Golfing Highlight of 2017

[Rick Emerson]

1. Trip to Bandon with other GCA gentlemen and my best golf buddy from China who has moved back to the states. Stopped in San Fran on the way there and back to visit my best friend from college and play Cal Club. Met Steph Curry while sharing a burger dog at Olympic with David Tepper.
2. First trip to Scotland and England. Walked  the Old course with my wife on a leisurely Sunday afternoon. Played 36 at North Berwick and met a great new friend. Then on to London and played Sunningdale Old and New and Woking. I shall return as they say.
It’s been a good year.

[Eric Smith]

An interesting year for sure. A lot of laughs.


Probably the highlight for me was at the beginning of the year on Hilton Head, playing several rounds as Kavanaugh's match play partner against our friends, Graham and Hambone. Won't get those brain cells back but it was worth the sacrifice. Good times!

[Joel Zuckerman]

 I played new courses this year at about the same rate I post on the website… Very few, and far between.


 However there was one notable highlight, just a couple of weeks ago: Played Congaree Club in Ridgeland South Carolina. It's a beautiful, bunker-addled Tom Fazio design, not five mile off of I-95, yet deep in the woods, on a 3000 acre property with quail hunting, deer hunting, etc. There are no members per se, just ambassadors, well under a hundred in total, who are tasked with devoting time, effort or financial assistance to those less fortunate.


 The day was beautiful, it was a great surprise to run into GCA colleague Joe Fairey,  and spend the lunch hour with one of the most accomplished club professionals you might never have heard of, John McNeely. But despite all that serendipity, those are not the reasons why I'm posting.


First of all, there are no tee markers. Second of all, there are no hole signs.  Third of all, there was no scorecard, at least not one that was offered to us. When the assistant pro who was our course guide asked what length course we wanted to play, he led us to a certain spot on each of the long, snaking tee boxes. The caddy would instruct us to hit left of a fairway bunker or aim at a tree in the distance, and within an hours time we were completely lost in the moment.  Before long, my buddy and I didn't know if we were on the fifth hole, or the eighth, 12th or 15th… we didn't ask and we didn't care!


 For someone who has had a lifelong attachment to the scorecard, always knows when we'll be making the turn, etc. this 'dream state' of walking, hitting, and walking some more was literally a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

[David_Tepper]

Recently finding a photo of Donald Ross and Ben Hogan (probably taken a Pinehurst at some point) in the bargain bin of the Golf Links to the Past shop at Pebble Beach.

[Mark Chaplin]

2017 has been another year full of humbling and fortunate experiences with no possibility of picking out highlights. The highlight would be meeting and teeing it up with so many wonderful people, playing great courses and combining that with absolutely crazy experiences to make the stories live up to the rest of it.


I can best breakdown highlight per country in order in which they happened.


Australia: so fortunate to revisit some amazing tracks: Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Royal Adelaide, Ellerston, Barnbougle Dunes, Lost Farm, Cape Wickham and Ocean Dunes.


Meeting up with some of the world's best hosts and friends to many of us including, Ben Jarvis, Dan Cooper, Andrew Bertram, Gary Lisbon, Bob Harrison, Graeme Grant and a wonderful coincidental couple of days together with Jim Gold and his lovely wife in of all places Tasmania.


New Zealand:


Kauri Cliffs, Tara Iti, Cape Kidnappers, Kinloch, Paraparaumu Beach, Jack's Point and Arrowtown.


Meeting again with wonderful hosts all over the place: Ryan Brandenburg, Paul Reid, Jon MacCord and Gary Grootelaar.


England: Alwoodley and Ganton


Meeting with my colleague Brian Ward who some of you have had the pleasure of playing with.


Scotland: Ardfin, The Machrie, Machrihanish, Mach Dunes, Loch Lomond, Royal Dornoch, Castle Stuart, Royal Aberdeen, Cruden Bay and Trump International.


Meeting with a few of our regulars including Adam Messix, Mitch Reese, Jon Wiggett and every so briefly David Tepper.


Canada: Cabot Cliffs, Cabot Links, Highlands Links, Royal St. Georges and Hamilton.


Finally meeting Matt Bosela for a great day out and watching him turn it on and come back from 3 down with 4 to play to keep all the pride in Canada and send me South with my tale between my legs. To his credit he was 2 or even 3 under on the last 4 holes. I could only applaud the great effort.


US: Dormie Club, CCNC courses, Mid Pines, Pine Needles, Pinehurst 2, Southern Pines, Old Town Club, Roaring Gap, Tobacco Road and Peachtree.


Wonderful hosts many of us are friends with: Dunlop White, Will Spivey, Richard Brown, one Mr. Morrissett and his ever so lovely better half, Jay Mickle, Kyle Franz and perhaps most importantly Cory Lewis who was there for my first ever hole in 1 at Dormie Club (with of all people my daughter Indy on the bag) and managed to join for a few other rounds during our stay.   


Another highlight of this trip was my lowest round ever and first time I ever broke 70 at Tobacco Road from the back tees.


Follow up US trips this year including:


Oak Hill courses, Oakmont, Oakland Hills South, Chicago Golf, Shoreacres, Onwentsia, Old Elm, Colorado Golf Club, Ballyneal, Prairie Dunes and finally Southern Hills.


