Florida, Alabama and Georgia

We said our farewells in Mississippi and headed for the Alabama coast at Dauphin Island (pronounced doff-in) where we enjoyed strolling on the beach and birding. After catching the ferry to Fort Morgan, we continued on to the Sunshine State of Florida and Milton, an old logging and shipping town on the panhandle which was originally called "Scratch Ankle" due to the irritating undergrowth. Our golf course was The Moors, a nearly treeless beautiful course patterned after the great courses in Scotland. It was warm and windy as we teed off, and had a fun time except for when we landed in one of the many pot bunkers. These are named pot bunkers because you can take so long to get out of them that you go to pot. Unfortunately, we landed in many of the buggers which increased our score a bit.

From Milton we went straight north to Greenville, Alabama and the famous Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail where we played the Sherling and Canyon nines at Cambrian Ridge. This golf trail was the brainchild of a Dr. Bonner who was in charge of the parks and recreation system. He believed in spending a lot of money on golf courses in hopes that they would lure some of the frozen northerners to Alabama to play golf at very cheap rates while spending their northern dollars on lodging, food, gas, and other luxuries. Some thought him crazy, but like Seward who urged purchase of Alaska for a few millions, his gamble paid off big time. Anyway, we met Francine Wasden, Executive Director of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce who is possibly the most positive, the most bubbly, the most charming C of C director you could hope to meet, and with a southern accent to boot! She loved our idea and even met us on the golf course for one hole on which she managed to get a par. The course was absolutely fabulous. Built on a ridge, it is designed perfectly to combine challenge with scenic beauty -- no two holes are the same and they are all breathtaking. I even managed my first birdie on the trip, a par 5, and we loved the entire morning. We started at 7 Am and had the course to ourselves for a whole hour -- it was golf at its absolute best; a beautiful day, a beautiful course, and solitude with a birdie and good scores thrown in.

From Greenville we headed north to Montgomery where we enjoyed the new and very well done Rosa Parks museum. We spent the night in Georgia at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt State Park, camping on Lake Delano with frogs croaking outside our window and awakening to a lot of great birds singing. It was beautiful, serene, and peaceful, marred only by the rest room being flooded which forced us to go a bit farther to the next one. We toured the Little White House at Warm Springs where Roosevelt went to get the cure from his infantile paralysis (polio), and then drove to Atlanta. Somehow big cities have it in for us, as during the peak of rush hour on an extremely busy interstate our RV started making very loud clanging noises and almost overheated before we could pull off to the side. A broken water pump was the problem, and a nice guy arrived about 90 minutes later for the tow after which we spent the night at a Red Roof Inn, and dined in not-so-much-luxury at a Waffle House where Gloria managed to share her T-bone with a dog by throwing pieces and finally the bone on the floor. It was an informal place. The van was fixed by 1:30 the next day so we were off again, this time to northeastern Georgia at Hartwell to play at Cateechee, a long and difficult course.

Before our round that afternoon we were interviewed by a nice reporter named Mark Hynds. We made the mistake of having a beer before playing as it was still pretty warm, then got out on the course at about 4 PM or so. Unfortunately, either the beer or the stress of the water pump got to us as we both played terribly, managing to lose all the balls we had found at Cambrian Ridge and then some. I had up to 4 mulligans on one hole, and we're not sure if this is exactly legal according to the Golf for Duffers book. By the back nine Gloria had had enough, but I finally started playing a bit better and even had a birdie on a par 4. By the 144 yard par 3 my aim was returning as I hit a nice 7 wood which soared down the fairway, bounced twice on the green and disappeared. It was an ace, a real hole-in-one, I could barely believe my luck! We raced up to the foursome just ahead of us to see if they had seen it, which they hadn't, but congratulated us anyway. We had to make it to our campsite as it was almost dark by the time we finished, so didn't get to buy all 60 people in the bar a drink afterwards. We understand that this is a major faux pas, but promise that we will provide drinks to everyone on the next dozen or so holes in one we get, unless it is almost dark and we have to make it to our campsite, that is.

It is now Memorial Day Weekend and we are safely lodged at the James Martin Inn on the Clemson University campus next to the Walker Course at Clemson, our next challenge tomorrow morning. The good folks at Clemson have been wonderful to us by providing the suite plus round of golf gratis, and they threw in a bright orange Walker Course at Clemson baseball cap which I will always treasure and will certainly wear tomorrow and at many future sporting events except when Clemson is playing the Ducks of Oregon, which probably will be never. So Go Tigers!!!!!

Glenn