I received a message this afternoon from my friend, whom we’ll call…Charlie…which, in a roundabout way, informed me that I did not win the Swilcan Package Advanced Tee Time lottery to play the Old Course in 2026. I’ve never been so happy for such a crushing defeat. Why? Because sometimes karma gets you what you…
I didn’t blush, but it was nice to hear nonetheless.
Beyond those surface level conversation starters, though, there’s enough trust in our mutual discretion to speak freely about what’s going right and what has gone terribly wrong, in golf and life. Golf professionals listen to a lot of what people want to complain about, so I think they enjoy the idea of someone actually listening to them for a change.
After a weekend of walking the MidSouth’s best nine-hole courses, I’ve been thinking about my experiences in terms of what sets Sweetens Cove Golf Club and The Course at Sewanee apart.
A few thoughts on twilight golf.
Everywhere that I look in golf, there appears universal, unified messaging on only a single point: I need to hit the ball further. It’s a golf-centric spin on a tale as old as time, increasingly woven into the fabric of the consciousness of any middle-aged man quickly moving closer to his athletic mortality, with his…
The truth of Matt’s final point, that playing up to just a slightly shorter overall yardage still presents interesting challenges yet in a less stressful manner, is the hallmark of a well-designed golf course. Moving up from one set of tees to a shorter set doesn’t magically make a good golf course boring or easy; it makes the challenges less stressful and more enjoyable.
Some golf beats than no golf at all. Once one accepts this fundamental premise, that nine holes might be enough, the struggle for balance between family, career, golf, and other responsibilities feels less like a battle and more like a puzzle. Outside of formal club or league tournaments and golf trip getaways, a majority of…
I’m training for my first marathon. That means I’m going for jogs on as many evenings as evenings as Kentucky weather and this 42 year-old body will allow. On Sundays, I do my “long run” for the week, a predetermined distance that changes each week that I use to build up my endurance towards the…
“Whose idea was it to come to golf practice? Was it your idea, or was it daddy’s idea?” This particular anecdote from one of my teaching pro’s stories is emblazoned upon the walls of my mind, in hope that I might remember its lesson whenever thoughts of my sons and golf collide. As it happens,…
Best that I can tell, the online community lovingly referred to as #GolfTwitter has devolved into something indistinguishable from the rest of social media. What was once a thriving, welcoming collection of people that enjoyed discussing and sharing their golf thoughts and experiences has broken down. It’s been replaced by the same tribal, snarky cesspool…
I’ve been thinking and reflecting upon my emergency, sanity-restoring one-man golf trip to the Sandhills of North Carolina to visit Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club, Hyland Golf Club, and Tobacco Road Golf Club. Here are my musings on what I experienced and what I learned from walking 36 holes at Mid Pines one Friday…
Let me tell me a story about how something so inconsequential, so incidental to the playing of golf can matter greatly to the golf course experience. Can a scorecard matter? Not what is written on the scorecard, not the information printed in ink or the scores scribbled in pencil, but the actual physical scorecard? Yes?…
Standing in fairway of the 457-yard, par four 18th hole of the Leven Links, there was no decision. I was going for the green. As Fred and Matt debated their layup targets, I was brimming with adrenaline for opportunity to hit the perfect shot. Somewhere along my journey as a golfer, I changed. One of…
Ben Hogan is quoted as stating, “A good round of golf is if you can hit about three shots that turnout exactly as you planned them.” During the eight holes of golf I played yesterday, I hit exactly two shots that fit my definition of truly turning out exactly as I planned them. The second…
On my journey from hacker to avid amateur golfer, conquering the weather and various environmental factors encountered on a golf course was nearly as big a hurdle as poor alignment, a bad path on the takeaway, and coming over the top on the downswing. Along the way I have cast out most of the old…
Managing expectations is a tricky proposition, in golf as in life. Balancing hopeful optimism and evidence from past performances without tilting expectations too far in either direction takes mental toughness and discipline, which probably requires a stronger mind than mine. The end of last season was a roller coaster ride that saw me playing the…
I never paid much attention to, or was really even aware of, golf course architecture until recently. I attribute the oversight to how I came to the game of golf and when I got serious about it. Now it’s a subject I can’t help but ponder with disturbing regularity. I played baseball growing up, where…
There has been a conspicuous reduction in the number of new faces working the treadmills, exercise bikes, and elliptical machines at my local YMCA. It seems the six weeks of winter of 2019 has taken its toll on all the Resolutioners hoping against hope that “this was the year.” In order to avoid their fate,…
One bright, breezy Saturday this past December, I finally did something on the golf course that I had been telling myself that I should do for a long time: I played an entire round from the forward (red) tees at Kearney Hill Golf Links. What was supposed to be an exercise in changing perspectives turned…
On Saturday afternoon, I decided to play golf in the rain. Understand that I wasn’t playing golf and then it started raining. Rather, it had been raining for several hours and I decided to go play golf anyway on a cool December day. There were two staff members in the pro shop. They didn’t laugh…
With the PGA Tour visiting Harbour Town and Augusta National this month, there has been plenty of discussion of good and bad golf architecture, favorite holes, restoring versus remodeling, and the like in recent days. This got me to thinking about some of the worst holes I regularly encounter locally, so that I could give…
A few days ago, December 2, 2016, would have been my Dad’s 80th birthday (*as far as the Social Security folks knew), and it occurs to me that he never saw me hit a golf ball. The closest we ever came to sharing a moment on the links was him watching me hit the little…
This is my latest guest column for the #GolfChat Authors project on the topic of great golf course experiences. Great golf experiences happen every day. Take care of the little things, and the big things take care of themselves. It is through this simple prism that this author judges golf experiences from one round to…
Take Dead Aim. Three simple words. One terrifying prospect. The lawyer in me says, “Be risk averse. If you play it safe, you are more likely to take the big number out of play.” Until now, I’ve not had sufficient control of my golf shots to be both aggressive and effective. I have been afraid…