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We’ll happy mothers F’in birthday to me! I promise no more memes! Thank you all for getting this put together and cobra for again being extremely generous. Cannot wait to get some serious rounds in! My wife is about to be sick of me talking about golf if she wasn’t already.

Congratulations to @Lacassem as the winner of the Forged Tec Irons! You will receive a PM from me shortly We look forward to offering more of these contests in the future

A few more photos... Some of the wildlife Coolers being filled with Gatoraide America!! charcuterie board The third cottage sending off chinese lanterns in 10 MPH winds Sunrise looking out from the front of our cottage onto hole 1 The back of our cottage looking onto hole 2 - Par 3 @Yellow Ball As happy gilmore would say "You little son of a b*tch ball! Why don't you just go home? That's your HOME! Are you too good for your home? ..." @Jwc5149 teeing off on hole 1 the river course @McGolf teeing off hole 1, River course @cnosil teeing off, hole 1 River course @Berg Ryman teeing off hole 1, River course Hole 13 or 14 on the river course Looking at hole 16 on the river course @Jwc5149 looking at @Shapotomous giving his seal of approval @Getoffmylawn wondering why @Jwc5149 is hitting irons in flip flops @Jwc5149 modeling his shorts in the background

Ok, now that I've got the time to sit down in front of a computer (at work, but still, an actual computer) and allowed myself to decompress and think about the trip, I think it's time for the tea to be spilled for everyone really wanting to know what went down. First, the journey. Look, I think Philadelphia is a good city, even a fun place to visit, but man does traffic on a Friday on I-95 slow right down in and around the area when you're travelling on the PA Turnpike. Plus side, the bridges of Delaware, especially The William Roth Jr. Bridge are spectacular for a complete nerd like me. Another plus, Maryland Gas Prices! From the land of 4.50 a gallon to see gas sub 4 bucks was awesome for me, so big ups. Next, a personal aside, and one I know @EasyPutter, @bens197, @MattWillGolf and any New Yorker of a certain location will agree with, Wegman's > Food Lion. I know it's a corporate champion of the ACC, I know people swear by it... it's a Price Chopper/Tops/IGA equivalent, that's all. Sorry, not sorry about it. Next up, Queenstown Harbor the location. Man what an awesome property. The cottages, as you've seen were incredible and being located right on the 2nd hole of The Lakes gave awesome backdrops for photos and good vibes. To be honest, I thought the coolest evening of the two we spent were the Friday. Sure, the storm winds were picking up and some rain was spitting, but that sunset and that fresh breeze coming off the water... wouldn't trade it for the world. The cottage itself was a cool experience, big open spaces, big rooms, scary wooden mermaid. You know, the usual. Don't let @Golfspy_CG2 know this, but even though @MDGolfHacker and I were afforded the ability to take rooms to ourselves, I did stay upstairs in the "Crow's Nest" on the twin beds. My only complaint about upstairs was the weird flipping of light switches that drove me wild as @tommc23 will attest when I came upstairs on Saturday night and threw the lights on via accident before the alarm situation. The food situation, well you've seen the pictures, and that's just what we've decided to show. The advantage of not making plans on who's bringing what is that you get everyone bringing all sorts of everything and boy did we have just about everything. Everyone was cool about making sure everyone got enough to eat. Special shout out again to @tommc23 and @Jwc5149 for the Saturday grub. I'm also sure breakfast was excellent, but as the "sleeping beauty" of the group, I never grabbed any of it. Now, let's talk the Lakes and the River. The River was an absolute beauty of a course. Difficult but fair and the new fairways were rolling nice and had a great spring to them. I'd go as far to say it may have been the best track I've ever had the fortune of playing. I would never recommend the tips unless you were playing in tournament conditions though, that thing will eat your lunch if you have an off day, like my 8 lost balls and 96 will attest to. The Lakes was the more friendly of the two, but was by no means easy. There were some spots where the manicuring and care weren't as tip top as the River, but nothing that would make you say that it bad. Plus, maybe I was feeling more ambivalent about it after shooting 84 with a super hot back 9 40. The carts for both days were great with virtual GPS' locked in and touch screen capabilities, along with electronic scorecards that would email you results at round's end if you wished for them. Carts were quick but also geofenced in so no real "Jackass" moments as we called them. Also, as we learned on Sunday, the cupholder does a heck of a job holding a UE Wonderboom 2. Lastly, I gotta talk about the guys. I was concerned about coming on this trip, because I've never been on a golf trip before. Admittedly, I don't have much in the way of regular golf friends or if I do, they're all retirees who never really invite me to stuff. That, and I've always been a bit of a quiet and strange duck, so group dynamics don't come easily to me personally. But, being thrust into a leadership role and getting out of my comfort zone made it an enjoyable weekend and single out everyone. @Jmikecpa: Best of luck to your son this season, remember lateral drops, inside trips and greco attacks for big points! Also, you know you've got the game, just go out there and attack everything with the passion you have, and if you could get me some Del LAgo comps now that you guys own the place, wink wink. @Jwc5149: Our resident jokester and class clown, but with a game to be envious of, even in flip flops. Loved spending time with you and thanks for keeping the vibes loose and the bellies full of laughs and taco meat! @McGolf: I said it in the live chat yesterday on your video, but listening to you hold court was an absolute delight of my weekend and I'm so happy I got to ride with you on Saturday. Can't wait for our paths to cross again, hopefully with a wider soled wedge in the bag when it happens! @cnosil: Getting just to chat with you while we were waiting for your fitting really let me into the mind of a good golfer who knows what he wants to do and how he hopes to achieve it. The rhythm of the swing is envious, as were those calves everyone keeps talking about. @Getoffmylawn: The hardest working man on the range... even if it didn't benefit you for the wedge fitting. Sorry we didn't get to talk more fantasy this weekend, but there's always next time and hopefully w even get to play some golf together too. @tommc23: The big man who saved us from a crazy alarm running all night. I hope you find what you're looking for either with the swing tips or new irons, because the game had flashes this weekend and improvement is just around the corner, I can feel it for you. @EasyPutter: My fellow Upstater, sorry you weren't able to stay on Sunday because I was looking forward to potentially getting a round with you. Here's hoping that discussed NY meetup happens soon because I'd love for that to be a regular thing, also thank you for the excellent Wegman's cookies. @Shapotomous: Watching you talk through your why as to your wedges on Saturday was very enlightening and gave me ideas as how to better build out my part of the bag. I hope that new Vokey does you well but based on what I was hearing about your game, I'd be scared if you had more levels to get better! @barryschwartz56: Barry, I'm sorry our only real interaction was at the pub on Sunday. I blame my sleeping in until the ungodly hour of 7 am since I'm not a range rat like the rest of the boys. Hopefully we can change that next time and you can whip my behind too! @cksurfdude: I honestly don't believe there was a nicer guy, who was more supportive of everyone else and just having a blast with the experience than you. I know you probably wanted to play some better golf, but like I said, blind squirrels and acorns brother. Get that weight moving forward and the results will come, I promise you that. @MDGolfHacker: Last but certainly not least. A pleasure to share this weekend with you, even though you were really more the de facto head honcho. I couldn't have asked for a better person to really keep this trip on the rails and be the point man when I was the silent planner. I hope your daughter makes the golf team and I hope you do frame that dollar, because I don't give them away that often... or that willingly. Hope this inspires you all to come to the 2023 version, where ever it may be or help plan your own local one. I'm hoping I get some pictures up sooner rather than later before this all fades from the conscious.

