From: Dave Tutelman To: Stluka, Fred ; Reiling, David ; Joe Dean ; Georg, Mark ; Dave "Thor" Collard ; Cooper, Guy ; Chuck Sedlacko ; Brent Hutto ; Ash Harrison ; RSG-Ohio Subject: RSGOHIO Fripp Odyssey 2001 Date: Thursday, February 01, 2001 9:33 PM Stream-of-conciousness, which will probably duplicate some conciousness already demonstrated by Brent Hutto and Thor... For a change, Continental airlines was super-friendly, cooperative, and got me there on time both ways. Even the snacks were delicious (if hardly "meals"). Met Brent and Terry Easton at the airport, and we repaired straighaway to Charwood. But not before Terry started distributing the six "Fripp Odyssey" hats that his nephew had made up. The round at Charwood was very windy, but warm and sunny. Well, windy is relative; I still have last year at Ocean Pointe as a "pointe of comparison". And warm is relative; I think it got into the 50s, but I had just arrived from New Jersey and that was the warmest and sunniest I had seen in almost two months. The fourth hole is a nasty par-5, with trees down both sides and a sharp dogleg up a steep hill the last hundred yards. Brent hit his wedge to 6 feet from about 80 yards. Just inside him, I followed by hitting my wedge to 3 feet. Just inside me, Terry knocked his stiff to 2 feet. Great stuff! (And two pars resulted.) All three of us were rusty (Brent hadn't played since RSG-Ohio, longer than either Terry or I), and we hit some "interesting" shots. As he watched one wicked slice, Terry remarked, "That turned right faster than George W Bush." Yes, the Hunter-Gatherer is a good place for a group. But with just Terry and me (neither of us a big beer drinker) we looked for a different kind of dinner. Terry is fond of goat waffles, so we looked for a Mediterranean restaurant. Found one, and feasted on falafel. (I decided to get "the salad" instead of a potato. Now I know what a REAL Greek Salad is: 1" cubes of tomato and cucumber, drowned in olive oil.) For the record, the Days Inn breakfast is now a continental breakfast, not the full sit-down breakfast we used to enjoy there. (Well, Thor didn't enjoy, but the rest of us...) And their business is way off. Coincidence? You decide. Friday we got to The University Club with plenty of time for our 9:04 tee time -- and faced a 2-hour frost delay. The day started very cold, but the bright sun warmed things up in a hurry; we were down to shirtsleeves by the middle of the round. David Reiling joined us (thanks again, David), and we played 18 on the Garnet and Black courses. The Gold is good too, as we know from previous years -- but my least favorite of the three. I love the Garnet and the Black is even better. We struggled the front nine. (I think others were struggling. I KNOW I was.) But I finally "found my game" on the back nine. The 11th hole is a par-3 with a peninsula green. Lotsa' water, and only the green to hit. I did, and my round was much better from then on. Except... I must disagree with Brent (and David) on what to do if you're on the right-hand fairway on the 18th hole; I tried going back to the other fairway, and it cost me more strokes than just playing the side I was on would have. I think the proper rule to cite would be, "Never try to play a shot that isn't in your bag." I loved the difficult 16th hole. Drive in the fairway, and a big hit with my Rescue club onto the green. My 20-foot birdie putt hit the cup dead center, but too fast to stay in. (That was the third time I did that in two days. Comes from the last thought being, "Don't ever leave a birdie putt short.") Because of the frost delay, there was no third nine for us. Frankly, walking -- no, more like climbing -- the UC course left me in no shape to carry my bag for a third nine anyway. We headed for Fripp, with a dinner stop at Walterboro. During dinner, Brent and Mark Georg touched base by cell phone, and gave Terry and me shopping instructions. We got the instructions a bit scrambled, to include, "Be sure to get beer." It was supposed to be, "We already have the beer." But it could have been worse; suppose each of us thought the other was supposed to get the beer. Anyway, Terry's Cadillac is now a legal beer truck (to borrow a phrase from Damon Runyon). Got to the house at Fripp, and fropped into bed. Beautiful digs, as usual. Big kitchen/den area. Six guys in six bedrooms. Big-screen TV, with The Golf Channel on cable. Cool place! But because of the weather, we were generally too busy (or too tired) to hang out much. We made better use of the condo last year. No, I'm not complaining... When the sun came up in the morning, we were able to see that we had an oceanfront house with a wooden stairway over the dunes and into the sea. We teed it up on the dunes and each knocked a ball into the ocean. (It took some of us more tries than others.) Terry snapped pictures, and I expect to see them at a web site before too long. Ocean Creek is still a beautiful course, but is more "spoiled" every year. Higher price, and more houses on the course. It's starting to cut into the enjoyment. Still, it's not Ocean Pointe, and that's a good thing. In fact, even with the building, Ocean Creek is still something of a wildlife refuge. Witness from the Saturday morning round: * When we pulled up, there was a whole herd of deer on the 16th fairway, and one on