COMMUNITY

I took a "going away" golf trip this weekend with a deacon in our church Phillip Christian and Steven Barnes who was an associate pastor here for ~15 years and will be going to Guam permanently as a missionary in May with his family. He is the man who got me started golfing.

We had a great weekend, but the second course we played - RTJ Oxmoor Valley (Ridge course) in Birmingham, AL - was nothing short of amazing.

Every hole was picture-worthy and had some unique feature or challenge. There were blind shots everywhere and elevated greens. The starter was excellent and helped save several strokes for us by advising correctly on holes where layups were good decisions due to fairways dropping off 25 feet to playable (but not fun) valleys.

The most amazing part of the day : Phillip is probably an 18 - 22 handicap who played 2 entire rounds last year and this was his first outing this year. We had already played one round in the morning. Phillip had *3* birdies on the front nine and shot a 37 -- +1. WOW.

#8 is an elevated tee par 3. All 4 in our group put it within about 12 feet.

Everything about the RTJ facilities is excellent. Birmingham is about 3:40 from me and has two facilities offering 54 holes (1 x 18 is par3) at one and 18 holes at the other. Muscle Shoals is right at 2:30 and has 36 holes, Huntsville is also about 3:50 and has 54 holes including the 18 hole par3.

More pics are in the photostream but here are some highlights.