J.L. Lewis blog: Champions Tour debut at Carnoustie

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J. L. Lewis enjoyed a close-up view of the Edinburgh Castle prior to traveling to the Senior British Open.

One of the Champions Tour's newest faces is J.L. Lewis. A two-time winner on the PGA TOUR, including the 2003 84 Lumber Classic of Pennsylvania, Lewis will make his debut at this week's Senior British Open. Lewis will file a blog for PGATOUR.COM, sharing his insights on his visit to Scotland and his Champions Tour debut.
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TUESDAY, JULY 20

After playing in the John Deere Classic the week prior to the British Open, my wife Dawn and I took the charter flight over here and arrived early last week. With a free week, we decided to spend some time sightseeing and visiting some of the local golf courses. Early on, we stayed at the Marine Hotel in Troon, and I did not play there, but we visited and dined in some of the little towns around there like Troon, Ayr and Prestwick.

Lewis tees it up at Turnberry.

I managed to get in several rounds of golf on the local courses and ended up playing at Turnberry, Prestwick, Western Gailes and then Gleneagles, which I thought was the most scenic course I played over here. It was fantastic.

We had some bad weather but for the most part the weather was good except for part of my round at Gleneagles. It was windy at Turnberry, Prestwick and Western Gailes but it's Scotland. I enjoyed all the golf and we had some fun.

I probably liked Western Gailes the best of all. It's a really good course, but I enjoyed Turnberry as well. Prestwick was a different course than I had ever played. There are a lot of blind shots and on many of the holes you hit to a spot on the hill and wherever the ball ends up, you play it from there. When you're done with the hole, you ring the bell so the group behind knows you've finished the hole.

Just before we came over to Carnoustie, my wife and I went to the final round of the British Open at St. Andrews and sat at No. 15 and watched some of the play for almost two hours. Then we toured the town a bit and had something to eat at the Dunvegan Hotel and then visited the Kingsbarns Golf Links. It's really an awesome course on the ocean up the coast from St. Andrews. It's really a beautiful setting and you can see the ocean from every hole. It was pretty cool.

Later that evening we celebrated my 50th birthday with dinner at the Fairmont St. Andrews (site of the G20 Summit in 2009). I had a chance to play Carnoustie for the first time on Monday and it was wet. I played by myself and just tried to get a feel for the golf course. It is a challenging course and you better hit the ball straight on some of the holes. The greens here are in good shape; they roll well and hold well.

I'm using a caddie from here (Rodney Soutar) who has worked at the course for 30 years and has caddied for all level of players. My son usually caddies for me but he was in a car accident recently and injured his kneecap.

There is a pro-am going on this morning and I may go out and practice a bit later today. Normally I wouldn't play too many practice rounds, but on this course there are so many tee shots you don't know what club to hit and that could change daily or even hourly. I might go out and play nine holes later today and ask my caddy what tee shots do we need to work on and go hit those. I found in my other career if I played too many practice rounds by Friday night you're pretty done. My plans tomorrow right now are to maybe just do some putting.