Tatabasco

Did anyone play yesterday after getting the bug watching the Masters this weekend?

So I recently just returned from my first golf trip. I turn 43 next month, and yes, I am sad to report, this IS my first golf trip with the boys! My golf buddy won Masters practice round tickets from the ticket lottery for Tuesday’s Practice Round and we decided to home-base in Charleston and build a trip around our first Masters experience. I read a lot of reviews, looked at a lot of courses and knew that I wanted to have a mix of local, public courses along with some more memorable, resort course options. I landed on starting our trip at the Golf Club at Wescott Plantation in Summerville, where we were met with 46° temps on our walk up the deck at 7am on Saturday the 6th. This was a great track. They have 27 holes and we were assigned to play Black Robin and Oak Forest. It was a beautiful day and a nice opening round on what would be a 36-hole Saturday. Later that afternoon we headed over to Goose Creek and played another public course called Crowfield Golf Club. The greens here were very challenging with multiple levels and tough pin placements. Coming from South Florida we do not have a lot of experience with firm greens and right away we realized our approach shots were not holding greens. This took some time to get used to but we quickly learned to leave a little extra room in front of the flag for our wedge and iron shots. In fact all 36 holes for Saturday were tough putts- all greens rolled fast and true. Sunday was our resort day and our expectations were not only met, but were exceeded. We pointed our car in the direction of Isle of Palms and checked into the Wild Dunes Harbor course. Our first taste of a Tom Fazio-designed course. The yardage seemed short but we realized it was a par 70. This is the first course I was invited to join a “briefing” by the starter who pointed out that this course is narrow and requires well-placed tee shots. My decision was to lean towards 3 wood tee shots a lot of the narrow fairways or dogleg lefts. This place turned out to be an incredibly beautiful course with views of the waterways, marshes and incredible homes along every hole. This was by far my most memorable and breath-taking course I’ve played and will gladly return to. The final course was Monday afternoon at the Links at Stono Ferry. Revolutionary War relics were on display in the traditional clubhouse. Tall pines and a tight fairway welcomed us to the first tee box. As I mentioned before, theme of this trip were fast greens and Stono Ferry followed suit. These were the hardest ones to get right. Firm and fast greens allowed for many attempts to sink a hero shot, which we lacked most of the time. Among all of the choices we had to plan our first golf trip around, we were all thoroughly pleased with these four courses. My friends and I will return to Charleston again and will have another tough choice ahead of us. Most certainly, Dunes West will be on the top of the list! I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for our next trip to the Holy City.

So far I’m sitting at 10. Just got back from Charleston and played four great rounds there at all different courses. The highlight was Wild Dunes Harbor course

Can’t believe I missed the cutoff by an hour!! Ugh I was on vacation and am just catching up on my messages. Well good luck to the 5 who are selected. Would have loved to try the Max and put it up against my Epic driver

I still have the matching BB 3wood with a Fubuki stiff shaft and it’s my favorite club in my bag

My rangefinder is a Blue Tees 2 pro and I track all my rounds on the 18 birdies app. I love the app! To be able to link up to my Apple Watch with distances, scoring and green yardage from front-middle-back it is my go-to app for each round. Plus it tracks my handicap, has shot tracking for every club in your bag, gives tips for practice based on how I shot that day, allows me to follow my buddies with their rounds. Oh did I mention it's all in the free version! Yeah it’s a no brainer!

I’m still rocking my 2018 Callaway Epic 10.5. But along with your latest driver article, I have been eyeing the ai Smoke Max or Max D. But your vote for the Ping has me also wanting to demo it this year. I could use the extra forgiveness!