Trip of a Lifetime

Read about my upcoming roadtrip across the greatest country on earth.

Monday, January 30, 2012

LA la land: Episode 2

Well, we are back on the road again. Mike just took over driving for me and we are currently 180 miles south of San Francisco, our destination.

So the last 36 hours in LA can only be described as ridiculous. In LA fashion, let me use a movie line to more accurately convey what I mean.

In the movie, "the A Team" with Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson; Jessica Biel's character is trying to describe the A Team. "they specialize in the ridiculous."

Well, so do Mike and I. We specialize in the ridiculous. After I played Riviera on Saturday afternoon with two of their assistant professionals, I drove to LAX and picked up Mike. We then drove to downtown LA to see and stay with our friend Alex Stevenson (another Clemson buddy). After Mike realized he was super jet lagged, we called it a night.

At 6:30am, we raced over to Bel Air Country Club. My friend Mason Merrins ( the son of the legendary "little pro" Eddie Merrins) set us up to play with member Arnie Messer. Arnie owns a movie production company and was thrilled to be playing with two golf professionals. Bel Air is a great little George Thomas designed golf course and is a crazy experience. Tunnels and elevators and the swinging bridge are all part of your round. The house where they filmed the first two seasons of the Bachelor show is right off the fairway on # 14. When we finished, they were setting up for a classic cars party/show/exhibition. And we saw Al Michaels, the ABC sports announcer.

And that was just the morning.

After a quick lunch in the grill room at Bel Air, we drove ten minutes over to LACC. A national member and former club champion at Baltusrol, who is also a member at LACC, Mr. Jeff Kiley was our host at LACC. The North course was totally awesome, the third George Thomas design we played....maybe the best too. Riviera gets more publicity but the north course at LACC is tougher I promise.

Be sure to check out the picture of Mike trying to peek through the fence of the Playboy Mansion, which backs up to the north course.

After meeting some cool people in the clubhouse at LACC, we changed up real quick and headed back downtown to Morton's Steakhouse with our friend Alex and a few of his friends. ( the one girl we were with was from Conestoga...go figure). We ate like 200 pounds of food at Morton's. Alex is a bartender there and he gets 50% off. Win. After checking out a rooftop bar called the Standard Bar, we headed back to Studio city, where we spent the night at the Bernstein's house again. Better than any hotel, that's for sure! Thanks again guys!

So as one ridiculous part of this trip ends, another one starts right up. We have 7 rounds of golf in the next four days....starting tomorrow with San Francisco Golf Club in the morning followed by Lake Merced Golf Club in the afternoon. Mike's boss at Ridgewood, Dave Reasoner is joining us for the next week as is our buddy from Clemson, Andrew Black, who is an assistant professional at Mayacama Golf Club in Santa Rosa.

Tonight we are staying at the Argonaut Hotel in San Fran...thanks to Reasoner!

Anyways, we got the oil changed on the truck this morning and we have now gone 4500 miles on this trip.

And as we drive up the coast, the temperature is dropping. We are getting dangerously close to sweater vest weather again!!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Riviera

Just some pictures tonight. I am too tired to write anything much.

Shot 37 on the back nine...front night was crummy.

Bel Air and LACC tomorrow. Goodnight.

Reed

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Scottsdale and Palm Springs

Is this real life?

Why don't I live here?

Scottsdale and Palm Springs are two of the most ridiculous places I have ever been too. (I have been to Phoenix before, but it was a business related thing for the Ping company) Both of these places are desert retirement communities. To that point, I went out last night with my buddy Joey and we couldn't find any good looking girls under the age of 40. Oh well.

In any case, Mike and I played the Desert Forest Golf Club Wednesday morning. We were guests of member Mr. Todd Martin. Todd is the President of the golf division at the Peter Millar Clothing company. Desert Forest is the original desert golf course and it is hard. This year is it's 50th anniversary and 50 years later, it is still super hard.
Did I mention it was a hard course? Like neither one of us had a prayer of breaking 80 hard.

It was so cool though. Quite an experience to play there. For both Mike and I, it was our first time playing golf in the desert. Thanks again to Todd for setting us up out there. The professional, Brandon Rogers was also great to us.

So after dropping Mike off at the Phoenix airport, (following my first experience at In and Out Burger near the Arizona State campus), I headed to California by myself.

4 hours and an overturned tractor trailer delay later, I arrived in the Palm Springs area. My buddy, Joey Glander, who I know from Baltusrol, now works at the Club at Morningside in Rancho Mirage, CA.

