In the Field: Elliott Sadler (cont'd)

We stayed right at the golf course, those guys at The Olde Farm really took care of us well and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like I said, it's just a fun place to play, and how well I played made it even better.

I played very well; I hit the ball good and putted pretty good. I'm probably playing better this year than I ever have in my whole life and I don't know why, but things seem to be working out.

I know you wouldn't think we'd have much chance for golfing, with the schedule I just described, but I've been playing a lot here, lately. It took me a while to get going, but once I got going I got going pretty good.

But it meant more to me just to be able to take my dad up there and play, because it's a place that he really likes to go to.

It's hard to get that many people off work and able to go at one time, but we worked it out so that 12 of us went. It was a lot of guys I'd grown up with and a lot of guys my dad had grown up with, so it was cool for all of us to go and share that experience.

And how good is this course? I'm not just a Virginia guy talking about a home state place. It's been written about a lot and when it was brand new it was one of the top-10 new courses in America.

It's just so beautiful. The view there is amazing. There are no houses on it and you can see every hole from the other ones. It's out there in the mountains and it's just a very prestigious course to play at.

Really, you have to see it to believe it. The guy did a good job putting the course together. I think he used to be partners in The Virginian, which is another amazing golf course, and he left that and came down the road a few miles and built this one.

It's just amazing what he's done with it.

It's something I plan my trip to Bristol, in August, around for the night race. We always try to play The Olde Farm. I rent a cottage and fly in some buddies from Las Vegas and Dallas who are big golfers.

They all want to come in and play there because it's a great place to play. And to be able to go and play, with all those guys is pretty big because everybody that's heard about it or read about this place knows what kind of golf course it is and the members it has.

It's pretty hard to become a member -- it's almost like Augusta National, where it's pretty tough to do that. I was very fortunate that Dale Jarrett helped me to become a member while we were teammates, so it's a neat deal.

We'll be going back before then but we always try to go up early for the August race at Bristol. We'll bring some sponsors and stuff and play a little bit before the racing starts.

This latest trip, I shot 77-74, which is pretty good there because it's such a hard golf course. I've been playing lights-out here lately, so to go to that place with the greens reading around 14 on the stimp meter, and for us to be able to go up there and be able to do that was pretty cool.

But I've been hitting the ball well. My TaylorMade irons, well, I've been hitting them dead-on. And the funny thing is I talked about going to TaylorMade out in California when we were out to Fontana at the beginning of the year -- but I never did go.

I've got the rac LTs, still. I can't find anything that I can hit better than those, and I've got them dialed-in right now as far as yardage is concerned. And I know how to draw them and cut them so I don't really want to mess with 'em.

I know I was going to go out and get fitted for a new set at TaylorMade, but what we decided on was that what I've already got is pretty good for me, and it works good for my swing. (Continued)