If you stand in the middle of Times Square in New York City long enough, it has been said, you will meet everyone you know. I think the same may be true about an excellent golf course. Eventually, every golfer you know will show up.
Yesterday, while getting in just a few putts with my Chapel Hill, NC, friend Bob Harris on the practice green at Finley Golf Course, a stranger approached us, said he was in a threesome and asked graciously if we would like to tee off first. We were the only two groups signed up for the entire morning. Then he asked, "Which one is Larry Gavrich?" He had seen my name on the sign-up sheet in the pro shop. I said I was Gavrich and he asked, "Why does your name sound familiar?"
Well, I responded, maybe he was one of the thousand people who have the good taste to visit this blog site each month. I handed him my business card. "Oh, my gosh," he said, "I'm Henry Lister!" We were so overcome at the chance meeting of two guys who trade golf stories and reviews online that we spontaneously hugged.
Henry maintains one of my favorite golf sites, OffTheBeatenCartPath.com, and I am an occasional contributor. His was the first site for which I provided a link here. He told me OffTheBeaten has been a little dormant lately because of some family issues he had been dealing with, but he has plans to add more reviews shortly. I'll send him one or two in the coming days. (Note: Henry's web site is well-named, not the least because he really does trod the ground off the beaten cart paths; he carried his bag around the hilly Finley course.)
Henry's home course is Finley, the lucky stiff. Yesterday, as I tried to apply back-breaking body English to a five-foot putt on one of Finley's tricky and lightning fast greens, I heard a voice from another fairway boom, "Hey, Larry, how do ya like the greens?" I loved them, and hated them. I'll report why in the coming days.
Tom Fazio redesigned a rather mundane course and turned it into one of the best university layouts anywhere, and one of the best courses in the Carolinas.
sent down the street for olives - I perused Sweet Potatoes' interesting menu of southern dishes, many of them of the "peasant" variety ("peasant" as in hearty, like fried chicken, meat loaf and other indigenous foods). An appetizer of three-cheese mac and cheese with country ham caught my eye. A nice-sized ramekin was filled with slightly overcooked ‘ronies and wonderfully gloppy cheese (I mean that in the best sense of gloppy), with a hard-baked cheese crust on top. The bits of salty country ham (I guess that's redundant) added a little crunch to the primordial ooze.