Many wonderful people of course on this trip as well but not to my knowledge GCA'ers except; Barry Doyle, Jason Way and to a lesser extent Mel Hughes.


Brazil and Argentina with visits to several courses and games with many of the well known South American Golf enthusiasts including Marcos Cutterbuck, Javier Pintos and Alex Vasarhelyi to name just a few.


Visits to Santapazienza, Olympic Course, Gavea, The Jockey Club, Ellerstina and Olivos Golf Club to name a few.


Finally the last trip a few weeks ago to the Dominican Republic with Robert Birtel being an absolute gem of a host for visits on Teeth of the Dog, Dye Fore and Punta Espada.


Back home I was lucky to host many foreign dignitaries for some great golf and in most cases the weather cooperated nicely. Among the guests were Simon Holt with 7 close friends for a wonderful exchange, also Jim McCann, Brian Ward and Barry Doyle.


A huge highlight is playing all that golf while traveling and having near perfect weather everywhere and not a single rain out or missed round for any reason. That's truly remarkable even to the point of this last story I will leave my long post with.


On one of my trips to the US, logistics had me visiting my mother in Oregon about 52 miles from the Portland Airport. I was scheduled to depart PDX Saturday the 30th of September at 5:15 am. I need to give about 1 hour for the drive due to the fact that quite a bit takes place on secondary roads and partially through two small towns. I was to play Southern Hills at 2 pm that day on my way home to Amsterdam, Tulsa being a place that is extremely difficult to get to living in Europe. My flight the earliest possible only arrived just after 1 pm so it was cutting it tight anyway which I normally don't do.


I set my alarm for 2:30 am and wouldn't you know, it didn't go off. I awoke in shock at 4:02 am. The first thought was, impossible to make this and that means another trip from Europe just to visit Southern Hills sometime. Quite an expense and time commitment of course not to mention a huge waste of money just for sleeping through my alarm. I jumped out of bed and left the house at 4:10 am. Utilized 23 years of German Autobahn driving skills and managed to arrive at the rental car return at 4:50 am. Boarding started at 4:25 and closed at 5:00 am. I didn't have time for stress as you can imagine. Ran to the elevator up over the terminal bridge and down to the United checkin. Imagine my surprise to find absolutely huge lines and with me flying economy with an airline I have no priority with. Thinking on my feet as we sometimes have to, I quickly located the friendliest elderly lady who was working with United, I ran up to her and put on my best Catholic face and said,"Excuse me, ma'am. I know I'm very late but could you please help me, I have to make this flight,...pause... my wife is giving birth now!" It was the only thing I could think of once I looked into her kind blue eyes. As a disclaimer, my last major lie happened when I was 12, a terribly guilty conscious keeps from repeating it. Somehow I've been able to rationalize this last one.


Her sweet reaction lead me to believe I chose correctly. She said, "oh honey come with me let's get you on this plane, no promises but we will do our best." Then she took me over to the first open computer system and called the gate, told me they would hold it open as long as they could and said I could run for it. She then called the baggage department and within 1 minute there was a guy there to grab my bags, golf bag and suitcase. Then I was off racing around the corner only to find a nightmare at security. In 3 minutes I had excused my way through about 200 people to the front of the backed up security checkin. People were wonderful, obviously not a single person said stay behind me. The TSA agent that welcomed me laughing with a big smile said, I watched you talk your way all the way to the front of that huge line, that was amazing, let's race you through this so you can catch that flight. Go figure, sometimes the stars are in alignment. I ran off down the hall towards the gate, and about 75 yds out I heard this lady yelling my name, "are you David" she says, I smiled and said yes. She said, "Well come on honey we held the door open for you." I was on the plane at 5:08 am. I sat in my window seat 7F (?) and looked out the window to see the baggage handlers finishing when a cart pulled up and I watched as my suitcase was safely loaded. I thought to myself, so much for the golf bag. Then I watched as the gentleman loading picked up his walkie talkie and then yelled to the guy driving away with the buggy, not 2 minutes later he came back with my golf bag.


And so ends my long and drawn out highlights for 2017. As always some may enjoy the read and others detest it. C'est la vie! However, it was a very rare year in terms of golf, one I can in no way pick out the highlights for and one that in my mind deserves to be shared given so many of you were a part of it. I go into this golf-less holiday season extremely grateful for all the new friends, old ones and hosts that made 2017 so special!

David this explains why you cannot remember all the holes at Pine Valley 

[Carl Rogers]

Dixie Cup at Streamsong.  I told wife it would be a 1 off trip.  I hope she will forget that................

[Doug Wright]

Arizona winter day trips from Denver, especially Southern Dunes.

Bandon for the Kings Putter; great to meet new friends and see old ones too.

The Walker Cup Sunday singles at LACC with Lynn Shackelford and Mike Whitaker. 

Fall trip to northeast Georgia/western NC, especially meeting up with Mike Young at Athens CC and playing Highlands CC, a must play in that area.

[BHoover]

I didn’t play much in 2017, because we moved from Minnesota to Maryland for a new Job. But highlights included playing several courses for the first time: Prairie Dunes, NGLA, Maidstone, Stonewall, Philly Cricket, and Baltimore CC.

[Bart Bradley]

Watching my son's perfect 9 iron go in for an ace on #11 at the Old Course.  Way to go Matt!


Bart