The Step-Mother of All Golf Trips

A blog about the Gurus' 9 day/17 course trip back east (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) where we played some of the finest courses in the country.

I am a chronic procrastinator. As my wife can attest, most of my exceptions to that rule are golf-related. I can be instantly excited, motivated, and fully engaged when it comes to this time-consuming, money-draining, wonderful passion of mine. However, I have now been procrastinating for a full six months, and this time it IS golf-related. I owe the world another blog, and again it is about a trip to New York, and again it involves mammoth proportions!

You may remember last year that I wrote about, and Bill and I undertook, what I referred to as “the mother of all blogs about the mother of all trips.” That statement is still very credible. However, we took another trip back to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania that very nearly duplicated last year’s feat. Maybe this one could be the “step-mother of all blogs about the step-mother of all trips.” Again, it was legendary. Again it was huge (and, admittedly, that may again just be in our own minds).

Here are the stats: (Compare them to last year)

1. The trip was again 9 days. Last year we said that we would never get away with that again. This time we had graduated to a full 9 children between us (not 8.9 like June of ’09). Yes, they are all a year older. No, that didn’t win us any points with our wives.
2. This trip we only played 17 courses – or 307 holes. Down 1 course, and 18 holes from last year. Aren’t we a couple of slackers!
3. Only 8 of the courses were on Golf Digest’s current list of 100 Greatest.
4. Major championships: I haven’t gone through and totaled those hosted by the courses on this trip, but I know it is a lot - I also know that the total doesn’t compare to last year’s total. This is primarily because we played Oakmont last year. It is the major championship megasaurus.
5. We drove many less miles overall. Our air miles were an identical 4800, but we drove half the miles of last year (2400), and, unlike last year, we managed to keep the same rental car from start to finish – though we did a great job of making that seem improbable at best one late and expensive night in The City. More on that later.
6. We walked about 65 miles . . .again in golf shoes.
7. We had 15 different caddies – with no world-class idiots in the bunch. From an entertainment/blog standpoint, that really is a bit of a disappointment.
8. We played golf in 3 states, stayed entirely within those 3 states, but crossed state lines about 15 times, never by boat.
9. Our cameras worked, we didn’t leave any clubs in the state that we were in the previous night, no caddies “mistakenly” left the course with our range finders, and we didn’t have to change a flat tire in Mars.
10. Finally, Bethpage and its infamous phone system were not part of the pre-trip chaos. Scheduling was a relative breeze – with one mid-trip, minor exception.

This trip had been on the table for 2010 since the middle of our 2009 New York adventure. We had made a good friend on our last trip. A very good friend. The type of friend that can and does invite you both to come back the next year to play the hallowed grounds we all reverently call “Pine Valley Golf Club.” (Cue the chorus of angels). As any golf should know, if an invitation is EVER extended to come play Pine Valley, you find a way to overcome sudden speechlessness, you utter an audible “yes, please,” and then you pray like crazy that your benefactor doesn’t die before he makes good on his offer. So, needless to say, we received such an invitation and then we anxiously waited for him to tell us when it would fit his schedule. We did remind him a few times throughout the year. We couldn’t help it. The holy day was finally chosen – September 21, 2010. (Cue the chorus of angels).

Our friend and host teeing off on the 14th hole at Pine Valley

At that point, our goal was to set up a trip around that date that was as high quality as possible. Our typical process goes something like this: We first make a list of all of the 100 Greatest in the area. These are our “pillars.” We then ask ourselves if any courses not on the List will likely make the list before we have a chance to return to the area. We then peruse the Best-in-State lists and try to fill the remainder of the trip with great candidates – historical tracks, courses with unique designers and design features, and ones that we think will appeal to our personal tastes.

In the process of “sequencing” the trip we received another gift – similar in its magnitude to The Pine Valley Invitation. This gift came from another good friend named Steve. You may remember Steve as the mastermind behind last year’s conquest of the Bethpage telephone system. Steve shares our compulsion for the experiencing of great golf courses, and graciously facilitated a chance for us to play Merion Golf Club. No, I am not kidding. Yes, we played Merion and Pine Valley on the same trip! (No need to cue. The angels are now singing on their own).

Clubhouse at Merion Golf Club

Our adventure started with another Jet Blue “red-eye” from SLC to NYC. This time we were not inexplicably upgraded to first class. This time the plane was packed, and an unknown gal was assigned the seat between for the duration of the flight. She immediately tried to sleep, and she did not appear to be golf-crazed which together put a big fat damper on any thoughts we had of talking back and forth for the entire flight about the intricacies of golf course architecture. Ultimately, it was a very uncomfortable, very long flight, where neither of us slept much, and we arrived in New York feeling pretty hammered for our first round.

Continue reading about the Gurus' experience at Garden City, Plainfield, Bayonne, Trump National Bedminster (New), Rock, and Quaker Ridge: (2010 NY Trip Days 1-3) >.

Read about the Gurus' experience at Hudson National, Sleepy Hollow, The Ridge at Back Brook, Aronimink, Merion (East), and Hidden Creek: (2010 NY Trip Days 4-6) >>.

Read about the Gurus' experience at Galloway National, Atlantic City CC, Trump Philadelphia (formerly Pine Hill), Pine Valley, and The Creek Club: (2010 NY Trip Days 7-9) >>>.

You can also click on an individual course name to read the review posted on that particular course.