BRENT HUTTO'S FRIPP-OUT JAN '97 It started with an invitation from Brent Hutto to "a few close friends" from RSG, who had the misfortune not to live in the sunny Southland, to join him for some winter golf in South Carolina in January. So it was that on the morning of Thursday, Jan 23: - Guy (Coops) Cooper was winging from Harrisburg PA. - David Thor Collard was flying from Columbus OH. - Chuck Sedlacko was roaring from Dayton OH. - I was puddle-jumping into Columbia SC from Newark NJ. By some incredible series of coincidences, Coops, Thor, and I all landed within the space of 10 minutes. Another 10 minutes and we had claimed our baggage (most of the weight in golf bags) and packed it into Brent's car. We looked for a bench to eat our subs while waiting for Chuck (who had flown into Charleston and was driving up from there). We found Chuck before we found the bench. So, in the space of about 20 minutes, we had managed to rendezvous five golfers from five different cities. We had been watching the weather channel and WeatherWeb all week, worrying whether we'd have playable conditions. It looked dicey. "Scattered showers Thursday and Friday, and serious thunderstorms Saturday; sunny and much colder on Sunday." But don't forget, we had Thor on our side. After his weather-control performance at RSG-Ohio, all he had to do was say, "Don't worry, I've got it covered," and we were able to relax. Thor the weather god was on the job. Thor was certainly true to his word on Thursday; the "scattered showers" turned out to be warm and sunny. I was definitely overdressed in my long- sleeved golf shirt. We repaired immediately to Charwood Golf Club, Brent's home course. Brent felt -- quite correctly -- that our swings would suffer from winter rust, and that Charwood would be a reasonable warm-up round. For the first time in my life, my 55 years and the gray in my beard did me some good; that was good enough for a senior citizen greens fee. (Not that Charwood was excessively expensive. I wish there were a course that good and that uncrowded at that rate in my neighborhood.) Charwood has three nines; we played the Blue Course (some hills, including many on the greens :-), and the White Course (somewhat flatter and more open). We played 18 enjoyable holes, then beat it to Lake Murray Golf Center, stopping for a Golden Arches "supper" on the way. Lake Murray is a practice facility with a par-3 course -- a LIGHTED night-play par-3 course. On Thursday nights, they run a two-man scramble tournament with teams selected by blind draw. None of us were paired with each other, so we got to play with the local talent. It was a lot of fun. None of our teams was below par, so we had no winners. But there were two "closest to the pin" holes. Coops won one of them. On the other, Thor was even closer; but he was one-upped by a later group's hole-in-one! My partner, Paul somebody, was a good ole boy and a real character. He had a six-pack hanging from his pull-cart and smoked cigars the whole round. He pretty much carried me on the tee shots. (I did contribute some short game to our limited success). After the tournament, straight back to our motel to check in. I understand Coops, Chuck, and Thor did cards, beer, and pizza till all hours, but I zonked straightaway and Brent went home a couple of miles away. Friday was predicted showery, and looked it. Brent had a standing invitation to a round at the University Club from an old friend of his, David Reiling. Brent decided to ask if he could impose and bring along four friends. He told David the story of the RSG get-together. Unbeknownst to Brent, David is a lurker on RSG. His reaction was, "You mean I get to play golf with Thor and Coops and Tutelman?" Immediately, we had an invitation. The University Club is a private club with an affiliation with the University of South Carolina; it's the USC team's home course. IMHO, it was the most exciting course we played the whole time. It's very hilly. We all walked and carried. Most of the members who saw us were amazed; almost everyone there rides. But it can be done -- and I certainly slept well that night. Back to the weather... we only saw a brief shower on the fourth hole. While the day was mostly cloudy, there was no more rain while we were on the course. The course itself is challenging but fair. There's always a good big target, though missing it could be punishing. And there are a number of forced carries, including carries over water. There is water there, and it's used strategically. For instance, the par-5 fifth hole has a lake along the right side of the fairway. You can stay on the fairway as long as you like, before finally crossing the lake -- to the green on the other side. Another "interesting" par-5 is the ninth, which requires a 150-yard carry over hazard to get to the fairway; a tough finishing hole if you were to play the "garnet course" last instead of first. The bent-grass greens are the fastest we played the whole week, and roll true; a real pleasure. If you can get invited to play this course, I highly recommend it as one of the best I've ever played. (It's a new course, and a third nine is almost ready. From the holes I've seen, the third nine is at least as good as the existing two, and has a truly dramatic finishing hole.) A few of the high points for me: - I parred the three holes on the front nine, including the first and the last. My par on nine included a long, dead-straight 5-wood, a bump-and- run from 30 yards to a pin cut close to the front, and an 8-foot putt. - On the fifth, my layup in front of the lake was too long, and was rescued from rolling into the lake by the thick Bermuda rough. When I