I’ve just skimmed through this topic. At the risk of repeating what’s already been said, I was over at BD less than a month ago. I went with one Bandonista and two links newbies, all average golfers at best (15 to 20+ cappers). One the first tee the first day I said to the caddies that we don’t care what score we shoot, if there is a match, just tell us who’s up or down in the match, and if there is a cool links shot to play that we can’t play anywhere else, tell your player about it. We pretty much stuck to that script throughout the rounds. Matches were abandoned and the betting was hole by hole or shot by shot with the caddies driving the action between themselves. Predictably, the golf was grotesque at times with some huge scores, not that we were counting, but we had a ball with lots of needling and plenty of laughs. I’d say that these AG’s had their links epiphany and loved it. Sure, they all wished that they had played better and left with the resolve (fantasy) to work on their games so that they could return ASAP and enjoy it even more. Being a golf wacko that occasionally hangs out on this site, I’m not sure how much I influenced their experience with my enthusiasm for links golf. Probably quite a bit. Whatever, it was fun to watch the baptism and subsequent conversion.
To be fair, this trip wasn’t just the average group of retail golfers. We played with some of the guys working on the new Preserve course, Wood Sabold, the resort photographer, a few locals, and the most gung-ho of links caddies, hand-picked by C&C’s lead associate on the Preserve, Dave Zinkand, who also played when he could. Given this talent pool of links enthusiasts, it would be almost impossible for the AG’s to avoid being converted. Kind of like playing with the guys on this site.