I’ve been lucky to have played golf 1/2 around the globe (no Australia, Asia, Far East) and won some am tournaments and club championships, but 2 days on the course I hope to have the facilities to remember forever:
1. I was a founding member of a northern Michigan club (Lochenheath) as my now ex-wife and I had a lake cottage nearby. One day I took my 5 year old kids to introduce the game to them. We spent a little bit of time on the range going over etiquette and fundamentals (the pro came out and gave an impromptu lesson) and then hopped in a cart. It was a perfect August day and we had the course to ourselves. In addition to my clubs and 1 set of US Kids clubs, I brought along a couple fishing poles and a bait net to catch frogs. We played maybe 3 holes and caught (and released) several fish in Grand Traverse Bay and some frogs in a creek that ran down the 14th hole and watched a pair of Bald Eagles flying not 30 feet directly in front of us as that part of the course runs along a high ledge above Grand Traverse Bay. It was my best day ever, golf or no golf.
2. In the summer of 1981 I participated in the Irish Way program, part of the Irish American Cultural Institute,which was held at Gormanston College, north of Dublin. There were 90 of us Irish Americans who were chosen and I was a 16 year old kid from Michigan. That summer Gormanston College was also home to a program that brought Catholic and Protestant kids (10-12 year olds) from Belfast and Derry to participate in a football camp in the hopes of understanding each other. This was during the height of The Troubles as Bobby Sands died less than 4 weeks earlier. Gormanston College had a rudimentary pitch and putt on campus and one afternoon, after classes, I went by the field house and borrowed a set of clubs and some beat up balls. After a couple holes I noticed about 10 of the kids in the distance, walking towards me, obviously interested in what I was doing. Initially, they stood with “their own” but after only a few minutes of playing and competing with each other, the barriers broke down and they just enjoyed the challenge our game and each other’s company. For a while, at least, they were just kids who shed all of the baggage that was part of their cultures at that moment in time. We were out there laughing and playing all afternoon. Another perfect day.