Golf Trip to the Carolinas

Nice, buddy. Had Dad been outhitting you with the new driver?

Kevin

Dad has picked up 10-15 yards off of his old driver, but is still not outhitting me. He is driving it over 200 yards, which is pretty good for a 69 year old!

Great pics Ary; place looks very well maintained!

So, what exactly did you take on number 8?


Tappin' from my iPad!

#8 was a par 3 playing about 140 yards. It went like this: Ridiculously fat shot off of the tee that went about 60 yards, then tried to hit a 3/4 wedge onto the green that was a half-s****. 3rd shot should have been a simple pitch shot onto the green....except that I pulled it into a bunker that was about 5 feet deep. 4th shot barely made it out of the bunker, 5th shot was a chip shot that I tried to make instead of just getting it close, went 10 feet past the hole. Missed the first putt for 6, tapped in for 7. I was really angry after that hole, and my tempo was shot because of it, took me 6 holes to get it back.
 
#8 was a par 3 playing about 140 yards. It went like this: Ridiculously fat shot off of the tee that went about 60 yards, then tried to hit a 3/4 wedge onto the green that was a half-s****. 3rd shot should have been a simple pitch shot onto the green....except that I pulled it into a bunker that was about 5 feet deep. 4th shot barely made it out of the bunker, 5th shot was a chip shot that I tried to make instead of just getting it close, went 10 feet past the hole. Missed the first putt for 6, tapped in for 7. I was really angry after that hole, and my tempo was shot because of it, took me 6 holes to get it back.

Ouch - tough hole but glad you still had a great time. I know that terrible gigantic fat shot all too well; very frustrating.


Tappin' from my iPad!
 
Ouch - tough hole but glad you still had a great time. I know that terrible gigantic fat shot all too well; very frustrating.


Tappin' from my iPad!

I'm playing golf with my dad on good courses and in great conditions, it's pretty hard not to have a great time.

That hole made me so mad because I just kept hitting stupid shots. The more I do that, the faster I get in playing shots, and I don't go through my normal routine, which makes things even worse.
 
Happy to hear you're having a good time Ary. Gee you missed the snow. :)
 
Sounds like a trip so far Ary other than that par 3. Good luck on the rest of the trip, I'm jealous.
 
Thanks for posting the pics. Brings back lots of memories of those courses.

Your tee shot on #17 at Woodcreek was brilliant.
 
Beautiful pics, Ary. Thanks for posting!
 
Looks like you had a great time!! Thanks for the pics buddy!
 
Awesome pics Ary. Thanks for posting them
 
Sounds like a great trip, enjoy the time with you dad.
 
After an easy 2.5 hour drive from South Carolina and lunch in Pinehurst Village, my dad and I tackled Dormie Club. First of all, a little information about that course: it opened last year and was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who also designed courses such as Bandon Trails and the Plantation Course at Kapalua as well as doing the renovation of Pinehurst #2. Their design philosophy is a "minimalist" philosophy, so the course had very little rough on it, but lots of difficulty on and around the greens. When construction started on the course, it was meant to be a private club, but the people behind the course weren't able to pull that off in this economy, so it's open to the public through the end of 2012. It seems like a lot of people don't know about it, we didn't see very many other people on the course. The course was meant to be a walking course with a caddy, and that's what we did. Our caddy, Jimmy G, was awesome and gave us lots of good reads on the greens as well as yardages from the fairway. I also told him about the Morgan Cup, which he thought was one of the coolest things ever! He spends some of his time at True Blue and Caledonia, and he ranks Caledonia as his #1 course in the entire Myrtle Beach area. He's going to check out THP in the future too.

The weather left a little to be desired as the temperature struggled to get over 50 degrees, and we were playing in the rain after hole #8, but it was still a good day. The course is FUN, lots of different options on it, and all 18 holes seemed to be a little different from one another. The course also plays pretty firm and fast, you can get a lot of roll out there so the ground game is an option. We actually didn't keep score for the entire round because we were using different tee boxes all day long based on what distances worked best for my dad and I, but I do know that I made par on the last 4 holes, which was a great way to finish. If you live in NC or are planning a trip to the Pinehurst area in the near future, I would DEFINITELY add this course to your rotation. I wish I could play this course every day, that's how much fun I had.

The cloudy and rainy conditions didn't make for the best picture-taking environment, but I took a ton of them anyways. The entire photoset is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54298979@N04/sets/72157627898092621/

Some of my favorite pictures are in the spoiler tags below.

Spoiler

View from the tee on #1, which is a par 4. The drive goes downhill, then the approach shot is back uphill.

6300288508_de72894e37_z.jpg


View from in front of the green on #3, a short par 4 that is drivable when the conditions are right. Tons of movement in this green, which makes a short approach shot tricky. My ball is on the green to the right of the pin after hitting hybrid off the tee, then wedge in from 75 yards.

