"currently battling with my dear friend, the Silverstripe CMS" - 18 hours ago
"is thoroughly relaxed at another Irish farmhouse B&B, this time one run by a character and a half, Sharon Moore.... http://fb.me/Fd1zVe5z" - 1 day ago
"Is this the Nellie bunker you were talking about mate? Safely avoided I'm pleased to report http://fb.me/EHAvCmyU" - 2 days ago
Guys, team, readers.
We've now completed our Scottish leg - and what a 45 days it was! Thanks to everyone involved from the MacKenzies up in the far north to Pooky in Gleneagles and the various aunties and uncles of Jamie in and around Edinburgh and Fife!
Over the course of our Scottish leg we had 3 kind folk donating 1 pound for every birdie we made and 10 pounds for every eagle. The outcome through 45 days? After numerous missed putts and 'what-could-have-been' opportunities was 152 Birdies and 4 Eagles!
Irish Fundraising - Get involved!!
We're now one day through our Irish leg. Over the next 24 days we will play through Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland driving a fair few miles in the process!
So far we have 2 people who have kindly agreed to take part in the Ireland Birdie / Eagle challenge - including Jamie's father Mike who hails from these parts. Trust me when I say it's hugely motivating when we're standing over a birdie putt to know that when it rolls in the side door some benefit will come from it to the great folk at The First Tee.
For those who are new to our charity - The First Tee - it's a cause worth supporting. They give kids the opportunity to get into golf and learn some of the amazing life lessons we've been fortunate to pick up over the years (and this year in particular!). All of the donations are going straight to the program and we hope that over the course of the year we'll raise enough for them to expand into the town where Jamie and I went to school and university back in NZ, Christchurch. Have a read here for more information about TFT.
We'd be stoked for readers from across the world to get involved!!! - please email me if you're in to be part of the challenge. And to Mike and Carol - on behalf of Jamie, myself and the folk at The First Tee - Thank you!
M
Western Gailes is a course that I knew nothing about before today. I had not read about it, nor had I heard any rave reviews about it. So there were no expectations as we drove into the gate across the railway lines onto the property that sits adjacent to Royal Troon, Prestwick and Glasgow Gailes. Being in such close proximity to the supreme rolling seaside land of the aforementioned courses I should have realised we were in for a real treat.
On the first tee we were welcomed by the starter, a lovely old chap called Henry. Henry shared with us a few wise words about the course and told us about its pedigree as final open qualifier course and from hosting other big tournaments such as the Curtis cup and the national amateur championships.
The first hole is a pleasant and straight forward par four (the first of 13 par fours on the course ranging in length from 309 yards to well over 470) and a chance to get into the groove, before the next holes which really press the right buttons.
After finding one of the well positioned pots on the third, it was the approach to the 4rd hole (below) where the first touches of real class glimmered as I looked up at the green with wedge in hand and all I could see were the two bunkers front and left with broad shoulders making the seemingly innocuous pin placement all of a sudden that much more difficult.
Standing on the 5th green both JP and I were thinking, out load to ourselves, wow this is a great track. Serious well positioned pot bunkers laid out on a stunning piece of rolling land sitting adjacent to the water. A wee breeze blowing off the sea was also asking for just that little bit of creativity.
And then we made it to the 6th tee. After a few moments of deliberation on where to hit our tee shots we consulted the course guide Henry had kindly given us and finally took aim and fired blind over a mound. The balls swung right to left off the sea breeze and ended up there or thereabouts. Before we knew it we were knocking our 2 irons over a mound towards the blind green. A few bounces later and we were not too far short and standing amidst the dunes over pitch shots to an ingeniously located green set amidst the dunes....
The rest is history as they say – I knocked it up from 50 yards and left it right in the jaws rolling in from the left and the JP beat me to it rolling it right in the cup from the right - BOOM. A combined 7 shots is not bad going. And crucially 11 pounds for the first tee from each of our benefactors taking part in the Scotland Birdie / Eagle challenge. Check out the video below!
On a high and loving the golf course nothing changed on the 7th despite the two of us ruining our pleasant looking scorecards with matching 5’s. But nevermind the score – the 7th is a superb hole played along the water and to another green nestled into a creative home and flanked by bunkers.
8 and 10 are a couple of par fours played over a burn both running the same direction and both merely a 2 iron and sand wedge. Since finishing our round and talking about Western Gailes I think it is these two holes that create the bront of the criticism because of their sameness. It is almost like the course allows the golfer to take their foot off the throttle just as they are warming up.
9 (below) is the rose between the thorns, albeit a hole of the same length (or a touch shorter) and played in exactly the same direction. A strongly hit drive could find a down slope and sneak between two bunkers leaving an eagle putt. But the smart play is to lay up leaving a short wedge where you can’t see the base of the pin and to a two tiered green that you simply must not miss. One of those wedge shots that really gets the blood pumping.
