The International at Castle Pines
This week’s PGA stop is the International at Castle Pines, in Castle Rock, Colorado. I’m a little biased as this stop is only about 30 minutes up the Interstate from where I live and it’s a breathtakingly beautiful golf course. Castle Pines sits at about 6,200 feet so the pros are going to see an increase in yardage of anywhere from 10-15% on all their shots. In fact, some tour professionals don’t play here simply because the adjustment in their game is too much to handle for one week and then try to re-synch for the PGA Championship.
This tournament also uses the Modified Stableford system for scoring where the goal is to accumulate positive points during the round. The scoring is a follows:
• Double bogey or worse – minus-3 points
• Bogey – minus-1 point
• Par – 0 points
• Birdie – 2 points
• Eagle – 5 points
• Double eagle – 8 points
You can see that it rewards very aggressive play by giving more points for a birdie than it takes away for a bogey. The back nine on Sunday each year tends to have a flurrie of birdies and eagles (and even double-eagles) as players try to score big coming down the stretch. The 17th hole is a par-5 but really plays as a long par-4 at altitude and you have virutally everyone putting for an eagle.
It’s a fun tournament to watch for the fireworks alone.