6300291386_f52167d202_z.jpg


Middle of the fairway on #4, a downhill par 4 that moves from right to left. The fairway is sloped from right to left, then the greens slopes left to right. I made my only birdie of the day here:

6300292700_68ea02103e_z.jpg


Tee shot on #5, a long par 4. Check out the great fall colors!

6300294252_efec987dff_z.jpg


A little reminder that you have to walk past the tees for #14 to get to #7.

6299763471_47b31af19f_z.jpg


And here is #7, the first par 3 on the course. 240 yards from the tips, 210 yards from where I played.

6300298474_b39bec2ed5_z.jpg


Tee shot on #11, another par 4. Good drives end up just short of the native grass area in the fairway.

6299768153_05f77ae57a_z.jpg


Bunkers short of the par 3 #12; all of the bunkers are played as waste areas, so you can ground your club. There are also no rakes anywhere, they don't care about footprints.

6300305232_569445ca59_z.jpg


#13 is a 460 yard par 4! The ball behind the pin is the result of my second shot, and the ball about a foot in front of the pin is the result of my dad's chip shot after being short of the green in 2. Making 2 pars on the toughest hole on the back nine was a thrill.

6300306476_7f821eb458_z.jpg


Cool approach shot on #15, you can play it over the mound on the left and have the ball hit left of the green, and it will funnel all the way down onto the green.

6299774123_049442c597_z.jpg


The last par 3 is #16, what a beautiful hole.

6300309028_921e63ecaa_z.jpg


The approach shot into #18, a 400 yard par 4. I crushed my drive and had 130 left to the pin.

6299778947_421ff041dc_z.jpg


2 awesome guys that had an awesome day.

6299777187_48eecb31c5_z.jpg
 
Thanks for posting the pics Amol. Sounds like you and your dad are having a blast!
 
Last pic is the best! The course looks tough, looked like you had fun!
 
That's a really cool looking course, Ary. Thanks for posting.
 
great pics of some awesome courses, thanks for sharing
 
Great photos from the Dormie Club Ary! Looks like you both played some good golf which usually makes it just a bit more fun. :D

Cool to hear what your caddie Jimmy had to say about Caledonia, that speaks volumes coming from a local guy in the business!!


Tappin' from my iPad!
 
I just got back to my place after flying from Charlotte. The trip was a great time, and it was awesome to see my dad smiling so much throughout the trip.

We played Mid Pines and Pine Needles yesterday. Both are old Donald Ross courses that sit across the street from one another. Mid Pines was the morning round and it was COLD for the front nine. The greens there were not on the level of the other courses, apparently the summer was pretty harsh on those greens. However, it was a very playable course, and I don't think that my dad or I lost 1 ball on that course, which made things very enjoyable. Pine Needles was the afternoon round, and it was cool to play a course that has hosted the US Women's Open multiple times. They had just overseeded for the winter, so it was basically cart-path only. I played my worst 9 holes of the entire trip on the front nine, but recovered a little bit on the back nine, especially by playing the last 4 holes in 1-under-par. We didn't take a lot of pictures of those 2 courses because it was so cold in the morning and then just didn't take many of Pine Needles in the afternoon, so I won't post those here.

This morning was at Tobacco Road. This is a Mike Strantz design, and he is also the designer of True Blue and Caledonia, which will host the Morgan Cup in 2012. Lots of people had already commented that this course would be like nothing I had ever seen before, and that was so true! There is a lot of visual intimidation on this course, and it's very important to know carry distances over hazards as well. The greens were in amazing shape at this course, and some of the greens had really cool slopes where you could feed the ball towards the hole without hitting it straight at the pin, which is always fun for me. However, if you are hitting the ball well, you can score pretty well, and I did that, shooting an 83 which was the best round of the trip for me. I will say that hitting the ball long is an advantage on this course, as all of the par 5's are reachable in 2 shots if you play the correct shots off of the tee. Also, this is a course where the aerial game is preferred as opposed to a place like Dormie Club where you can play the ground game at times. My dad got a little beat up by this course, but he still loved how different the course looked from other courses he plays. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of this course because when I turned the camera on at the first hole, it told me that the battery was about to die. I'm guessing some idiot left the camera on and drained the battery...oh wait, that idiot was me.

Dad and I are already talking about another trip next year, we had that much fun! Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting in this thread. My dad checks out the site on occasion, and he was thrilled that people were following along with our trip. To those of you from the Morgan Cup that met him, he says hello back to all of you.
 
That is awesome Ary. I love Tobacco Road. I think it one of the best courses I have ever played. I am glad you enjoyed it.
 
I've played Tobacco Road once. It was a lot of fun. Scored better than I thought I would. I really want to play Tot Hill Farm.
 
Ary, this has been an awesome thread. Thanks for all the pictures and descriptions. Congrats on a great round at what sounds like a tough course!
 
I've played Tobacco Road once. It was a lot of fun. Scored better than I thought I would. I really want to play Tot Hill Farm.

Very similar, and very hard, just like Tobacco Road. Sounds like a great trip Ary!
 
Back
Top