the driving range. ("Home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play"?) * I went looking for my ball in the woods, and a couple of Bambis helped me look. Seriously, these fawns were only about two feet tall, and hung around only five feet from me. * I was walking along a water hazard looking for my ball in the tall grass at the edge (do we sense a pattern here?), and heard a low grunting in the direction I was walking. Looked up in time not to walk right up to a 10-foot alligator sunning on the bank. * The tee shot on the 16th is over a big pond. We watched a snowy egret and a great blue heron joust for the territory. Ocean Pointe is still a residential course. I think Terry put it best when he described it as "commercial". Still has a lot of wind, but not in the same league as last year. Thor, Mark, and I had a blast playing it. We took turns being the "entertainment". * My stint as entertainer was hitting out of tall "elephant grass" tufts on the sixth. More than one. More than 100 yards apart. (Served me in good stead later. I hit the green from deep in a tuft from 50 yards on eighteen.) * Mark's main stint was hitting a ball from the water hazard (with a stance in the water hazard) on fourteen. * Mark also provided the largest number of putts on the ridiculous first green. I don't remember whether it was six or eight putts, but something like that. I three-putted, which may have been the low for our group. But I was lucky enough to hit an aeration mark just as the ball ran out of steam, so it didn't roll all the way back off the green. Nobody should EVER put a pin position in the middle of a "false front". * Thor, still glowing from his even-par half-round in Savannah, was content to be just generally amusing. After Brent gave up at the turn (unfair Dave, that was his plan when he started the round), and Joe gave up after fifteen (Joe had an injured arm all weekend, and it just got worse), Terry joined us to make it a foursome with Joe along as "coach". On the eighteenth tee, our now large entourage was treated to some REAL Thor entertainment. After his first practice swing, he took a rare second. Full backswing, full turn, full "swoosh" that might have been heard back in the seventeenth fairway (if anybody were there; we pretty much had the course to ourselves). Then he gave the swoosh treatment to the ball. Huge swing. Huge impact. Thor looking around, "Where is it?!? Where did it go?!?" It had gone over the roof of the house just to the right of the tee. It easily cleared the very tall trees behind the house, and was last seen going into orbit about 60 degrees off-line. "Well I DID win the hang time award, didn't I?" Yes Thor, you definitely did. After walking 36 holes and supper at the marina, nobody wanted to stay up until the wee hours. The beer stash was safe. :-( Sunday at Cat Island (I still have to think to call it SC National) was a new experience for us there: bright shining sun, a dry course, and only a one-and-a-half club wind. Yes there was a frost delay, but only a half hour or so. The sweater came off on the third tee. Gorgeous day. This is a beautiful course, but I didn't do it justice. I was in trouble everywhere. Racked up nine penalty strokes, most corresponding to drowned balls. But it was impossible to have a bad time, just a bad round of golf! Unfortunately, Joe was still struggling with his injured arm, and couldn't finish the round. Terry was hitting the ball beautifully. Somebody already noted, but I was going to say it anyway so I will... Whoever said, "Even God can't hit a one iron" never played golf with Terry. (There's another possible explanation, but one I'm not willing to accept. :-) He hits it better than driver. (Well, 3-wood anyway. Terry, I'm working on the specs for that driver. Almost there! Private Email this weekend.) But, what with painted greens and new houses where they don't belong, SC National seems to be going downhill as well. The kids buzzing ATVs all over the back nine were annoying, to say the least. I was also doing some club testing this weekend. I had built some clubs to try out new theories. Generally a success, plus an unexpected conclusion. * The putter I built to test the main novelty of the Dandy Putter (that Ham 'n' Eggs called Putter Of The Year) did its work. I had a true line and left nothing short with it. In fact, Brent took to calling a putt dead center but too fast to drop a "Tutelman Special". * I built a driver to test some theories about why I hit graphite-shafted drivers to the right (pushes and slices). This was an equal-opportunity driver; I had about as many misses left and right. * Looking at the driver stats, I also discovered I need to "warm up" on the course. Regardless of how many or how few range balls I beat before the round, my fairways-hit are much lower the first nine of the day than the rest of the day. The first nine of the day, I hit less than 20% of fairways, while hitting almost 60% of all other fairways. This was pretty consistent across five rounds in four days. Three cheers for Brent for putting this together! Thanks to David for being a great host at the University Club. Terry, hope you found some goat waffles on the way home. (And no troopers wondering about beer smuggling.) And see you guys in Pittsburgh, Hershey, Ohio, and next Super Bowl Weekend!