After a couple of strong par fours, 11 and 12, and the short par three 13th (where I played merrily in the sand whilst JP continued his fine golf) played out to the southwestern corner of the golf course from where it is time to turn and follow the train tracks back towards the clubhouse. 14 is a par five, reachable in two if you can navigate around the pots (lesson learnt the hard way). Another great green complex framed by the railway line, a couple of pots and a subtly sloping green.
15 pictured below is a gorgeous par three and upon JP making another par a good round was beckoning.
But then on the 16th tee things when awry. With JP eyeing the possibility of beating his old foe named par, he was unstuck by the burn which rolls around 40 yards short of the green. I must admit with the strength of the finish here, and the OOB looming down the right hand side of the last few holes I was kind of glad that it was not me trying to grind out a 'round-of-the-year'.
17 is another tee shot flanked by the train tracks but then this hole, with a ledge through the middle of the fairway, kinks back towards the ocean where you must play a blind shot with only a bright red cross to aim at.
The 18th leaves you at peace with yourself and with Western Gailes - a more gentle finish that leaves you wanting to come back for more. And that we did, but not before JP raised another hundred dollars or so from the gentlemen inside for The First Tee. Thanks gents and the crew at Western Gailes (I believe the secretary is from down under?) for a cracker of a day at one of the most under rated courses of the year.
Postscript: Birdie tally through today’s round is 27 birdies, 1 eagle totallng 37 pounds to the first tee for each of our now three contributors. We encourage you to get involved in our Scottish birdie challenge – we’d love to have even more riding on each hole!!
PPS - A MUST PLAY if you're coming to Scotland
OK so a fundraising initiative that Jamie and I hope a few more people will want to become part of!
In Scotland, for 45 days, we're on somewhat of a birdie challenge all for the benefit of The First Tee. Check out the video below for the details, and we hope that a few more people will be keen to take part. It definitely gives an extra meaning to the 6 footer for birdie, or dare I say rare Eagle putt..
Day 162 was such a long day that I need a contents page for this blog. Seriously. Part one will feature our golf for the day at Champions Retreat. The second part, our fundraising tournament with The First Tee of Aiken, and the grand finale, a must read, about our dinner at the Sage Valley Club.
Waking at 530am in Aiken at the Brewer residence, we were due to meet our hosts Nick Carter and Gary McMahan at Champions Retreat by 745am. Champions Retreat is a new golf development North West of Augusta, Georgia. What we hadn’t accounted for in our planning was the 75 minute drive to get there from Aiken (after our now customary wrong turn or two) so even with the red eye start we were still a couple of minutes late.
Champions Retreat? Good track where the developer managed to convince Palmer, Player and Nicklaus to all build 9 holes each of Great Golf. He must have had some diplomacy skills - it’s not often big names will share in their design of a golf course. But with a plot of land nestled next to the Savannah River, some nearby low lying lakes and huge Augusta National esque pine trees the three past champions must have been licking their lips to get out on their diggers and create another masterpiece. And developments here are nothing like down under. This place looks like it's been here an eternity and the Augusta pines and classical architecture make it feel very mature.
(Below is the strong par four 5th hole at Champions Retreat, on the Arnold Palmer 9)
Unfortunately it took me about 5 holes to see the course because I was plagued by a certain block cut that will not be mentioned again today. Or for the rest of the year. Ugly. Not a great day to pull out a new sleeve of golf balls which by the 5th hole all been gifted to the golfing gods, the last sculled out of the greenside bunker into the steaming Savannah River (the water is coming out of a deepwater hyrdo lake and when exposed to the 100 degree humidity there is a fair bit of steam).
The course is like many we’ve played in the USA, in that it is very long off the tips with no roll and that you simply take driver without thinking on every tee. A bombers course. I was craving some roll and to be able to hit a stinging 2 iron by the end of the round, and it got to the stage where I had to revert to such shot to keep the ball in play. As an example, however, I hit a low one out on the 18th hole pretty flush, but it rolled no more than 2 feet. This is in the middle of summer. Best holes? I loved the par five 5th on the Player nine: a tee shot over a marsh to a fairway that is VERY wide, but then a second shot resembling the 13th at Augusta. It had a creek short that meandered across the fairway short of the green and away and along the right hand side of the green. My three wood followed its path all the way: lesson of the day Lay Up more often. Palmers best was probably a par 5 as well, the third and pictured below. Water right all the way along and bunkers left. Of Course. Risk and reward to take on the lake short of the green with bunkers left for the bail out. I made a DNF, JP a solid par rolling one in from 25 feet.
