Knocked out a bucket list item this week, playing the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island. Home of the 2021 PGA Championship. Notoriously one of the hardest courses in the country. Kicked my ass, but I’m happy with my score. Came in under 100 at 92 strokes.

It was my first time having a caddie, and goddamn was that nice. The first thing they do when you get there is match you up with your caddie, and you go to the driving range. They assess your skills and distances with each club, and they use that to determine their recommendations throughout the round. My guy picked up on the fact I like to play risky, so while the others in our group were going for the safe, lay-up shots, he was handing me my 3-wood and saying let’s go for the green.

Words can’t describe how amazing that day was, and pictures don’t do the course justice. It was absolutely gorgeous. I think my wife’s onto something. Our birthdays are a week apart, so for the foreseeable future, our mutual gifts are going to be golf trips to fun vacation spots. We’ve already decided next year is Pebble Beach!


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in reply to @Hester2524's post:

It was amazing. My favorite round before this one was in the middle of the desert at TPC Vegas, and this one blew that out of the water. Not just the scenery, but the environmental factors too. The wind coming off the ocean was insane. No exaggeration about the following 3 holes:

  1. The first hole on the back 9 (basically the entire back 9 is on the ocean), the wind was at our back at a steady 20 mph with gusts up to 35. I pulled out my driver and cranked that bad boy 320 yards. My best drive on flat ground ever has been 290, so the wind added 30 yards AT LEAST, probably more.

  2. Around hole 14, coming the opposite direction (so against the wind), I was using the same club and happy to hit it 230 yards

  3. Hole 17 is a par 3. It's set up so that the wind is basically blowing across the ball path. It's BRUTAL. According to the caddies, the pros during the PGA championship would literally aim for the bunker just to keep their ball out of the water and hope to come out with no worse than a bogey. I picked a target 60 YARDS to the right of my actual target (to be clear, I was NOT hitting from the same tees as the pros, their tee shots were about 60 yards further back), hit what felt like the cleanest shot of my life, and just watched the wind carry that bitch about 40 yards left of the pin.

That sounds challenging in all the best ways! Having to be on top of your game while reining in those conditions must have been thrilling.

How was having a caddie for putting? So many times I just give up and swing, just hopeless without my Mario Golf grid lines lol!