This Jack Nicklaus designed course is really cool. Mountains in the background, the greenest grass you have ever seen and the most impressive landscaping I have ever seen. Good golf course too.

Joey beat me today with 74 (5 birdies in the first 10 holes.) I shot a super boring 78....12 pars and 6 bogies. I felt like giving my clubs away...

You should see all the private golf carts too. We were one of the only golfers using a cart owned by the club. Everyone else had a replica Mercedes cart or replica Rolls Royce cart. Ridiculous but cool...I guess.

So tomorrow, I will head to San Diego first thing in the morning. Torrey Pines is my destination to watch the Farmers Insurance Open. I have a ticket waiting at will call! After catching some good PGA Tour action, I will brave traffic and head to LA.

Check out some pictures from our round at Desert Forest yesterday and my round today at Morningside.

Thanks again for reading. Hopefully, I make it to LA in one peace tomorrow. Anddd hopefully Mike survives the PGA show and gets back to LA in one piece.

85 degrees here today by the way. Oh and Joey likes fishing for golf balls I think.

Reed

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Arizona

Today has been quite the day of traveling. It all started last night though!

We left Dallas National Golf Club at 5:30pm. We finally quit driving west through Texas at 1:00am in a little town called Van Horn. Population: 17?

We spent $60 on a room at the Days Inn. We slept for 7 hours and were just about to get back on Interstate 10 when this lady came up to us and asked if we could help roll her Acura sedan up on to this trailer. I don't know what we were doing wrong but we never got that car to roll forward one inch. Ironically, her husband/friend/some other dude that was trying to help her was a retired PGA professional. Go figure.

So we started driving. We did 7 hours last night followed by 9 hours today. About 1000 miles total. We have now gone over 3500 miles on the trip.

We arrived in Scottsdale just as the sun was setting, actually we are staying at a house in Paradise Valley. Thank you to the Hays family (Ridgewood members) for hosting us tonight and for taking us to a wonderful dinner at Paradise Valley Country Club!

We are all set for Desert Forest Golf Club tomorrow morning at 8:30am. Right after, I will rush Mike down to the Phoenix airport so he can fly to Orlando for the PGA show. I will then head to Palm Springs, where it is supposed to be 80 degrees the next few days!!!

Thank you lord!

No pictures tonight, sorry.

Thanks for reading, even if it was just a short update tonight.

Reed

PS...the grass is green here and it's glorious.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Heading west....

Originally, the plan was to head west first thing this morning.

As of 6pm tonight, we are just barely out of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

Special thanks to the Dallas National Golf Club professional staff for setting us up with member Dr. Bernie McCaskill. We also played the majority of the round with member Glenn Soloman. Both gentlemen were a blast to play golf with and provided two terrific hosts for the # 59th ranked golf course in the country. The Tom Fazio design was high above Dallas, built on an old quarry. It is regarded as the best design in Dallas. The greens were perfect, running close to 12, but super challenging.

The clubhouse and general amenities were also very impressive. We also had the best caddie we have had on the trip so far. Rick, was a former assistant professional, who figured out that he could make more money looping.

We also saw Orioles coach Buck Showalter at the club today.

So we played 5 rounds in 3 days in the Dallas area...what a stretch of golf! Only thing I didn't like about Dallas and only golfers will be able to appreciate this. All of the grass on these courses is very dormant Bermuda grass or zoysiagrass. This grass is so dry and tight that you can't take much of a divot and your clubs don't dig into the ground very well. And my wedges are designed for bent grass fairways like we have up north, meaning lots of bounce (10 degrees)...which means I was miserable inside 100 yards this past weekend. Best part about Dallas is that I was hitting the ball a mile and a half with my driver.

So now we head west. We are now about 60 miles west of Dallas and already, there is nothing...Just the highway(I-20). Good thing we have satellite radio. So far on the trip, we have driven 2,451 miles. We have 17 hours to go to get to Phoenix.

We don't have a plan as far as stopping somewhere tonight. I think we will drive as far as we can tonight and finish the rest tomorrow. So if you don't hear from us by late tomorrow afternoon...call the Texas state police and tell them to look in West Texas.

It got pretty warm in Dallas today but the sweater vest finally made an appearance!! On two other weather related notes...the next five or six places we are traveling to are all calling for perfect weather. And...Tahoe finally got hit hard with a lot of snow!!

Thanks as always for reading.

Reed

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The big D

Mike and I arrived in Dallas at 8:30 on Friday night. With jeans and a t-shirt on, we did a super fast change in the car so we could have dinner at Colonial Country Club with our Friday night hosts, Bob and Lisa Haslam.

