Last month the summer kicked off with a great weekend of golf with John Stiles and John Mayhugh over at Holston Hills and Lookout Mountain. Two fantastic courses and great company as I have been exploring a new region of the US.
I had a great day a couple of weeks ago playing Oak Hollow with John Moore. It is a Pete Dye course from 1972 near High Point, NC. It has to be in the running, if not the outright winner, for best value in US golf. $16 for a round!!!!! A lot of interesting holes for the money. Conditions were pretty good, pace of play was glacial, but apparently that was an aberration (it was the day after 4th of July weekend). Good luck with the Coast Guard John.
A big thank you for all the GCA'ers who came out to welcome Ash Towe up from New Zealand. Ash was just so appreciative of having the opportunity to meet you guys. I'm sure he'll be chiming in next week after he gets home and catches his breath. Doug Wright organized a group for dinner and it was great to put some more faces to names and enjoy the camaraderie of like-minded golfers. It was cool that one of the guys at dinner, Jim, received an email from Ran welcoming him as a member to GCA while we were sitting there eating. The folllowing day Adam Clayman and Daryn Soldan joined us for a fun 27 hole day at Wild Horse. That area has been hammered with rain the past month (they have already exceeded their annual rainfall!!!), so unfortunately the course didn't exhibit it's usual firm and fast characteristics. Josh, the super, does an absolutely amazing job with the course on what has to been an exceedingly limited budget. Sand Hills was also a bit under its usual standard due to the 20+ inches of rain in the past month, but was still a joy to play and we had the bonus of getting a chance to talk to Dick Youngscap one evening. I learned one REALLY interesting thing. Mike Keiser was one of the original investors in Sand Hills. So Bandon didn't just come as a bolt out of the blue.
A HUGE thank you for Matt Schulte for inviting Ash and me out to see Ballyneal. Matt was a fantastic host and the staff at Ballyneal has certainly taken a page from the Sand Hills and Bandon playbook and couldn't have been more welcoming and accomodating. I will start a seperate thread about the course, but suffice it to say that Ballyneal belongs in any conversation of great modern courses. It was also a treat to get to meet Tim Pitner who woke up in the wee hours to come up to join us for a day of golf.
Thank you one and all for a great summer and adding to Ash's trip.