I was the absolutely just the worst type of golfer. A lunatic. Insufferable. Reprehensible. A laughing-stock. I was, indeed, a vanity handicapper. Despite my best efforts to free myself from the shackles of pride, false bravado, and trying to control perceptions of me in all phases of my life, the hardest vanity to let go…
Playing Grand National’s Lake Course on the Alabama Robert Trent Jones Trail one week after the PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship was contested on the course was a rare treat for our group. It is probably as close as we hacks will get to competing on a venue set up to host some of the highest…
There’s something to be said for accepting certain truths about one’s self, in golf as in life. One of the essential components of developing my golf game, in addition to the lessons that have produced and honed the physical fundamentals of my swing, is realizing what works and what doesn’t before a shot is even…
In Central Kentucky, August usually marks the peak of the summer heat. Lawns go dormant. Creeks and ponds dry up. Corn sometimes pops on the stalk. And most of the golf courses get firm and fast, with enough brown overtaking the green in the turf to make the folks at Chambers Bay proud. (I say…
The Senator Course at Capitol Hill on the Alabama Robert Trent Jones might be the most unique, and unexpectedly great, course in the southern United States not on the Atlantic Coast. Unique in that it’s a fantastic links style course, with only one tree and one water hazard in play, giant, rolling greens, and an…
We are the best equipped, most stylishly clad group of wooden soldiers ever to threaten to storm a golf course, at least with respect to our rain gear. However, according to our July poll results, we are loath to actually use the gear for their intended purposes. Collectively, Dear Readers, it appears our spouses, parents,…
As I’ve transitioned into my mid-to-late thirties, what is important to me on a golf trip, or a road trip of any kind, has changed. Comfort and intelligence have replaced expediency and cheapness as overriding principles of the getaway. Gone are the days of contentment with piling 8 un-showered guys into a car for 10…