What I mean is this: The 180-horsepower Ford Taurus you can buy from the car dealer, no matter how much you trick it out, is nothing like the 750-horsepower machine hurtling down the track at 200 miles per hour. Sure, they have the same shape, but that’s where the similarities end.

Likewise, a championship golf course set up for a professional tournament bears little resemblence to the same course you played a few months ago.

It’s easy to sit on your sofa and criticize pro golfers on TV when they fail to make a par or miss an easy birdie putt. It’s even easier when you’ve played the course and you’ve made a par on the hole. But until you’ve played a course under tournament conditions you don’t appreciate how a course can be set up to play significantly more difficult than for regular play.

You know those media junkets where the press play the course a few days before or after a big event? We recently had the opportunity to play the Pumpkin Ridge Ghost Creek course the day after a playoff finish at the LPGA’s Safeway Classic. Whether we’re media or not is debatable, but whether we were up to the challenge is not. I wasn’t.

The day was a fun opportunity to test my game against the world’s best women (interestingly, only men played on media day), with leaderboards and corporate hospitality tents as a backdrop. But, I was humbled and learned a lot about championship course set up.

At 6,542 yards, somewhere between the Blue and Black tees, the course didn’t seem overpoweringly long. But it would probably have about a 73.0 rating and a 140 slope, which is pretty stout for us amateur desk jockeys. Still, I thought I could put together a decent round on a course that I’ve played dozens of times. I’ve shot as low as 77 here from the White tees in the past. Way to go, big shot!

What you don’t realize, though, is just how much the hole locations and thick rough affect scoring. You hear about it on TV. Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo pontificate about the speed of the greens, but it’s difficult to understand until you’ve tried it.

On a few holes at Pumpkin Ridge, particularly several of the five par 3s, the Sunday final round flags were hidden behind a bunker. Sure, you can hit it on the green, if you can get it to stop, which is tough especially when the greens are firm, double cut and rolled so they’re super fast. But now you’ve got 30 feet for birdie and you’re not going to make many of those putts.

Also, even as a spectator who saw the thick rough with my own eyes, I didn’t appreciate how penal it can be. It doesn’t look that bad, but try getting a 4-iron through it like I did at the long par-4 No. 18. The thick rough grabbed the toe of the club and my ball shot 40 yards right, landing in the middle of the lake. I wasn’t even close to the green. I made Scott Norwood look accurate.

In the end I only made par on three holes and shot a humbling 93. The best round of the tournament was a final-round 65 by the winner, M.J. Hur. That’s 28 shots better than me. Even the worst score of the week was only 83. My game was not sharp and I struggled with my swing. I would not have scored well on any course that day. However, I learned a lot about course setup and gained even more respect for the skill and focus of professional golfers.

In playing a golf course that was familiar and yet completely different, I was reminded that driving a Ford and winning the race — or hitting a Titleist and winning the tournament — are a world apart.

One of 21 rookies on tour this year and the latest first-time winner, Hur played her first tournament in the United States at the 2006 U.S. Women’s Open on the private course at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, just across the driving range from where she accepted the trophy and $255,000 in prize money today.

Hur, who used a new tour caddy this week, played a seven hole stretch in 7-under par and finished the day bogey free. She said she was nervous on the final three holes of regulation, particularly on her drive at No. 18 after realizing she was in the lead. However, she wasn’t nervous in the playoff because she had “nothing to lose.”

In winning, Hur brought the top American and European players back to Earth a week after the Solheim Cup. She showed that the depth of talent coming out of Korea, with 47 players on tour, seems endless. Her win over two experienced Solheim Cup veterans just a week after the event also raises questions about when Koreans will be included in major international competitions.

For Redman, a 17-year veteran, it was a strong showing and she posted her first Top 10 finish since 2007. But she may have been reminded of her epic 2002 Solheim Cup meltdown when she was 5-up on Pettersen and lost the match.

Meanwhile, Pettersen, a Nike sponsored athlete, played well but couldn’t win in the sporting goods giant’s backyard. Michelle Wie continued her strong recent play with a T-4 finish, two strokes out of the playoff. And, Northwest native Paige Mackenzie made a final round charge with a 66 for a T-8 finish.

What is your impression of the week? Impressed by the skill of some tour rookies? More Korean dominance? Or, just another underwhelming win? Tell us in comments below, and stay tuned for more photos and videos from the tournament next week.

Standard issue golf club head covers, designed to keep clubs from clanking (and help advertise club makers), are out. Boring! Instead, many of the world’s best women golfers express their personality and sense of humor through unique and funny head covers.

At the LGPA’s Safeway Classic near Portland, Oregon we have seen dozens of clever covers. Owls, Yoda, Snoopy, boxing gloves and ski gloves and – our personal favorite – a horse’s ass. What’s not to like about a funny head cover?

The women’s tour features a growing youthful contingent perhaps more likely than their elders to appreciate Hello Kitty and other shades of cute. The average age of exempt LPGA Tour players has dropped nearly three years in the last decade, according to LPGA.com. And, Women’s Golf Center says this year the average age in the Top 20 is 24 years old, with just three players over age 30.

But you don’t have to be a kid to decorate your golf bag with style. Hack has a 3-wood tribute to his beloved purebred pooch and he’s no college frat boy.

