Onward From Augusta: A Golf Road Trip (1)

The Masters is a singular experience. For golfers and golf fans it’s always going to be a top-of-bucket-list event, but even for those with little or no interest in the game, a day at The Masters will bring with it a rare sense of wonder. My first experience… all four days of the tournament in 2011… was so sublime, so transcendent, that I promised myself I’d go again, and that this time I’d bring along the man I share my golf cart… and incidentally, my life… with.

Once a world class globetrotter, Nicholas has, over the years, developed a perplexing aversion to planes, trains and automobiles. However, in the spring of 2015 I managed to strongarm gently coax him into hitting the road with me. Our first stop was Augusta and a Tuesday practice round at The Masters. As I suspected, Nick was as susceptible as anyone to the otherworldly aura inside the gates of Augusta National and spent the day smiling through the dreamy haze of verdant civility. He sipped pink lemonade, admired azaleas and had his first ever pimento cheese sandwich. And at the end of the day called the experience tout a fait inoubliable. He’s French, BTW.

His euphoria was fortuitous, because Augusta was just the beginning. We had our clubs and a rental car, and I (sort of) had a plan: we’d use this opportunity to discover a bit of what makes golf in the Southern US such a singular experience. So we left Augusta in the late afternoon and headed on up I20 into South Carolina, driving through a sudden thunderstorm that ended, fittingly, with a rainbow.

The only small problem was that unbeknownst to my less-than-adventurous partner, I didn’t actually have reservations anywhere till Charlotte, two nights later. I just figured I’d find something along the way that would work for us. The thing is though, Masters Week means very few vacant hotel rooms anywhere within 100 miles of Augusta. I sort of knew this, but chose to ignore it, and after stopping at several motels in Columbia and finding nothing, Nick began to panic. Night was descending, and the once welcoming highway was starting to seem somewhat sinister.

Fortunately, my many years of solo travel in some of the world’s most far flung outposts (thank you Timbuktu) had me more than ready for this type of thing. So while Nick nervously drove on I was able to remain calm, and with a bit of research… plus a healthy dose of creative licence… suggested Chester, SC as the quintessential Southern town, just an hour away, and a perfect place to stay for the next couple of nights. Nick looked skeptical, but chilled a bit when I told him I’d just secured tomorrow’s tee time at Chester Golf Club (thank you on-line booking).

We pushed on up I77 towards the Chester area and eventually came upon a section, just off the interstate, that boasted a couple of humble strip malls, the ubiquitous gas and fast food purveyors and a few generic motels. Whereupon, Nick made a beeline for the homogeneous familiarity of a clean, well-lighted Quality Inn. Exhausted… and overly cautious by nature… he was not about to venture to the rural darkness in search of an unvetted country auberge.

So we checked in at the standard check-in desk, had a standard good night’s sleep with waffles for breakfast and drove 15 minutes to the golf course.

Chester Golf Club was something of a time warp. We found the course to be refreshingly rural… not a house or condo to be seen. The layout is open and forgiving, with wide fairways that allow average players (us) to entertain the possibility of numerous pars and perhaps a few birdies.
The clubhouse is modest, but welcoming, and for the space of 18 holes we felt transported to a simpler time… circa 1975… before everything became so ostentatious.

After our round we ventured into the city of Chester which did, in fact, seem quintessentially quaint and utterly Southern, at least to our New England eyes. Set on a hill, the former mill town features a confederate monument, and a Civil War cannon. The historic district has been restored and the surrounding neighborhoods are lined with stately victorian homes. Were I to make this trip again I’d plan ahead and stay at one of the grand old inns. An Inn on York Street, which actually offers a selection of golf packages, and the Inn Upon Moon River Plantation, where accommodations are inspired by legendary blues, jazz and gospel artists are two we heard good things about.

As the sun set we meandered back to our humble highway hideaway for one more night. Our next stop… just an hour north, in Charlotte, NC… would beThe Ballantyne Hotel with its exceptional championship golf course, and we were definitely looking forward to it.

