The Golf Channel did all golf aficionados a solid on Christmas Day by broadcasting old episodes of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf all day long. Watching that beautifully grainy footage from the 1960’s of some of the game’s legends was a fantastic nightcap for the holiday and reminded me of how much I enjoyed those…
Update: Unfortunately for we avid golfers, The Links at Novadell apparently closed its doors for good on December 31, 2016. This was a good one that I’m sad to see go away. The Links at Novadell wins the 2015 Flattest Course Award. Yeah, sure, it’s not exactly a links golf course, considering that it’s eight…
In the realm of golf cinema, anyone who ever picked up a club has their favorite golf movie. Caddyshack is quoted everyday on tee boxes, grill rooms, and corporate offices around the world. Happy Gilmore was an instant cult classic among golfers for its brilliant one-liners and its unconventional underdog come hero narrative. And Tin Cup is…
One of my favorite walks this summer was at the Kenny Rapier Golf Course at My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown, Kentucky. It was neither the easiest nor the hardest course to walk, but it is one of the most pleasant. It’s difficult to succinctly describe the course because it really is a…
One of my guilty pleasures and great joys each winter is reviewing the lists of the major golf publications’ lists of “Top 100” courses and the like. I also enjoy some of the more static lists like the Golf Course Architects Top 100 and the The Links Association’s list of the 246 True Links Courses,…
The results of the November poll question are in and the One Bearded Research Team has analyzed the data, and it’s clear that the you, Dear Readers, definitively prefer unpainted, natural wood golf tees. I’m hardly surprised by this result; sometimes the simplest things are just the best. I’m just curious if this groups’ affinity…
Longview Golf Course, just outside of Georgetown, Kentucky, is a hacker’s paradise. It’s fairly wide open from most tee boxes, it’s sneaky short due to the par three’s being so long, and there is a nice variety among the holes that allow for plenty of different shot-making options. The golf course is out-of-the-way for nearly…
Recently, one of our regular co-conspirators here at OneBeardedGolfer.com was preparing for a trip across the pond to the Home of Golf. Slim needed to provide evidence of his actual golf handicap to the golf clubs he was hoping to play, a common requirement for access to private Scottish courses. So, he set about investigating…
I shouldn’t write this, but on a sunny October day in Beaufort, North Carolina, I was very thankful for the Great Recession that struck in the second half of 2008. I wish were I was compassionate enough that I’d feel bad for the original developer of the North River Club, who lost the golf course…
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…
I had an amusing interaction with a friend on Twitter regarding his superstition about using only unpainted, natural wood tees. Which got me to thinking and caused me to realize I’ve never spent any time thinking about what kind of tee I use. Sure, in the pro shops and golf department of Dick’s Sporting Goods,…
On a sunny, windswept October afternoon, the Country Club of the Crystal Coast proved an ideal place to get out for a few hours, take in some fantastic views of the Bogue Sound and the Intracoastal Waterway, and test my shot making abilities in 20 – 30 mph sustained winds. Situated on the north side…
I’m a vociferous advocate for fast pace of play on the golf course, and absolutely and unapologetically abhor slow play. Loathe isn’t a strong enough word to adequately convey the vile hatred and low regard in which I hold golfers that are unnecessarily slow. Just as Dante experienced seven distinct levels of hell, I discern…
I try to remember all the good shots: the bombed drive, the approach knocked stiff, the incredibly unlikely putt that goes in. At some of the more memorable courses I’ve played, I’ve tried to hold on to a memory of at least one good shot with some success, even as the years stack up in…
Our final 18 holes of our two-day whirlwind trip along the Alabama Robert Trent Jones Trail was the Links Course at Grand National in Opelika, Alabama on a Tuesday afternoon. We basically had the course to ourselves, as no one else was dumb enough to play golf in 95-plus degree heat with 90% humidity in…
It’s generally acknowledged that baseball players are probably the most superstitious athletes as a group. Sure, there are outliers in every sport, like Michael Jordan and his famous UNC Tar Heel gym shorts and Les Miles’ appetite for football field grass. But as a group, baseball players have no equal when it comes to trying…
There’s supposed to be a glowing review of Devou Park Golf Course in Covington, Kentucky, in this space, replete with beautiful pictures of the course and surroundings, a riveting course description, and colorful anecdotes of a fun, memorable afternoon. Instead, you get the story of why I walked off of a golf course at the…
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…
Of all the factors an architect must juggle in designing a championship caliber golf course, the balance between creating a fun playing experience for the “average” golfer and producing a course that will challenge the best golfers is probably the most delicate. Robert Trent Jones, Sr., and his design associate Roger Rulewich absolutely nailed this…