Ok I will sum up my journey so far. This has been the time of my life and the people I have met have been unbelievable and extremely nice. The golf industry must have the most genres and well mannered people ever. Anyways I’ve been to Alabama through some beautiful foot hills. Then down to the everglades in Naples, fl (Southwest Florida) and saw some of the greatest sunsets I might ever seen on top of some great case studies that fit my agenda. I also did a little hiking through a cypress swamp. Then on up the eastern coast of Florida and just hung around golf courses, talked to people running the course and I could not resist the beaches during my free time. Next, I traveled up through Georgia and made a quick stop at Savannah. I should have spent more time in Savannah that town is awesome. I spent almost a week in low country South Carolina. There’s a lot of civil war history here and acres and acres of salt marshes. It’s a totally different environment through the back roads through the marsh areas. Its just so rich in wildlife and the natural ecology. It beats driving through miles and miles of corn fields in Illinois. After low country I stop at Pinehurst, North Carolina which is a small historic town with one of the most prestige’s golf courses in the country. I visited Pinehurst #2 and #8. There are eight courses and some date back to 1895. Donald Ross was the architect of most of the Pinehurst courses and he was also considered the father of american golf course architecture. Pinehurst #2 has held many famous tournaments most recently the 2005 US Open. After Pinehurst I drove through the Smokey Mountains and made my way up to Detroit to meet up with some family. Here’s some pictures of thinks I did on my travel from place to place:
Creek in the Smokey's
Sunset in the Smokey's
On th ebeach in Naples, FL
Cypress swamp near Fort Myers
My last stop was Forest Dunes Golf Club in Roscommon. I met with the superintendent and he showed me around the course which is located in middle of some federal owned land that is dedicated to the Kirtland Warbler bird. The course has a unique drainage system that does not drain into any of the man made lakes almost like a level spreader solution. One of the big issue was a concern that the course would pollute the local water supply and a river that is famous for trout fishing. So their was 4 water monitoring wells located where the water leaves the site and to date there has been no impact on groundwater or runoff from the site. Anyways. The course was built on a old apple orchard through very sandy soils. The course is ranked in the top 100 public courses to play and #2 course in Michigan.
This would conclude trip one and trip two will be even better. I’m going west to Colorado and then hopefully fly to the West Coast. If cant do that I will just spend and look at courses in the Chicago area and maybe a few in Wisconsin.
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