Yesterday was a fun "round of golf" with Monte, @dlow206, and one other guy from our clinic in Seattle. The course was the Snohomish Golf Club. This is the third day of the clinic, and it is an on-course teaching experience well worth the extra day of Monte's clinic. It was extra special since there were just three of us, and we each got a lot of hands-on attention. We don't actually play our own balls; we play from where Monte selects. Generally, we all tee off which for me is one to two tee boxes further back than I would normally play. We pick up our balls and proceed to Monte selected position to play our next shot... mostly from Monte's tee shot. We hit long approaches, pitch shots, bunker shots, shots from under trees, 3 wood chips shots, normal putts. We each have our own issues and Monte works with each of us. This is a great time to see that "feel isn't real"... what we think we are doing is different than what we are actually doing. While we were waiting for our 2nd shot from Monte's drive in the middle of the fairway on 524y #1 hole from 200y out, Monte explains what kind of shot shape he's going to play into the green... Derrick making practice swings. Local fauna just off the cart path on our way to our tee shots... The elevated tee on the slight dogleg left 507y #10 hole. After a long wait on groups in front of us, Monte hit two balls over the tall tree with a slight draw (the group in front of us is teeing off on the left in the pic). Then he hit a third shot with a better trajectory over the little tree to the right of the big tree. The two balls were in the left rough right next to each other; the third ball was in the middle of the fairway 140y out. Sadly, because to pace was so slow, we had to quit after 14 holes. I had to hop in my car and drive 4.5 hours home. Ran into construction on I-90 east of Snoqualmie Pass where I sat for 45 minutes next to a flatbed truck carrying something under the tarp that warranted an Explosive hazard warning sign.

