The first time my son and I played in what was once called the Father/Son Event in Myrtle Beach, SC, he was eight years old. A few years later, we won our flight of 10 teams, mostly because, at age 11, he was permitted to play from the ladies tees. (He probably was hitting the ball 200 yards by then.) Win or lose, we always had a great time at the Father/Son, which is today called Family Week and includes father and daughter and mother and daughter competitions. I recommend Family Week, which will be held July 15 to 18 next year, to all who want to spend a few fun days competing with their child on some very nice golf courses. (Note: I have no relationship with the organizers and write this purely out of nostalgia.) This will be the 23rd year of the event.
The Parent/Child definition is rather loose. An uncle can play with a niece or nephew, for example. Indeed, the only qualification is that a generation separates the older and younger players (and that you have established handicap ratings).
The Heathland at The Legends, one of the Myrtle Beach Family Week golf courses.
The golf part of Family Week, which also includes food and beverage at tournament events, lunch on the course and a few hundred dollars worth of golfing swag per team, extends over three days. The three nine-hole rounds start with a best ball competition, then a Texas Scramble, followed by Captain’s Choice. (When we played, the second round was a pure alternate shot event.). The only difference between Texas Scramble and Captain’s choice is that each competitor must contribute a minimum of six tee shots in the Texas Scramble format; otherwise it is what most of us know as a scramble.
Selection of which of the eight courses competitors play on each day is random. The courses include Thistle Club, Arcadian Shores, Pine Lakes International, Glen Dornoch, Shaftesbury Glen, Barefoot Resort, Legends Heathland Course and Wachesaw Plantation East, former host of an LPGA event.
Pine Lakes International
The team fee of $995 may seem pricey but when you figure in the food and drink, the roughly $500 worth of gifts per team (including a $150 gift card per player that can be used at any of the host golf courses or at the event’s online store), three rounds of golf and the fun and priceless bonding across two generations, consider it an inexpensive golf vacation.
For more information, visit the Myrtle Beach Family Week website.
It takes quite an investment in time to get to Edisto Island (pronounced with the accent on “Ed”) in a remote area of the South Carolina coastline, some 40 miles from Highway 17. And once you are there, it still takes some doing to get to the Plantation Golf Course on a peninsula that juts into the Atlantic Ocean on the southern tip of the island.
Andy Litteral of Richmond, VA is a faithful reader of this blog site and our newsletter, and a frequent golf partner when I am in Virginia. Andy made the trip to Edisto in September, accompanying his wife, Anna, who attends annual reunions there with a group of friends from college. Andy played the Plantation course and wrote a review which will help me kick off a new web site, OffTheBeatenCartPath, that will debut before year’s end. But his pre-round warm-up is worth mentioning in advance.
All photos by Andy Litteral
The Plantation course offers no practice range, although it has a couple of hitting nets, which doesn't help you to gauge distance. The only way to properly warm up for a round is to drive 10 minutes north to the Edisto Driving Range. Andy found no attendant waiting to take his $5 and present him with his bucket of balls. Instead, he found what he described as an array of buckets that reminded him of the line in the movie Forrest Gump that described “life (as) a box of chocolates.” A row of buckets awaited him, most bearing a generous assortment of golf balls in white and yellow, some striped, some not. Above them was a sign that touted an honor system that invited the golfer to drop $5 in the adjacent box and take a bucket of balls.
After the end of the peak season (Labor Day), the practice range is empty for periods of time, and it would be easy to grab a “box of chocolates” without paying the modest $5. But golf is based on honesty, and whoever owns the range surely depends on that. The Edisto Driving Range and its weather-beaten shack, according to Andy, look as if they have been there for decades. Whoever owns the place has counted on the honesty of golfers and, in the long run, apparently it has paid off.
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