Nick, in my cart, took on Jamie and Gary in a best ball. Gary and the two of us gave Nick 6 shots so when Nick started knocking his pitch shots within a putter length I knew I was onto a winner. Unfortunately Nick’s shoulders grew tired of carrying me and we were 1 down at the turn. Nick is a champion of a man. I’m getting used to saying that a lot, but believe me when I say that Mr Carter was a real Southern Gentleman. When he wasn’t sinking clutch putts to keep us in the match he was sharing stories about life in these parts (where he owns an electrical business) and how he would love to have us stay when we make it back here another time. Gary Mac is in the timber gig and it looks like he gets a bit of time to play golf as he had it on a string. The two snap hookers (Gary and JP) managed to sneak the win on the 18th – a monstrous par four played around a lake, courtesy of JP’s 2 iron to 15 feet for a par, and my three putt. In fact most people would describe my missed 8 footer on the last for the half as a choke. Fortunately we were playing for nothing but pride so Nick didn’t chase me off the course.
Instead we headed to the clubhouse for a spot of lunch where we met one of the Principals and the General Manager, ate a burger (of course) and drank about 7 Arnold Palmers. Buzzing after a great morning, and from the sugar, we set sail to episode two of our day back at Aiken.
The First Tee of Aiken had reached out to us a few weeks back and we had arranged for a joint fundraising 9 hole tournament. Elizabeth Smith, the executive director of this newly formed First Tee chapter was awesome. She is enthusiastic, clearly very switched on and a huge asset for the local chapter. This chapter was set up by Mr Wyatt, a local businessman who also owns the Houndslake Country Club where the First Tee is based.
Elizabeth had arranged a field of around 40 players for this 9 hole scramble (or captains choice as it is known in the USA) as well as seemingly every media agency to come along for the ride.
(Above: Jamie's team, Carol Spencer and Todd - who by the way shot 6 under 30 to come second)
I was joined by Clark and Judy, a local couple who have retired down here from New Jersey and volunteer for the local First Tee chapter, and also a young budding golfer, Brett. We knocked it around with a couple of photographers in tow, including a good lad by the name of Corey who was an interesting character – could relate to doing ‘long distance’ something that was particularly hard this day for me as it was Gretta’s 25th birthday back in NZ. The four of us ended up with 4 under 32 for the nine, which was never going to take the spoils.
After the round Jamie and I shared a few stories and chatted away with the locals. All up we raised a few hundred dollars for The First Tee chapters of both NZ and Aiken which was great. Huge thanks to Elizabeth, Kenny and Lindsey for welcoming us and bringing the day together.
Lastly, our evening at the Sage Valley Golf Club. Elizabeth Smith had arranged for us to go to the seafood buffet at the club and was kind enough to give us 15 minutes after the First Tee event to get changed and ready to go. Formal dress. Scrambling to iron our suits after they have not had not much (zero) use all year, Jamie realized he had left his dinner jacket in the wardrobe of the Gardners way back in San Francisco. Bugger. He managed to borrow one from the Houndslake Country Club so we were all set to go.
The Sage Valley Club is private club in Aiken owned by the founder of the local First Tee, Mr Wyatt. We were hosted by his son Tom Wyatt and his lovely wife Leslie who were great people and made us feel very welcome. This was some true Southern Hospitality - we were welcomed like old friends and Tom told us about their course which was designed by Fazio and we’re gutted that we didn’t fit it into our schedule as I think it is a must play. The dining hall was all class and something unlike anything we would experience in NZ. Members wore their green club jackets, waiters made sure everything was in order and old friends buzzed around telling lies and sharing stories. We sat with Elizabeth, Tom and Lesley and also another couple called Chad and Kadii. Both Chad and Kadi were good golfers - Chad has been the club champion at Palmetto a number of times (Palmetto is a course in Aiken which MacKenzie ran his eye over when he was designing Augusta National). Kadi has been the national champion of Estonia twice! Great story.
The grub? Seafood at its finest. Who said food in the US wasn’t any good… Just try the lobster – which I ate courtesy of some lessons from Tom on cracking it open - or the Southern famous dish the fried catfish. Of course, no seafood buffet would be complete in this part of the world without the Shrimp and Grits. For those down-under Grits is a cornmeal type substance, similar to porridge in texture but tastes more like corn. Google it for a recipe.
So as the time ticked by on what was a huge day we found ourselves sitting around the table explaining why we are called kiwi’s – the shy, flightless, nocturnal and defenseless bird which is the national bird of NZ. A scotch later and the eyes started to glaze over and whilst the conversation kept flowing it was time to get some rest. A day for the memory banks and one part of the world I can’t wait to return to. Thanks to everyone for the day!
Country Club of Charleston. Well well well, this blog was originally written by Mr Patton but being the technologically savvy chap that he is it has disappeared into the black hole within his Apple. Sorry readers you lucked out with my writing but here I go searching into the memory bank to reminisce of day 162 at the Charleston CC.
