie even manage that?
That's the question, not whether she can make the cut.
