My Global Game of Golf
by Sean Mills
Every so often in a person’s life they find themselves contemplating their existence, evaluating the journey travelled so far, and the path on which they are headed. A few years ago I found myself at this cross roads. I was young, well fairly young, healthy, single and a little bored with life. I decided that a change was needed and set out planning a trip overseas to the USA.
Naturally my first concern was how I would be able to afford a lengthy trip, and still be able to play as much golf as my heart desired. My wallet was looking mighty gaunt in those days. As thin, perhaps as a friend of mine Marcel Du Plessis’s little black book. And so whilst Marcel sat staring at his silent cell phone it dawned on me, the best course of action would be to work on golf courses around America. This is a little taste of the adventure that followed.
Hitting it thin and getting fat in ‘God’s Waiting Room’
Florida is an incredible place, dedicated by man to the pursuit of golf and inhabited by those closely pursued by the spectre of death. The overwhelming number of retirees and the gangs in Miami will attest to this. With its perfect perennial summer weather Florida is home to the largest population of retirees in the world. Father Time himself resides there in a golf estate in Boca. He is tanned like brown leather and has a standing tee time every morning at 7am sharp with Shlomo and the boys.
Sundays are the exception. Sunday he will be embroiled in a nail biting, marriage testing round of golf with the wife and another pair of coffin dodgers competing in the weekly mixed. Nerves jangling, false teeth chattering and the divorce lawyer on speed dial, Father Time navigates his way around the course in a cart at snails pace, narrowly avoiding the bunkers and water hazards. On occasion not avoiding them at all…
And this is where I come in, an incredibly young, strident ‘whippersnapper’ ensuring pace of play and peace are adhered to on the course. As a starter I became a rules official, tee box confidant, an endless supplier of tees and ball markers, and weather oracle. If I had a dollar for every time I heard: “Can you turn the wind off?” or “Is it going to rain in two hours, young man?” I would be retiring to Florida!
As a course marshal, however, you are the enemy. Try telling an incredibly wealthy, semi-retired, brain surgeon he has to skip a hole because he’s holding up the field with his hacking. Even better telling a group of ex-attorneys that they are five minutes behind and they will now be teeing up from the fairway on the next hole. Yes, God’s Waiting Room had its own unique challenges but the rewards more than compensated for it!
What rewards you might ask? Try unlimited golf on four immaculate courses and practice facilities the likes of which I had never seen before. Two dedicated chipping and bunker areas, four different putting greens and then the courses. Mind blowing courses, each one unique in its design and all designed by well-known names in golf. Two Arnold Palmer courses, one Pete Dye and one Fazio course to be exact.
The thought required to manoeuvre around the Palmer course with its old style design, water hazards and thin, wispy rough like angel hair, eager to nestle your ball out of sight, was a huge contrast to the bravery required to defeat the tricky genius of Pete Dye and sheer splendour of the Fazio course.
We were allowed on in the mornings – playing directly behind the maintenance staff, and again in the evenings after 3pm, chasing the light as we raced through as many holes as we could cram in. It was a golfing dream and with all the practice I was lucky enough to have a personal best score. I think I would have practiced harder if I’d known it would take another four years before I had another score like that.
After a while the discovery of bright lights in the non-stop party atmosphere of West Palm Beach put an end to practice and early morning golf for many a month. A short bike ride to the tri-rail would see you in West Palm in 45 minutes. Enough time to chug a strong drink and rush over to the local clubs while it was still free entrance. On a golf labourers salary you don’t have much extra cash, so learning to get by on a strong premix drink and free entrance was essential. We were already living off two minute noodles, bread and peanut butter washed down with an ocean of Bud Light and Rumpleminze – a strong spearmint shooter that really got the party started.
In between all-nighters and getting up early to catch the bus at 5am for work, good golf took a back seat. All of a sudden the jeans I brought over with me seemed less a stylish comfort and more a hermetically sealed pair of tights. And while this worked in the clubs at night it certainly didn’t work in the harsh light of day. As my belly and the putter began to connect like two lovers watching the Notebook, I began to worry about the impending ban on belly putters and realised how much healthier life was back in South Africa. It was time to move on… New York was calling my name!
Golfing ‘My Way’ in the Big Apple
Six months in balmy Boca had left me tanned and used to perfect weather. But summer in Florida is unbearably hot and too humid to even go outdoors for long periods of time. Summer in New York however promised to be just right. So I packed my bags and joined Father Time and the rest of the ‘snow birds’ on a flight up north to the city that never sleeps.
Based an hour by train outside of Manhattan in the leafy suburb of Purchase, I took up residence on the staff a private country club at a beautiful old A.W. Tillinghast designed course. His courses all bear his trademark back to front sloped greens which are kept hard and fast as billiard tables, not even a sand wedge from the fairway will spin on these puppies. My Titleist balls all of a sudden lost their ‘drop and stop’ technology favouring the ‘drop and roll… and roll’ on the hard greens.
Another feature of this type of course is incredibly thick rough which narrows the fairways and surrounds the greens. Medinah CC, Winged Foot and Bethpage Black are all courses from the Tillinghast stable. Out of this rough there is only one option – a full swing with a wedge or both wedge and ball would not make it out of the thick stuff. So thick in fact that if you hit into it you ran a reasonable chance of losing your ball! And forget about a good lie, you got sitting down, buried, and ahhh f#@%&*… A good lie in the rough was so rare it drew hateful, jealous comments from your playing partners openly disgusted at your good fortune.
A brutally honest test of golf, it was a pure reflection of the game – at times, humbling and others, incredibly fulfilling but all the while strikingly beautiful as you were playing a round of golf set in a pristine natural forest.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom however; the state of New York boasts an enormous amount of golf courses. Most of them are private and for members only. But if you are lucky enough to have a few connections you could find yourself snootily strolling the fairways of some hidden gems.
Sleepy Hollow is one such course. With the headless horseman as their logo, it leaves you wondering what lies in wait out there on the course. The answer is unparalleled vistas of the Hudson Bay.
The standard operating procedure of golf in New York was to end the round and drive to the nearest bar for a burger, basket of hot wings and a few ice cold beers. The range of bar fare and craft beers in New York is fantastic. Naturally the day’s biggest loser would end up downing a cold one and chasing it with a double shot of the establishments’ cheapest whiskey!
As the sun set on yet another glorious day of golf, laughter and merriment it occurred to me: it doesn’t matter where in the world you play, or even so much how you play, but rather that you surround yourself with good company. From a country at the southernmost tip of Africa to Florida and finally to the hustling bustle of New York, golf is a game best shared with friends. And that’s all that matters…