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Read Camilo Villegas' blog entry here.
Editor’s note: Buddy Alexander, who is the men's golf coach at the University of Florida, is caddying for
one of his former players, Camilo Villegas, as he represents Colombia in the World Golf Championships-Barbados World Cup this week. Alexander
will be writing about the experience daily for PGATOUR.com. This is his
fourth, and final, installment.
ST. JAMES, Barbados -- Today was a fun day. Everyone was calling me
‘coach’ so I guess people have been reading this blog. The volunteers
were saying, ‘Hey, coach, the ball is over here.’ Or, ‘Coach, look over
there.’ I don’t think there’s any other way they’d know who was on
Camilo’s bag this week. So that was pretty funny.
The front nine today was bizarre. The weather was worse than Thursday.
It was raining sideways. Everyone kept saying that at least we’re not
cold. But it got to the point when you were soaked through that you’d be
a little chilled. My feet may never dry out completely, and there’s a
good chances that these shoes will be left here in Barbados. It was a
mistake not to bring my Gortex shoes -- very poor coaching on my part.
But I didn’t expect so much rain. I paid the price, too.
We shot even par on the front nine and 2 under on the back. They played
in the worst of the rain. It started when we walked off the first tee
and we were on the ninth when play was suspended. So to shoot even par
on the front nine was pretty good. Manuel, who played at BYU, finally
got his putter going and made some birdie putts on Nos. 14, 16 and 18 --
that was terrific to see. Their putts didn’t burn the edges like they
did the other day. I guess they got about what they deserved today.
This has been a great experience for me. I really think the thing that
sticks out in my mind the most is that this is probably the best golf
I’ve seen Camilo Villegas play. I haven’t seen him up close like this in
three years. His status as a world-class player is definitely higher
than as a first-team All-American. I would have expected him to have
improved but I was impressed at how much he has. He played extremely
well. Most every putt he hit looked like it was going to scare the hole
whether it went in or not. He was clearly straighter, not as long maybe,
and he had a definite tendency of right-to-left. There is a lot of
consistency to his ball-striking. This is the best golf I have ever seen
him play. It may not have shown on the scoreboard, but sometime that’s
the way golf is, and this was a team event. I am very proud of the way
he played.
And it was good to see that he’s still my little boy. I am very close to
Camilo and his younger brother, Manny, who is a redshirt junior on my
team. Camilo is a lot of fun to be around. He might not show it to
everyone -- I mean, he’s a professional now -- but he still has a lot of
little boy in him. So that was great to see. I knew he’d improved, but
it was nice to see that up close. In reality, though, what I really
liked was seeing that he hasn’t changed.
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