If you’re in any way attuned to pop culture… or contemporary psychology, for that matter… you’ve probably heard of “Pretty Girl Syndrome”. It’s also quite likely you know at least one or two ladies afflicted with the troubling condition.

The personality traits found in those with PGS are a result of the excessive attention, advice, assistance and unsolicited adoration attractive women receive on a daily basis.

Of course the syndrome doesn’t affect every attractive woman, and those who are affected display a myriad of sometimes contradictory behaviors; arrogance, insecurity, a sense of entitlement, lack of empathy and helplessness are just a few. Women with PGS often complain about being beautiful, claiming that it makes them a perpetual target of jealousy from those less attractive. Their complaints generally garner very little sympathy as numerous studies have proven that attractive people do, in fact, have a quantifiable advantage when it comes to employment and salary. They also receive a disproportionate amount of praise for everyday accomplishments and (women, in particular) tend to get all manner of things for free.

When it comes to perfecting one’s golf swing however, pretty girls may well be at a disadvantage. The theory was explained to me last week at the the driving range by a well-turned-out gentleman in an adjoining bay who seemed to know all about such things.

The day was chilly and overcast. Wearing several bulky layers, my unkempt hair was kept somewhat at bay with an ancient, ill-fitting golf cap. I was working… with less-than-stellar results… on some distance drills I had recently discovered, when I noticed the elegant stranger in his watch plaid cap, looking back at me with a bemused expression. “I have to tell you”, he said, “your swing looks really nice, but you seem to be struggling to make solid contact with the ball.”

Okay so I was having trouble making solid contact. I knew that, and was in the process of self-correcting it. “Yes, I seem to have accumulated a few too many swing thoughts.” I responded with a terse chuckle that I hoped would convey my desire to be left alone. Surprisingly it worked… sort of.

“Oh, well, yes of course,” my aspiring swing coach agreed, “a beautiful woman like you must be getting unsolicited advice all the time.”

Beauty, as we all know, is in the eye of the beholder, and let’s face it, this was a no-frills driving range in Danbury, CT, not a catwalk in Paris or a high-end boutique on Madison Avenue, so I actually was was the best looking (and only) woman in the general vicinity.

Mr. Plaid Cap smiled indulgently. “The consistency of your swing is being sabotaged by ‘Pretty Girl Syndrome’… you’ve just got to try to ignore all the that advice you get from local hackers and concentrate on what you’ve learned from your instructor.” With that he poured his nearly full bucket of balls into my tray and left the premises.

My house is a Queen Anne Victorian, built in the mid-1880s.

Classical columns support a gracious, wrap-around porch, while dentil moldings, patterned shingles and decorative gingerbread gables lend requisite whimsy. I’m in love with the three original stained glass windows that create colorful patterns on the dining room walls.

It’s a gracious old house where I’ve lived happily for almost 15 years, however, I must admit I’ve never actually taken care of the 1/2 acre of land that surrounds our abode. I’ve tended to let my husband handle that part, and he, in turn, has always delegated it to a group of hurried young men with massive landscaping mowers and temperamental weed wackers. They arrive once a week… always in pairs… and spend about 20 minutes before moving on to the next yard. Needless to say, after years of such perfunctory treatment, our lawn was looking less than lush.

When I went out a few weeks ago, to do an assessment, I could barely see the thick, thatchy crabgrass for all the gangly, spider-like dandelions… and those dandelions were being overtaken by aggressive waves of clover. On that weedy note, I decided to see if I could turn things around, and naturally, I took my inspiration from… golf.

Like many home owners, particularly those in America’s suburbs and subdivisions, my horticultural fantasies have long been inspired by my yearly glimpses of a famous golf course in Augusta, Georgia. I’ve even attempted to convince myself that with a bit more effort… and a lot more fertilizer… I could have my own little version of Amen Corner right up here in Connecticut. Fortunately, I never had the time… nor the temperament… to act upon those grandiose fantasies, because the kind of perfection on display at Augusta National during the Masters is not achievable… and certainly not sustainable… for the average “recreational” gardener.