I have never hidden anything about my calves; they have even been on several MGS posts. I need to figure out how they got that way; I think I could monetize the training if I actually knew what it was. genetics, the way I walk, lack of any physical effort....who knows Thanks, but you did see my scores on the back 9? A mix of everything from birdie to quad. Don't sell yourself short, you are pretty consistent.

The wife REALLY wanted to rent an old home in the historical district of Carlisle. And, as we’ve moved in and unpacked, the basement became the default area for “we’ll figure out where this goes later.” Put those two factors together and it means the area where my putting green is supposed to go currently looks like this… Sigh…

NONE! We got this! Time to watch some Rocky movies and start training Chris!!!!

Forget that….what really needs to happen is you and @Lacassemneed to show up at the next outing so I can check these things out! Then beat your @sses while you’re gaming them! Mic drop…

Walking the actual holes on the Lakes course wouldn't be bad.....walking between the greens and next tees would not have been fun at all.

The world could use a LOT more of this. So cool.

Hi MyGolfSpy friends . I've been out a while but glad to be back. What better place to start than my favorite "Happy Thread".

First, congrats on winning the clubs As for the match I don’t know how I got pulled into this, but looking at the handicaps on your profiles I think we are at the disadvantage. How many strokes are we going to get?

Had a great weekend of golf; 36 holes with a bunch of spies. Was really happy with most everything about my game. As I look back over the weekend tee game, approach game, and putting my game was solid. I felt there were some inconsistencies in my short game that led to my scores of bogeys and worse. I did hit some great finesse shots around the green but also some awful ones. 50 yards and in continues to be my major stumbling block. Need to figure out how to move short game skills from the range to the course on a consistent basis. After some discussions at the spy get together, may try some equipment tweaks. I did a Titleist wedge fitting and based on some feedback, I may have to big of a weight difference between my iron shafts and wedge shafts. Might try some 95 or 105 graphite shafts. I still have a few lessons left and at this point, not sure what I want to cover during them.

Could be...I've got calves like Schwarzenegger, it's just everything else looks like crap.

Wish I could of caught this but I was helping my daughter out as she needed some reps and a second set of eyes as she trys out for her high school golf team for the first time later this week. We went through her bag at the range, broke for dinner and then went to a local golf course to use their green for chipping and putting practice. I guess I'll have to catch this on the reruns MdGolfHacker Yeah, I definitely would not have walked it this weekend!

Had a fun tournament last Friday. Was a good time, met a few guys from one of my vendors we use for roof repairs. great cause all the money went to the fisher house, we’ll worth the money. course was decent and was 3 of us so we had a lot of extra shots, split them up nicely between the 3 of us. tee game was meh, but was smoking the 3W off the deck and my irons were A+ again. Started draining putts on the back. we went -8 with 3 yes read it correctly, 3 bogeys on the front (started on 2) woooooof we joked around that we just needed to warm up. this hole was great, my only decent drive of the day and I hit this monster draw 3 wood, hit the front of the green and bounced off pin high.

Rick the Bionic Man?

Start training?!?! No need. His calves in their current condition will intimidate anyone into double bogey land! Oh...congrats lacassem!!

I think @Lacassem and I would make for a worthy (if not just entertaining) pairing against @Getoffmylawn and @cnosil!

Whoa! Congrats Mark! Formally challenging you to an irons only round. OG vs 2022 edition.

There were osprey and turkeys to be seen as well lots of wildlife. It was a nice course and a nice weekend

^^ great set of pics! In addition to Bambi, also spotted were lots of hawks .. even a bald eagle .. and when I was driving out Sunday there were three turkeys hanging out just off the road (..no not fat enough yet for roasters ).

Unfortunately this years one fizzled out like a bad fart.

Right, not to mention the riders waiting ten minutes for you to catch up between tees.

Happy Birthday to @Lacassem and @jkimbrell0 Make your day the best it possibly can be.

Caught @McGolf talking in his live stream so did @Berg Ryman & @cnosil. I look forward to the video he will put out of the outing.

Ouch!! The advantages of taking the reins. You know it’s like when you ask your wife where she wants to go for dinner Saturday night. And she says “I don’t know, you choose. You ask her twice more and she says, really I don’t care. You pick anywhere Is fine. You know she loves Italian so you pick that nice Italian place. And of course she says. Why’d we come here. We always come here. Couldn’t we have gone somewhere else. Double ouch!!

