June 26, 2008
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech’s Chesson Hadley is in Glasgow, Scotland for the Palmer Cup matches, an annual Ryder Cup-style match-play competition between collegiate players from the United States and Europe. The annual Ryder Cup-style competition is being played at the 6,903-yard, par-71 Willie Park Junior designed Glasgow Golf Club Gailes Links.
Hadley, a sophomore from Raleigh, N.C., lost his best-ball match on Thursday while paired with Georgia’s Adam Mitchell, but won his singles match over Jonathan Caldwell, 2 and 1, as the United States claimed a 6.5-5.5 lead after the first day.
Following is the second of his journals from Scotland.
The past couple of days have been spectacular. We have played tons of golf and had so much fun. Not a whole lot of social stuff has happened due to the amount of golf we have been playing, but I think you will find the opening ceremony interesting.
They gave us a nice dress shirt, tie, and dress coat to wear at this ceremony. Needless to say, we looked sweet. Keep in mind that this ceremony took place outside. So our coach marched us out, and we all sat down in chairs facing the crowd. As the sponsors started giving their speeches it started to pour! And we just sat there as the rain pelted us. That was ZERO fun! The rest of the ceremony was moved inside where they introduced the players and announced the first day’s matches. We then mingled and ate dinner about two hours later. I was starving when the food got there.
After the matches tonight we ate dinner at the Ship Inn, and the food was so much better than the other nights. It was such a neat hole-in-the-wall restaurant. It had a gloomy feel to it, which added to the atmosphere. I have to brag on their desserts; their banana split was fantastic, a 10 out of 10.
As for the golf today, I got off to a slow start and our best-ball match went south early. We did not win a hole until No. 14. We got it to 1-down going to 18, but they made birdie to shut us out. Adam Mitchell and I ham-and-egged it pretty well today. I made a ton of putts to halve the holes, while he won all the holes coming in. The other team played great today and congrats to them.
It was blowing like crazy today in our best-ball match, so that did have something to do with some of the poor play. My singles match was a different story. I was 5-up through 7 holes and hung on to my lead as we made the turn. I missed several putts coming down the stretch of the front nine that would have made the match end much earlier than it did. Anyway, he started to play some excellent golf after that, and I ended up winning 2 and 1. Not a bad day for golf.
I am paired up with one of the guys that I have made really good friends with since being over here. Derek Fathauer and I are going out on the 4-ball adventure tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. Wish me luck guys! Post again soon!
