Day 50 - Saturday, October 8 - Arkansas << Index

Anticipated: Play golf at Ben Geren Regional Park in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Travel:   Itinerary: Leave motel 9:00AM tee time at Ben Geren Park. After golf we will drive to a motel in Texarkana, Texas. casino   States/Provinces Played:

Web: Ben Geren Regional Park Golf Course - Magnolia/Willow Course - Fort Smith, AR

Actual: (Photos and text)

Click on the photos below to enlarge Welcome to Arkansas sign and Ben Geren Golf Course sign Ben Geren golf professional, Steve Nicholls and Pat Golf course scenery Jim hitting the ball out of the sand trap. (Notice where the ball is – for those of you who scoff at Jim’s sand trap ability)

Who would have believed it? We have completed 50 consecutive days of golf – 900 holes, 4443 strokes for Jim and 5529 strokes for Pat! Incredible that our backs have remained intact! The credits go to good luck and our Physical Therapist, Todd Wehrmeyer of Grandville. Todd, that plug might be worth a few treatments when we get home, shouldn’t it? Another credo goes to Donna Knight in Glenboro, MB, who gave Pat’s aching back a therapeutic massage. Ever since, Pat’s back has been fine. We arrived at the golf course around 9:00AM and when we walked in the pro shop Steve Nicholls, the golf professional at Ben Geren Golf Course, greeted us with “I’ve been watching your progress on the web”. He told us that we would be their guests for the day. We were also next up on the first tee. The Ben Geren Park, Fort Smith, Arkansas is a huge recreational complex, which includes baseball, softball, and soccer fields, tennis courts and facilities for many other recreational pursuits. The 27-hole golf course is also part of the park. The golf course has been rated in the top 100 public facilities in the United States. We played the Magnolia/Willow nines, which were the original nines. Silo Hill is the third and most recent nine to be built. The golf course is well maintained and has been the recipient of adequate water as both the fairways and roughs are green. The fairways are lush and there is no need to play “winter rules”. The greens are excellent with some having extreme breaks. The course played longer than its yardage because most greens were elevated. Many of the par 4s and 5s were tree-lined which made tee shot accuracy a premium. We both enjoyed playing the golf course and would certainly be regulars at Ben Geren if we lived in the area. There were quite a few golfers playing today (Saturday), so our round took a little over four hours. Jim shot 92 (yardage = 6378) and Pat shot 111 (yardage = 4942). We would like to thank Steve Nicholls and his staff for their courtesy and hospitality during our brief stay at Ben Geren. We’d also like to thank Steve for waiving the green and cart fees. This was greatly appreciated. After golf we headed south to Texas where we will play our 51st round of golf tomorrow. We started south on Highway 71, then highway 41 and I30 where we decided to stop for the night in Mt. Pleasant, Texas.