So, perhaps it’s time I offer my own quick summary/synopsis of this past outing. Much has already been said so I won’t regurgitate everything, but it’s not an understatement to say it was truly a phenomenal weekend. So, if you’re like me, a concern you might have in the back of your mind is “I know these guys, but only online, so I don’t actually know them at all and this could turn out to be no fun at all.” I can tell you it took almost no time for the whole crew to hit it off like old friends, which in a weird 21st century kinda way, we are. It was great food (thank you Tom and Jeff), great company, great golf, great shenanigans (playing closest to the pin on our own backyard par 3 was a blast)….GREAT weekend. And as a guy who struggled mightily on the course, I can tell you…nobody cares. Of course we all want to play well, but getting hung up on your scores is easy to avoid when you’re among great company. I truly hope this, and more events like it, continue and pop up across spy country. ** EDIT: Oh, and one other thing, @cnosilhas totally been sandbagging all of us on his calves game! Calves like Phil, and he doesn’t run, lift…in his words “I don’t do anything” yet he’s never said a word about it hear on the forum! **

Awesome write up Berg! Glad you enjoyed the course. oh I agree with you completely about Wegman > Food Lion. My favorite grocery store in this area is Harris Teeter—can you say Banana Cream Ice Cream? But alas I guess the Easten Shore hasn’t discovered it’s greatness. These recaps have me looking forward to whatever happens in way of 2023 outings.

Similar but I got an even higher score today. 53 on the front and 56 on the back - I'm embarrassed to admit it. We had over 2- 3" of rain last night so to set the stage it was cart path only, the fairways didn't roll at all - I think I saw a wake as the ball landed and crept slowly forward and the greens were lighting fast (they double cut and rolled them for the women's championship later today). #14 where I got a Hole In One a week ago = a 6 today as I couldn't get the ball over the water. The next Par 3 over water - yup 2 balls in for another 6 . After the 18 I went to the driving range to figure stuff out - 2 large baskets later I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. We're playing Plum Brook CC tomorrow so I have higher expectations!

Hey, easy, just venting that I have to unpack and sort all this crap before I can practice putting! Yeah, we hadn’t been here a week before the wife saw some Halloween decorations she HAD to have…

I for one need no assistance in locating double bogey land as of late. Sadly I might pull these guys down there with me. "A rising tide may raise all ships, but my golf game lately will suck the water out of the ocean." -Said by some golfer, somewhere, at sometime. Maybe.

Congratulations @Lacassem

I am pretty sure I heard that whoever won this got to pick where the next meetup was? PS we love a good challenge bring your best partner we can go teams

Sooo, this aged well!

Congrats @Lacassem!!!!

@Lacassem Congrats !

Congrats @Lacassem!!! Hit these sticks well!

Maybe your calves and bay scared everyone away

That's what she said last night

I missed it will definitely check the Vidieos out.

Yea walking the course would be doable but not recommended on a busy day or even a day when it’s above 80 yet alone near 100

Played 18 today. My shot of the day was on Number 2. A 155 yard par 3. I hit a 6 iron that went straight at the flag and hit the fringe bounced once and hit the flag stick finished inches from my first ever hole in one. And to all the wise , yes I made the putt.

Got out for a quick 9 on Saturday afternoon, was struggling with dispersion off the tee (too many penalties and balls out of position) but managed to get 2 birdies to salvage the round and score a 43. Funniest one was probably hole 4, where I topped my driver off the tee and it rolled out 150 yards, and somehow managed to go 3w > Gap wedge to 1 feet for an easy bird. I got paired up with another twosome, a guy and his 15-year-old son. I feel very old saying this, but man, I wish I could swing as fast at that kid! He only hit driver once, and it was a 316-yard bomb right down the middle. If he can get his short game and putting figured out he'll be in a pretty good spot!

This should be a PSA and Sticky on the thread for any of our spies who will be getting married soon. I don’t think I’ve ever read a more true statement on the internet.

^^^ says the guy who booked it in his backyard.

To paraphrase an old election debate.... I have met Mr. Consistent, I played golf with Mr. Consistent on Sunday and I can definitely say I am not worthy to be called Mr. Consistent while @cnosil is in the group!

That is another one that has floated around on my mind. Ha. Cool. I wondered if anyone made use of the shower. But felt it was an odd question to ask.