got to my ball, I was on a serious downslope in fairly deep rough. My PW was struck perfectly, cleared the 100 yards of lake with a good trajectory, and hit the middle of the green -- drawing some applause from our party (Coops and Chuck) and a party playing through us on that hole. - Chuck hit a great drive on the sixth, long and down the middle, and stepped away from the tee all smiles -- and deservedly so. I followed with one on the same line and 30 yards further. Chuck was saying things like, "It looked down at my ball and waved," and "That was a Linda Ronstadt drive" (blew by you). We finished our round, and had drinks with David in the clubhouse before hitting the road. No sooner were we in our cars when Saturday's thunderstorm hit -- a day early. For a half hour while we drove, it looked like the end of the world. When we got to Brent's house, there was a message from David on the answering machine; he now believes that Thor is truly the weather god. After a brief stop for Brent to pack (and for Thor to show us the Web page of Coops' instructor -- don't ask), we hit the road for Fripp Island, a seashore resort where we had tee times on the weekend. We stopped for a buffet supper at Waltersboro, then continued on to Fripp. The accommodations at Fripp were luxurious. We had a whole house, with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. (We never had all three showers running at once, so I can't tell you if the water heater could handle it. :-) Big living room, with TV and VCR. Full-size eat-in kitchen. Glass patio doors opening onto a deck which overlooked .... The 13th green and 14th tee of the Ocean Pointe course. The moon was full, and Chuck and Thor were inspired. They grabbed a couple of clubs and balls, and ran off onto the course. They practiced putting, and played the 13th backwards with their 5-irons. The rest of us were too worn out to join them. Having climbed the hills of the University Club toting our bags, a good night's sleep was enjoyed by all. Morning arrived at 6:00 AM. Breakfast (Coops can cook) and right out to the Clubhouse at Ocean Pointe, for our first of two full rounds planned for the day. We had the first two tee times of the morning. Chuck and Thor walked as a twosome, and Coops, Brent, and I shared a couple of carts. (Yeah, I know. Boo, hiss! But "us old guys" wanted to feel "up" for the second 18 in the PM. As it happened, it worked out better for us than Chuck, who had to forego the afternoon round for a nap. Thor, of course, is walking golf's answer to the energizer bunny.) Ocean Pointe is tight and largely residential. As Thor noted in a previous article, it's either OB/houses left and water right or water left and OB/ houses right. But the ninth hole was worth the whole round. Elevated tee looking out to a fairway with the ocean waves rolling in beyond the fairway. Too far right is beach; too far left is the pond in the dogleg. Gorgeous! When we got to the 14th tee (right outside our villa), we noticed the avian wildlife in the pond all along the left of the hole. Blue herons. Snowy egrets. And one hungrily hunting pelican, who swooped back and forth as Coops addressed the ball. Several times, he had to back off to avoid driving right into the large cruising bird. Once he actually got into his backswing as the pelican splashed loudly behind him. But the splash netted the bird a snack, and he stayed put eating long enough to let Coops tee off. The 14th was also the tee I became aware that Coops was filming us with his camcorder. That evening, we sat around and analyzed swings (mostly mine, because that's mostly what Coops shot). I learned a lot about what I had to work on. Fortunately, I also learned a lot that's good about my swing from the tapes, including stuff I had been worried about. Big thanks to Coops for bringing the camera and doing the taping. With all that water on the course, I wound up with 12 penalty strokes. Most of them represented drowned balls, including some stroke-and-distance. Thor was grumbling about the same thing. Not sure about the others; I suspect at least Brent shared our glub-glubs, but Coops and Chuck weren't complaining at all. (Coops' game is very solid, much more so than he is willing to admit.) Our afternoon tee time was at Ocean Creek, a new Davis Love III design at the other end of Fripp Island. Instead of being bordered by ocean waves, it's got sawgrass marshlands. Instead of exotic birds, it's got alligators and deer. But there's still lots of water. Ocean Creek was my second favorite course of the trip, behind the University Club. I know most of the others will disagree, but that's MHO. With Chuck out of commission for the afternoon, we played as a foursome for the only round of the expedition. (All the starters let us go as two groups with no additions, except for the blind draw tournament at Lake Murray.) We all walked; I pulled a "trolley" and the others carried. This was the only round I got to watch Thor play with Mjolnir; that was seriously impressive on at least a few holes. I get pretty good distance from my driver when I catch it right, but nothing like Thor and his Bubble. The afternoon weather was positively balmy. I wore a short-sleeved shirt and was quite comfortable. We saw three alligators sunning themselves, though we had been told that the alligators would be hibernating. On one hole, I hit my ball too close to the bank, and had to make my approach shot only ten yards from a 'gator. Because we had stopped for lunch between rounds, the sun was pretty low when we reached the 15th tee. Walking from the 15th green to the 16th tee, we scattered a family of about six deer in the roadway. There