The sign that greets golfers at the back edge of the 1st tee at Pawleys Plantation in Pawleys Island, SC, does not bear a skull and crossbones. Nevertheless, it quietly screams, “Ignore the distances and play the tee boxes appropriate to your true handicap.” But even that cautionary sign underplays the difficulty of the golf course, especially for those of us who no longer drive the ball much more ten 200 yards off the tee.
        Up until I reached the age of about 60, I played the blue tees at Pawleys, at a total distance of 6,549 yards. I carried about a 10 handicap and, according to the course rating of 73.7 from the “Heron” tees, as they are called, I should have threatened a score of 80 or less nearly half the time.
        I didn’t; indeed, I hardly shot below 80 10% of the rounds I played. When I became Medicare eligible, I gave up my false notions of masculinity and moved to the white tees, with a total yardage of 6,184. The length of my best drives had dropped to around 220 yards, making the approaches to many of the greens when I played the Heron tees a choice between 3 hybrid and 3 wood. That was not much fun. When you look at the scorecard, you understand that a 10-handicap golfer might also be biting off more than he can chew from the white tees; the rating is a solid 72.0 but the Slope is 139 which, in practical terms, means the golfer will pay dearly for any balls hit off line.
The sign at the first tee at Pawleys Plantation Golf Club implies that choosing the wrong tees could make for a miserable day of golf. But Pawleys is a course where length off the tee is important, and an aging golfer who carries a low double-digit handicap but can't drive a ball much more than 200 yards will find the forced carries to many greens daunting. My advice, based on experience:  Move up one tee box.
        As I approach my 70th birthday in a couple of weeks, I’ve decided to move up to the “Senior” tees at 5,560 yards, a decision that was the toughest of all for me since some of these “yellow” tee boxes are set just behind the Ladies tees. (I hope that doesn’t sound chauvinist; I don’t mean it to.) The decision was hastened by the need to get in some practice rounds from the yellow tee boxes for the upcoming club senior championship, which I am playing for the first time. Still, the total distance from the yellows is longer than the card indicates because of the forced carries over water and bunkers on this particular Jack Nicklaus golf course. As you will note from the photo, Pawleys Plantation recommends a handicap from 19 to 28 for the yellow, or “Finch” tees. That is way off the mark for aging golfers who cannot hit the ball as far as they once did.
        Those “Senior” tee boxes carry a rating of just 69.2 but a slope of 132, still significantly higher than many of the public and muni courses many of us play regularly. The layout from up closer also adds some idiosyncrasies like big trees in the line of your drives that don’t come into play from the tees farther back and have forced me to keep driver in my bag on some 350 to 360 yard holes. And the shorter distances still do not eliminate the need for forced carries over water and sand –- in some cases, both –- to reach the putting surfaces on many of the Nicklaus holes. 
        In effect, a few of the holes from the yellow tees carry more risk than do those from the white tees. I know that from the experience of just a few rounds; from the senior tees, I haven’t broken 85 yet, still carrying my 10-handicap. But I have improved each round, and I am salivating at the prospect of having a really good round on a tough course from just 5,500 yards. 
        And that will keep me coming back for more.
        Note:  Our friend Brad Chambers, at ShootingYourAge.com, started a similar discussion recently about when to move to the senior tees.  Check it out by clicking here.

        Whether it starts out that way or not, a golf vacation can end up with the purchase of a home in a golf community -- maybe not right away, maybe not for a few years, but eventually the hook is set.
        Think about it. When are you more relaxed than on a buddy golf trip, and when are you more aware of your surroundings, especially if you love golf? The golf vacation is a time to dream, not only of a perfectly struck approach shot or a long putt for birdie, but of what life could be like if every day were a golf vacation.

The 14th hole on the Nicklaus Course at Reunion is a shortish par 4 (372 from men's tees), packed with plenty of hazards.

        This was brought home to me – literally – a couple of weeks ago while playing my home course, Pawleys Plantation in Pawleys Island, SC. March is the month when the 70-mile-long Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach, of which Pawleys anchors the southern end, plays host to many vacationing Canadians. My two playing partners were teenagers, followed around the tough Jack Nicklaus layouts by their dads. Once the parents knew I lived in the community and knew something about its real estate, the questions came: “How much would a condo like that go for?” “What are Property Owner Association fees like?” “How far are you from the beach?” These are all good questions, the kind a serious prospect would ask, even if a potential purchase were a few years off.
        I was on a buddy trip of my own a couple of days later, outside Orlando, FL, at the Reunion Resort. Ostensibly, I was there for our annual fantasy baseball league draft with four other participants, one of whom lives in Bonita Springs, FL. I hadn’t seen Stan since the day we were graduated from high school, nearly 52 years ago, and I was pleased to learn he has played lots of golf since. We were half of a foursome at the expansive Orange County National Golf complex north of Orlando, where the PGA Annual Show holds its Demo Day every year; among other highlights, the club has a huge round driving range, big enough to handle drives from one edge of the circle to the other. The rest of our foursome was made up of my son Tim, who writes for Golf Advisor, a division of Golf Channel; and my friend Bill, who is a resident of The Landings in Savannah, GA.

It's Florida, after all, and so there must be sand (on the 15th, a reachable par 5).

        As first rounds of the year go, the 18 at Orange National was a good warm-up for the following day’s round on the Nicklaus course at the Reunion Resort. While the Reunion’s course’s greens were a tad slower, the layout was vintage mid-career Nicklaus, with large bunkers, generous fairways and tough approaches to the greens -– the higher the approach the better, although the greens had been watered enough that they were generously receptive. (See a few attached photos for hole examples.)
        The three of us stayed in a beautiful house that featured five bedrooms, with an en suite bathroom for each. The living space was overly generous and included a wonderful eat-in kitchen (with built-in espresso unit, cool), a wet bar area, large dining room, a great room with large screen TV and a view of the Tom Watson course at Reunion just past the pool behind the house. I was told the house rents for around $500 per night which, on the face of it, seems expensive, but if it is being split four ways, it comes out to less than a Holiday Inn Express for each member of the foursome. Trust me, it is much more comfortable –- and a lot closer to some outstanding golf -– than most Holiday Inns. And you can cook your own meals and store as much beer as you need for the week.
        Here is a link to the house we stayed in: Click here.  It is a beauty, but there are plenty of others you can tour during your buddy trip.