Even still, some players haven’t yet caught the craze. Becky Iverson, not necessarily known for her sense of style, was asked Friday why she doesn’t carry head covers on her fairway woods. “These clubs are too old,” she said with a laugh. “What’s there to protect?”

Do you have a stylish head cover for your clubs? Tell us about it, or send a photo to staff@niceballz.com.

Since the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic in early July, the best professional women golfers in the world have traveled to France and England and played two major championships and the international Solheim Cup competition. Heady stuff.

But in returning to the bread-and-butter events, the LPGA hasn’t settled on a subpar golf course.

The $1.7 million Safeway Classic Presented by Coca-Cola is being held for the first time at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, a great 36-hole public-private facility in the farmland west of Portland, Ore. After several years at the exclusive nearby Columbia-Edgewater Country Club, the 38th annual Safeway Classic begins Friday on the Ghost Creek course, a public daily fee course that can be stretched to more than 6,800 yards and is routinely rated among the top 100 courses in the country by the big golf publications.

At NiceBallz, we are excited about the LPGA’s return to the Pacific Northwest and our opportunity to watch the best women in the world compete up close on a course we play several times each season.

Ghost Creek is a Robert Cupp-designed parkland style golf course that is traditional and challenging yet fair. Neither a tight, tree lined track nor a nouveau links-style course, Ghost Creek is set amid mild rolling hills framed by long, wispy fescue grass and features a great collection of par 4s and the namesake creek that winds through the course, appearing, disappearing and reappearing on several holes.

For many local amateurs, the longer front nine plays significantly more difficult than the shorter back, though there are interesting and challenging holes throughout.

Weather permitting, we expect LPGA players to post some solid scores and a low double-digit winning score wouldn’t be a surprise. Some players already have boasted about practice rounds in the 60s although the greens have been described this week as ‘crazy hard.’ August offers some of the nicest weather in the temperamental Pacific Northwest and the forecast calls for 70s and 80s and sun. Of course, winds often dictate scoring at any golf course and this is a place just windy enough that gliders regularly soar over the nearby fertile fields where in fall a pumpkin patch serves as an appropriate backdrop visible from several tee boxes.

Here are a few hole-by-hole highlights to watch for this weekend:

After beginning with a couple of mid-length par 4s and a relatively benign par 3, the course turns ghoulish at No. 4, a long uphill par 5 that slopes severely from right to left toward the creek and narrows near a multi-tiered green. We will be surprised to see many players go for this green in two, not because the longest hitters can’t reach the putting surface but because the shot is awkward where trees overhang on the right and anything left is dead in the hazard.

No. 8 is long but potentially reachable in two shots and begins an interesting stretch of consecutive par 5s. To accomplish this one of our favorite holes in all of Oregon will be altered for the event, according to tournament publicity officials.

Normally a long par 4, No. 9 will be converted into a short par 5. With the prior No. 8 and the par-5 No. 10 to come, the tournament will have three par 5s in a row, which could be fun and makes a course that is ordinarily a par 71 instead play to a par 72. But we question the decision because it alters the design intent of an already great golf hole.

No. 9 features the aforementioned creek that runs up the right side before cutting across the fairway at about 160 yards from the green. Depending on the tees and the wind, a long drive can reach the creek crossing, but ordinarily shots stay well back of the water. This requires at least a mid-iron into a relatively big and flat green that is protected by a large lake to the left. By lengthening the hole it allows players to lay up and come into a green intended to accept longer shots with a wedge. Easy stuff.

However, we admit that the revamped short par 5 instead could encourage most players to take a fairway wood into the green with the enormous lake left. Exciting stuff. There is plenty of room to bailout on the right and fairway wood could be a viable option. But, even with the tournament on the line on Sunday afternoon, why take the risk so early in the round?

We’re skeptical. But watch for different strategic choices by the players at No. 9.

The back nine is several hundred yards shorter than the front and has three par 3s, two of them short. Some birdies can be made. But where the second nine – and likely the tournament – will be decided is at the final two holes, both great par 4s.

First, No. 17 is a potentially reachable par 4 that plays about 300 yards. Promoters have told us that the tournament setup will use three different tee boxes here to encourage both risky and safe play. The namesake creek runs up the left side, crosses the fairway at an angle and dumps into a small pond with a menacing rock wall at the green.

The hole can be played a couple of ways. First, a simple mid- or long iron off the tee leaves a wedge into a shallow two-tiered green. Or, players can choose to drive into a bailout area to the left, which is larger than it appears from the tee. This leaves a better angle for a short but nervous pitch shot in the, say, 30 to 60 yard range. Or, they can drive it on the green. Easy, right? Legend has it that former world No. 1 ranked golfer David Duval, then an up-and-comer on the Nationwide Tour’s predecessor, drove the green during the 1993 Nike Tour Championship, which he won by a shot.

Finally, No. 18 is a great par 4 finishing hole. Again, the creek runs along the right side, although the drive is not difficult. But, the approach is into a green with another large lake on the right. There’s room to hang the ball out to the left, but a greenside swale often collects loose shots and makes a two putt more difficult. A back-right hole location makes No. 18 longer and even more challenging, especially if you need a birdie at the finish.

Overall, look for some great scenery and drama at the final two holes, some solid par 4s throughout the course and the ever present creek. NiceBallz will be live on location and we will bring you the best images and insights we can from the course, where we will also appear live on the Speaking of Golf radio show Saturday, August 29.