was a big buck in the middle of the landing area on the 16th. He didn't seem too alarmed by our drives (even though Thor's was positively artillery!), but he bounded into the woods when it became clear we intended to go out there and hit the balls again. By the 17th, it was dark enough that the deer were feeling positively territorial. They didn't scare off, and we had to play around them. By the 18th tee, it was nighttime. The moon wasn't up yet, so it was really really dark. We played the final par-5 by feel and sound. You couldn't see a ball until you were five paces from it. Even so, we finished the hole with the same four balls we started with -- amazing! But I did have to ask Brent to tend the pin and yodel so I'd have some idea where to putt. Two personal weird holes that I must recount: - The 8th hole is a 180-yard par-3, mostly carry over a pond with a lot of water to the right. I hit a high push that ticked a palm tree on its way right. It actually crossed the creek and landed on a small spit of land on the other side; ten yards in almost any direction and it would have splashed. I had to walk at least a quarter mile to get to the ball, hit my shot, and return to our side of the creek. But my wedge landed right on the green, and I almost made the par putt. (Woulda' been the damnedest par I ever got.) - The tee shot on 17 requires a 100-yard carry to clear a lake. I hit a worm-burner that splashed at about 80 yards. But it was skimming so hard that it bounced off the lake onto the fairway, and rolled to about the same distance as Brent's and Thor's tee shots. When we got back to the villa, only Chuck (well-rested by now), Coops, and I felt like going out for dinner. We tried the Fripp Beach Club, but it was entirely too stuffy; we were nearly the only people there without ties, and I was one of the younger people there. The hostess said there was only one other restaurant open on the island, Harbor House at the Marina. It turned out to be a shore-style seafood place that was exactly the right atmosphere. Beer, mako and mahi-mahi, southern veggie dishes, and crab bisque; yummy! On the way out, Chuck almost got us into a brawl with someone at the bar. Chuck started talking to a slightly inebriated -- well, more than slightly -- guy with a date, dangerous behavior in any event. After he said he was visiting from Ohio, and was greeted with a not-really-hostile "damyankee", the date suggested he visit Fort Sumter. Chuck pretended never to have heard of it, and the guy reminded him that was where the Civil War started. Chuck's reply: "Oh yeah, we won that, didn't we." Coops and I hustled him out to the car, and we got home without real mishap. After 36 holes of golf, you can bet we all slept well. Sunday morning. The last day. Save Brent, we'd be back in the frigid North that evening. The original itinerary called for another round at Ocean Creek, but Brent switched it to South Carolina National (nee "Cat Island"), to leave us closer to our airports. SC National was the favorite course of several of the participants, but I still prefer the University Club and Ocean Creek. That's not to say it wasn't a fine course; it's a great layout, with good use of water and true-rolling bermuda greens. Brent and I played together, with Coops, Chuck, and Thor in the next group. The weather was cold, as predicted, but bright and sunny. The day warmed up, and by the middle of the front nine I was down to a golf shirt and turtleneck jersey. There was some wind, but in general a beautiful day for golf. Two things that happened on the back nine colored my whole day. One is very complimentary to the course, and the other really annoyed me. First the good news: Coming up the 15th fairway, I saw a marshal scooting towards us in a cart. When he got in earshot, he asked, "Either of you named Tutelman?" I said I was, and he told me my flight had been cancelled. Then he gave me a note with all the details of my new itinerary, as dictated by my wife over the phone. I was impressed with their effort to find me and get me the message; real southern hospitality. (BTW, once I thought about it, I was equally impressed with my wife's ability to track me down at SC National. But that's another story.) Now the bad news: I had been suspicious of the yardage markers' accuracy all round. But I wrote it off to my own inconsistent game... until the 14th hole. I was right at 130 yards according to the sprinkler heads. I hit a perfect 8-iron, which will go 135-140 for me. But it landed a few yards short of the green. Bummer! There was a fast-moving group behind us, and we invited them through right there. I watched them hit perfect shots, and the all landed right where my ball did. I have to assume that the sprinkler heads were off by 10 yards or so on that hole. Then on 16, I teed off next to the 115-yard mark. A knock-down half swing with a 9-iron went way over the green into the swamp. Brent's shot was also properly hit and in the swamp. We warned our threesome behind to take 10-15 yards less club. They were STILL over the green. Must've been 25-30 yards shorter than marked. I played the last two holes in PO'd mode; should not have let it get to me, but I'm sure it colored my overall impression of the course. After the round, we sat on the clubhouse veranda and settled up, then took off for airports in Columbia and Charleston. What a wonderful four days of golf. Ninety-nine holes of fine courses and the best company in the world. To quote Thor's now-legendary poem: We hit balls into the ocean. We putted by the light of the moon. 'Gators and deer, Golf and beer. It ended much to soon. Thanks ever so much for inviting me, Brent.