What comes first to the memory is that it was very and I mean VERY hot. Probably the hottest day of the year to date. And humid. Down the stretch Jamie wilted as the Scots tend to do in 99 degree heat. We all did to some extent. It was so damn hot there were fans on the practice range.
Charleston was the hangover from the monstrous test that was the Ocean Course. And a golfing hangover generally produces a good score as you’re used to facing back to back to back 500 yard into-the-wind par fours, so anything less seems easy. Charleston is not easy mind you. The first hole actually felt a bit like Kiawah as it played staight into the stiff breeze – not a cooling sea breeze but one of those hot ones you’d love to just switch off like when the car air conditioning unit goes bung…
Greeted by Bucky in the pro-shop (an enthusiastic golf pro at the club who is also a First Tee of Charleston Board Member), we quickly met the brains behind day 162 – a lad named Ben Grandy. Ben’s story is as follows: he went to college on a golf scholarship but after a car accident he changed track and went to a different college that aligned with the PGA programme. So 5 years later Ben graduated from college and was a qualified professional. His internships had been done at a number of awesome golf courses in the US including Peachtree, Medinah and Pebble Beach. After graduating and a few months of sleeping on couches playing the mini tours, he woke up and didn’t want to play anymore and went and got a job in the industry. After a couple of years he became part of the set up of The First Tee in Charleston in 2007. Now, 3 years on, the Charleston First Tee has 5 bases and thousands of kids going through the programme. It’s great stuff, particularly in an area such as Charleston where there are many kids who simply wouldn’t get the opportunity to play golf. Of course Ben couldn’t have been this successful if he wasn’t a top bloke – so it was a pleasure to join him for a round and afterwards a spot of sightseeing around Charleston. He even was kind enough to invite us back to his digs to shower up before our drive to Aiken, South Carolina.
The fourth, and the Country Club member of the group was a gent named Frank Norvell. Frank was in the commercial real estate game here in Charleston and has been a member at the Country Club for a Long Time. Frank could play, with a strong draw and getting some good distance with his driver, but we did what all guests are not supposed to do and took the match out today. Frank has become involved on the Board of the First Tee here so has also been a driving force behind the success of this First Tee chapter.
Charleston CC has been designed by Seth Raynor in the 20’s. While I am not familiar with Mr Raynor he clearly subscribed to a design philosophy centering around simplicity. The course has no bells and whistles. Some greens are small, some have huge false fronts and others are protected by the odd precisely placed bunker. I loved a stretch of three short par fours, from the 12th until the 14th holes. All around 370 yards, but each had their own niche. The 12th requires a cut off the tee and then has an elevated green angling away to the left, guarded by a bunker short. This is a short hole but easy to stuff up, particularly today with the green elevated and exposed to the breeze. The 13th is very simple but if you go long, you’re out of bounds. So of course you hit it short and are snaffled up by the false front (and three putt). And the 14th just has a monstrously awful green with many tiers and is devilishly difficult to stop the ball on.
One feature which I particularly enjoyed was the square greens. There were also square ledges around the greens which catch your ball and leave it sitting down a couple of feet from the green.
A couple of holes are worth a quick mention and a photograph. The 11th (below) is a par three which has the biggest false front you have ever seen, a narrow top shelf, and deep set bunkers on each side. A polarizing hole which caused Hogan to call Charleston CC the best 17 hole course he has ever seen. I thought it was a good hole, and fair with the remodeled green giving a backboard on the left of the green. I do think the false front doesn’t need to be part of the green – having it as fairway would help maintenance and have exactly the same effect on the hole.
The other hole is the horseshoe green 16th – see below. This is on the back of a strong par four at 450 yards. An unusual shaped green and JP did particularly well with his putt from the back right to the front left.
As the dehydration set in we meandered up the 18th with the new clubhouse in the backdrop (the old clubhouse had been ruined by a Hurricane here in the 80’s). Our scoring was a collective 32 shots better than Kiawah, with a 76 (M) & 78 (J). It was a pleasure to putt on some pure greens after quite a few of the sanded variety in recent times.. We rehydrated in the clubhouse courtesy of a number of Arnold Palmer’s and had a bite to eat. Huge thanks goes out to Frank for making our experience at the Country Club all that it was.
Lastly, we did some media for the local tv news and then had a tour of Charleston where we saw the slave markets, the tourist district and the old stately homes on the peninsula upon which the city center is based. Then, after a long drive through to Aiken, South Carolina, we were shattered as we greeted our hosts the Brewer Family who had contacted us through our website after hearing our story on the Golf Smater Podcast. We met Steve and Paula and the kids and shared stories of NZ and our golfing journey before we retired for some much needed shut-eye.
Shinnecock
auckland dodgy donald ross links mackenzie melbourne mornington mornington peninsula new york queensland rain royal sandbelt scotland sunshine coast sydney the first tee tpc us open wow
