My Very Own Augusta

There are few places that get the blood flowing the way Augusta National can. The lush green landscape signals the long gray winter has given way to another golf season. Offering us a glimpse of the grounds that are so hard to reach in person should have been the sole reason someone decided we needed HDTV.

Augusta National is special for so many reasons, including the exclusiveness of the club. It will always be at an arm’s length from the public, dangling just enough out there for us to always want so much more. It’s a formula that extends well beyond Magnolia Lane. We’ve all got our own personal Augusta National, and so few of them are in Georgia.

Tomorrow I’m set to tee it up with my uncle at a private club in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. It doesn’t host the Masters, but in my universe, it’s got all the same mystique and aura. It’s that special place where the fairways are always that much greener, the elevated tees feel like you’re hitting from a mountain peak, and the greens are so pure and true that you cannot believe they’re made of the same material as those at the $12 muni you play back home.

Everyone can trace their start in the game. For me, it came through a grandfather who loved to play and an uncle who spent years in a pro shop, doing all the things I can now recognize as the grueling work of an assistant pro, but as a kid seemed like the absolute coolest job on Earth. When I’d tag along while visiting on summer vacation, the days were spent listening to stories from the veteran head pro. I’m sure my uncle had heard his boss’s tales dozens of times, but I swear he’d laugh just as hard each time hearing them again. One day it might be tales about Ralph Kramden cracking up the joint with a joke on the first tee, then driving everyone completely insane with his bigger-than-life personality in the dining room that night. There were stories about the big-time pros coming through the Poconos, names like Snead, Palmer, and Art Wall. As a kid, I didn’t know exactly what I was hearing, I just knew they were funny stories, and that if I were a few years older I’d get a lot more of the jokes.

The seed was planted during those long days hanging around the course. Stuffing my old canvas bag of cut-down blades full of whatever golf balls I could find and lugging it on my shoulder around the back nine before the morning groups got that far was awesome. It didn’t matter if I could count the number of shots I got airborne on two hands.

At the same time I was learning to love the game of golf in my uncle’s resort course pro shop, I also was realizing that Lords Valley CC — the country club my grandparents belonged to — not only had its own course, it was a course so unlike the ones I had seen. As kids getting away from the city for the summer, the lucky days were spent hanging out at the club’s pool; when we ate dinner there, we knew it was a special occasion. And I knew my grandparents played golf there. But to me, it might as well have been Augusta National. I could see a few holes from where we swam, but that was as close as I were getting. It was so fancy, so beautiful. Every once in a while my brother and I would get to go to the driving range, and even that was in pristine condition – the tee area was as nice as any actual tee box I’d seen, and obviously without the mats I thought defined a range given my experiences back home.

So imagine my excitement the first time my grandfather said we were going to play the actual course. I can remember bringing my clubs into the house the night before and I must have spent an hour cleaning them, trying to make them shine like no set of decades-old hand-me-down irons ever had; going through all those nasty might-as-well-be-range balls to find the nicest ones possible (while stashing the others into another pocket so I’d know where to find them if needed); praying I could create an outfit from my sixth grade wardrobe of sweatpants and t-shirts that would allow me entry into the mysterious world of khaki pants and collared shirts.

I don’t remember much about the golf itself from the couple times I played there as a kid, but I definitely remember the excitement. I also remember my grandmother had the best strategy for pace of play. She’d tee off. If it was in the fairway she’d hit it again (if not, drop one next to the longest drive of the group), and continue until topping one or missing entirely. Then she’d pick it up, get in the cart and carry it to the green before putting out. It was a great way to play, and taught us kids that we were out there for family time and to have fun, not spend five hours chopping up the course.

So fast forward a couple of decades. It’s been years since anyone in the family has had membership at the country club, but when the phone rang this week and my uncle (who left the business long ago) said it’s supposed to be 70 degrees and he’s itching to play, I knew there was a chance and the butterflies started to flutter. A day later, he got a call from the nephew of that great old-time pro (and a good friend of his) and an invitation was extended.

Having the chance to get out on that first tee has become a little more common the past few years, but no matter how many times I put my peg into that hallowed ground, the night before I’ll still lay in bed thinking of the 199-yard par three entirely over water and the massively elevated par five where your drive can hang in the air so long you’ve got time to eat a sandwich before it finds fairway. And the greens. Oh, the greens. At least I’ll spend less time tonight worrying about what I’ll wear than 20 years ago, and more time deciding if I’ll lay up or pull out driver on the short par four opener.

Without a doubt, I’ll drift off to sleep playing all 18 holes in my head.

And yeah, I’ll go fetch my clubs from the trunk. I’m sure they can use a little spiffing up. It is the country club after all.