By this particular spring… when I’d finally decided to focus on rehabilitating my lawn… I understood this. The thing is, my aspirations are still based on golf, however it’s now the relatively new but growing breed of environmentally conscious courses that are inspiring me.

The fact is, all over America, golf course managers and superintendents are using less water, fertilizer and insecticides while striving to maintain a beautiful course that challenges, entertains and allows the native ecosystem to thrive.

Most of the changes I’ve made thus far are simple; First of all, I aerated. We’d overlooked that important step for a while and as a result our soil was clearly quite compacted and unable to efficiently absorb water or nutrients.

That was the foundation. The men with the mowers will still come once a week, but I’ve worked with them to ensure that their massive mower blades are kept sharp, and I will regularly remind them not to go too low. While those old time dream courses tend to keep things ultra-trim, I’m keeping my lawn at about three inches to encourage deeper, more disease-resistant roots.

As for weeds, I’m working with them on two fronts; 1) I’m surgically removing them by hand… which can actually be fun with the right mindset… and 2) I’m developing a more accepting attitude to the less annoying ones.

Already, my lawn looks better than it has in years: greener, fuller, healthier. I’ve used no herbicides and no artificial fertilizers… and I’ve relied entirely on rainwater for irrigation. We’ll see what happens as spring gives way to summer. I’m guessing my fledgling lawn, not to mention my current resolve will be put to the test, but for the time-being this more natural approach to a green lawn seems to be working.

Golf meant nothing to me growing up. Which may seem strange when you consider that my first twenty years were spent in Greenwich, CT, where cloistered country clubs… and the golf courses within them… are almost as ubiquitous as the fine restaurants and expensive emporiums that line the town’s main shopping street.

However, Greenwich is a coastal community, and I spent my summers sailing on Long Island Sound. Sunfish regattas and Laser racing… the splashing, speed and billowing spinnakers… seemed so much more exciting to me than the deliberate-looking game that took place beyond the trim hedges of those back country bastions.

Actually, I never thought of golf as a spectator sport. In fact, the only childhood memory I have of televised golf, is the yearly right-of-spring known as The Masters, and I don’t think there’s anyone who grew up in the US who doesn’t have memories of that. The intense, velvety green, the bright pink azaleas, and the evocative Masters song were unmistakable and memorable, and even those who didn’t follow golf inevitably caught bits and pieces of the spectacle each year on a television screen somewhere.

But my most vivid golf memory of that era, the seventies and eighties, is glancing at the television one random Friday in early spring and being confronted by the most implausibly handsome man I’d ever seen. It was Severiano Ballesteros. He’d just turned 23 and was on his way to winning the 1980 Masters. I still remember thinking that he didn’t look like a golfer… though I don’t suppose I really knew what a golfer looked like. I do know I made a point of watching the tournament for the remainder of the weekend, which must have seemed extremely odd to my family. I also absconded with the next issue of Sports Illustrated, the one that featured “The Youngest Master” on its cover.

I developed a major crush that long ago springtime, on the man sports writers everywhere were describing as handsome and dashing. He was sexy and exciting in way that seemed out of context on the trim fairways of staid country clubs. Back then they didn’t use the word hot, but in retrospect Seve was the personification of hot.

His appeal of course, went way beyond his physique. Despite my disinterest in golf at the time, I noticed the way he played; the unbridled, scrambling way. My youthful infatuation made more sense when I read, not long ago, that he had defended that wild Friday round by saying, “…it doesn’t matter where you put the drive if you make the putt” and then adding, “it’s very boring to go fairway, fairway, fairway.”

Seve seemed very foreign too. In the much more insular world of the early eighties, his unaffected elegance was exciting and intriguing… in a way that suddenly made golf compelling, and made me a nascent fan of a sport I’d never had the least bit of interest in before.