Saturday morning, we played Shady Oaks Country Club with Jim and Nick Jay. It was freezing and the only thing colder than the weather was my golf game. Shady was a tough little course but we really enjoyed all the Ben Hogan history. After a quick lunch, we raced over to Colonial Country Club. The temps finally warmed up a little bit, my game, however, only showed flashes of brilliance. No short game to speak of and no consistency.

After a quick beer with Bob at the Railhead BBQ restaurant, we drove to Dallas to meet up with a Baltusrol member that lives here in Dallas.

John and Kathy Vassallo hosted us Saturday night and tonight as well. John took Mike and I out on the town in the Uptown section of Dallas. We did a little bar hopping but after 36 holes during the day and 36 more scheduled for the next day, we turned in around 1am.

This morning, we played Brook Hollow Golf Club with John and his buddy, Dr. Mack Payne. That was our group all day and despite some challenging wind conditions, the four of us played some decent golf. My putter woke up, with the help of the claw grip and my tee shots were greatly improved. I even birdied the last two holes today. Positive signs for the rest of the trip. This afternoon, we played Vaquero Golf Club. Vaquero is one awesome place, the service incredible and the Fazio designed golf course was really sweet.

And there is very exciting news concerning the rest of the trip. First off, we have a tee time at Dallas National Golf Club tomorrow at 12:30 (#59 in the country). Then for the California swing, we have secured San Francisco GC (#33) and Lake Merced GC for Tuesday, January 31st. Wednesday, February 1st, we are playing The Cypress Point Club (#5) and the Preserve Golf Club (#68) that afternoon. And Thursday, the 2nd, we are playing the California Club in the morning and the Olympic Club (#27) that afternoon. Finally, on Friday, we will play our last round of golf of the trip at Mayacama Golf Club (#82).

Thanks to our buddy Andrew Black for setting up much of the norcal golf.

In other random Dallas trip news, we saw Owen Wilson (the actor) at one of the bars last night and we saw Sean Payton (Saints Coach) at Vaquero today.

We have officially now gone over 2000 miles on the trip. We will head west after golf tomorrow with the goal of at least getting halfway to Phoenix (Dallas to Phoenix is a 17 hour drive.) As long as we get there by Tuesday night sometime, that's fine. We play Desert Forest Wednesday morning in Scottsdale.

The Peter Millar Clothing has been incredible though. Had to wear a long sleeve golf shirt, a wool sweater and my PM fleece yesterday to stay warm. Weather changed this morning (70 degrees today) and all I needed was a Peter Millar Summer Comfort golf shirt.

Still no sweater vest...

72 holes in 2 days...I am exhausted. Thanks for reading!

Reed

Friday, January 20, 2012

Bourbon Street adventures...

With a little help from my aunt and uncle, Mike and I had a downtown New Orleans hotel room last night. Just FYI...The Sheraton on (world famous, according to our gps) Canal Street is awesome. Perfect location and one of the nicer hotels in the city.

So we pulled into our hotel about 2 pm yesterday, rested for about an hour and then didn't waste any time exploring downtown New Orleans.

And let me tell you, Canal Street, Decatur Street and Bourbon Street are full of characters. I wish I could describe some of these people. Words don't do them justice. One guy told Mike that he could guess where he got his shoes (looking for money), hounded him too. Problem was, we were not going to give this man money and Mike wasn't sure where he in fact got them.

We also saw some people that can only be described as "its." Could have been male, could have been female, It was actually pointless to guess. Scary...

And then there was our night on Bourbon Street. One phrase basically sums up Bourbon Street pretty well....no open container law.
Which I must say is pretty awesome.

There is two kinds of places on Bourbon Street, bars and strip clubs. Oh and there is a Ramada Hotel too. You have seen this hotel on tv before because it's the one all the girls stand on the balconies of when they are umm collecting beads.

So we received tips from a few golf professional friends (who shall remain nameless to protect the "innocent") on where to go. We had a beer at the Old Absinthe House and then proceeded to a bar called Razoo. We got to Razoo about 11pm and text messaging and phone records confirm we were still there at 330am. A look in my wallet this morning combined with how I felt all added up to having an absolute blast last night. Remember the line in the movie Old School, just after the guys have their first frat party, Will Ferrell's character says, "I had a great time!" and Vince Vaughn's character responds, "Yeah Frank, we know you had a great time, everyone knows you had a great time."

Well, we had a great time in New Orleans. Mike and I are back on the road again already though. We have driven a little under 300 miles already today en route to Dallas, Texas. As I write this, we are 80 miles southeast of Shreveport, Louisiana on Interstate 49.