Over the year’s that followed I watched the ups and downs of Señor Ballesteros: a second Masters, three Claret Jugs and his prolific Ryder Cup partnership with fellow Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal were all brilliant, though they were sometimes overshadowed by the injuries… and altercations. The spirited Spaniard was prone to back problems… and his demonstrative nature was sometimes misunderstood.

In the Spring of 2011, just a month after I attended my first Masters, Seve Ballesteros died of brain cancer, leaving behind him a legacy of everything that’s magical and inspiring about golf.

The LPGA is transcending golf this weekend, thanks not to a killer leaderboard at their season’s first major, but to a photogenic celebutante with incredible abs and a sizzling/slash/scandalous social media presence.

Paulina Gretzky isn’t a professional golfer or even a particularly avid fan of the sport. She’s a rather good singer though, and she’s the daughter of a great… Great… hockey player. Additionally, as fiancee to Dustin Johnson, a top PGA Tour player, Paulina is a genuine golf WAG, and according to Sam Weinman, web editor at GolfDigest.com, “a certified celebrity within the golf world”.

It’s a nuanced balance of the above elements that led the athletic Instagram queen onto the May cover of Golf Digest… and provoked an outcry that has golf… and the LPGA …being discussed in places that rarely give either a mention.

The controversial cover model, plus some of the ensuing reporting and reaction from golf pundits, officials and industry insiders… most notably LPGA Tour commissioner, Mike Whan and several top LPGA tour players… has been discussed in AdWeek, The New York Times, Mashable and Business as well as countless other non-golf outlets. TV morning shows and radio programs picked up the story as well… and on social media, where uncensored opinionating and viral sharing can amplify a timely topic exponentially, an animated debate is ongoing and has reached well beyond the golf niche. Which brings us to a cynical, well-worn cliche that today is more pertinent than ever: there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

It’s very rare that Golf Digest features a woman on its cover, and for them to choose an aspiring entertainer as opposed to a professional female golfer has created a substantial backlash. However, you don’t get the impression it’s a particularly unwelcome backlash, nor that it came as a surprise to the editors. In fact, some would surmise that… coming just weeks after the launch of a Golf Digest Video Channel and days after a major hompage redesign… the controversial move was, in fact, highly calculated.

Any publication that wishes to thrive (or even survive) in today’s fragmented media/entertainment landscape is seeking to expand its audience. Golf Digest has been quite open about their desire to reach younger, casual golfers and golf fans. They’re consciously seeking to increase their readership beyond that core audience of avid golfers and golf purists who still get most of their golf news and information from traditional media. Because that market just isn’t large enough to sustain the “fully integrated media and marketing company operating across a multitude of platforms” that GD has evolved into.

To stand a chance of reaching… and retaining… their youthful target audience, the editors surely realize that social media strength is vital. They’ve also seen that… in many cases… controversial content equals social media success. In selecting Paulina Gretzky for their cover they got a very attractive woman who in addition to her peripheral golf connection, is an established internet uber-celebrity. Clearly, Paulina’s digital fame was at least as important as her sex-appeal in sealing the now famous cover deal… and the argument that one of many extremely beautiful, incredibly talented LPGA Tour players would have been a better choice doesn’t take that attribute into consideration.

To avid LPGA fans, myself included, who have long lamented the tour’s sparse lack of media coverage, this decision by golf’s most widely read publication is obviously disappointing. However the brand has not gone to great lengths to feature women in the past so it shouldn’t be surprising… given the current climate of content overload and shortened attention spans… that Golf Digest chose Paulina.

Meanwhile, half way through the LPGA’s first major two of it’s most marketable stars Michelle Wie and Lexi Thompson are at the top of the leader board sharing the lead with five time major winner, Se Ri Pak. Let’s hope the Paulina Gretzky/Golf Digest cover kerfuffle inspires social media golf fans to check out the action at the Kraft Nabisco Classic. They may even spot a future cover girl.