We did stop in Baton Rouge earlier for lunch. Got to see the other Death Valley (LSU's football stadium). We left Baton Rouge roughly 3 hours ago and have only seen two places that qualify as towns since. Northwest Louisiana is a pretty desolate place. Hard red clay versus the swampiness of New Orleans.

So Dallas tonight. We are actually having dinner at Colonial Country Club with a member, who is our host for golf tomorrow and is putting us up tonight. We are scheduled to play Shady Oaks Golf Club tomorrow at 8:00, then we have a 1:03 tee time at Colonial. Should be an awesome day.

That's all for now. By the way, it's 78 degrees down here. The sweater vest watch continues another day...

Thanks for reading!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Mississippi

After leaving Tuscaloosa this morning, we drove 90 minutes to West Point, Mississippi to play the Old Waverly Golf Club. Home to the 1999 Women's US Open, 2nd best course in the state. It was a very enjoyable layout. A little wet and a little cold but otherwise perfectly sunny and no reason not to post a good score.

I had 41, 36 for 77 today (2 doubles killed me on the front). All in all, our first four rounds of the trip were a success from a score standpoint, keeping it under 80 for the most part.

Following golf, we decided to run over to Starkeville, Mississippi; where Mississippi State University is. Two SEC schools in 2 days...I feel like I am cheating on the ACC!

We ate a late lunch at the Little Dooey BBQ Restaurant. It was awesome! If you're ever in Starkeville, it is a must go.

And after a 250 mile drive through the Mississippi nothingness, we arrived at my aunt and uncles house around 8pm.

On a side note: Mississippi is like a different country. I walked into a gas station in the middle of nowhere wearing grey slacks and a light blue Peter Millar sweater...and if looks could kill, I would be dead. I thought South Carolina was southern...Mississippi blows them out of the water. These people hang out at the gas station because literally, there is nowhere else to hang out.

Tomorrow, we will do a quick tour of the University of South Alabama, where my uncle works. Then it is off to New Orleans for the night.

Thats it for tonight. The weather is supposed to warm up tomorrow! The only question now is...when will the sweater vest make an appearance?

Thanks for reading!

Reed

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Thank you weather gods...

The forecast was terrible, the radar looked bad. The clouds looked heavy and ominous. It rained all the way from Atlanta to Birmingham. We successfully passed through a Leeds County police checkpoint (the officer asked for license and insurance???).

Anyway, we made it to Shoal Creek Golf Club around noon. The professional, Eric Williamson set us up with two caddies, showed us the locker room and we were off after a super quick range session.

Oh and the weather broke. The clouds remained but despite storms all around us, it only ever drizzled. I actually only pulled out the umbrella one time.

And the golf course was incredible. The 1977 Jack Nicklaus design was a great layout. We played a mix of the 4 star tees and the 5 star tees (which was basically about 7000 yards, par 72). Mike edged me out again today 1 up. He had a real nice 76 and I had a 77. We each had our share of mistakes. I bogied the first 5 holes and Mike had four 3 putts in a row on the front nine. One highlight was that we each birdied the 497 yard par 5 11th hole. Then followed it up with two pars on the 491 yard par 4 12th. We also each birdied the 521 yard par 5 17th.

Shoal Creek is the 72nd ranked course in the country and is best known for hosting the 1984 and 1990 PGA Championships. My boss at Baltusrol, Doug Steffen, played in the 84 PGA here. His signature is on the player plaque just outside the locker room in the main clubhouse!

Following golf, we took the advice of our caddies, Keith and Fletcher, and went to the Full Moon BBQ Restaurant.
The food was excellent and the BBQ sauce was so good that the staff was boxing it up for Internet ordering.

So after stuffing our faces, Mike and I decided that Tuscaloosa would be a good place to chill for the night. After riding through campus at the University of Alabama, we found a Hampton Inn to crash in tonight. Even though it pains us to say anything good about an SEC school, the campus here is beautiful. Classic southern architecture. Everything is big and bold. They just do it right...and there is so much school pride.

Chances are we will hit up the Houndstooth bar at some point tonight, however, it just started pouring and Mikey is fast asleep.

We play Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Mississippi tomorrow at 11am. Old Waverly is the 2nd best golf course in the state according to Golf Digest and is best known for hosting the 1999 Women's US Open. We will race down to my aunt and uncles house in Mobile, Alabama tomorrow night after golf.

Here is a few pictures from today. Thanks again for reading! Weather looks good for the rest of the week!!