I brought the clubs with me on a visit to see our daughter in northern Vermont this past holiday weekend and was able to play 18 at the Champlain Country Club in Swanton, whose logo features a bright red-orange maple leaf (the course is just 15 minutes from the Canadian border). Champlain, designed by someone named Duer Irving Sewall in 1915, is a classic layout, and the club has the feel of a family run enterprise, which it is, and with a friendly and loyal group of members.
        On a crisp and breezy summer afternoon, which is to say about 70 degrees and alternately sunny and cloudy, I was stuck as a single behind a foursome and waited before every shot on the front nine; that was okay because I was taking pictures and trying to solve some chipping and putting issues. However, when the foursome stopped for lunch in the popular dining room at Champlain, I saw my chance to speed things up a bit and scooted to the 10th tee. I made it around the back nine in less than 90 minutes, without rushing, and the entire round clocked in at just 3 hours and 15 minutes.
The greens are small, and fast, at Champlain Country Club (#1 green pictured).        Although there were a few brown and bare spots near greens and in some of the fairways, the putting surfaces were nearly perfect and as fast as any publicly accessible greens I have played in recent memory. Clearly, the membership exerts influence on course conditions, and those non-members who pay the fairly modest green fees -- $40 on weekdays -- are beneficiaries. There are no initiation fees, and an annual membership for a single golfer is just $1,022; of course, the season that far north is short (April to October, in a good year), but if a retiree can get out on the course three times a week, the greens fee per round works out to about $13.
The par 3s at Champlain offer the best opportunities to pick up strokes.        Vermont, especially in the Burlington area, is an underappreciated golf vacation destination. If you love consistently good food (heavy on the farm to table), a beautiful lake (Champlain), mountain views, and an almost endless variety of local craft beers, you won’t be disappointed. If you have a golf pro willing to intercede with a call to Vermont National Golf Club in Burlington or Country Club of Vermont a half-hour away in Waterbury, do it, although there are many interesting public course options in an hour radius of Waterbury, a small town with a selection of restaurants the equal of much larger cities, including Prohibition Pig, Arvads and Blue Stone Pizza. (I’ve eaten in all of them and can recommend.) Just across the interstate and located on a fast rushing stream, Hen of the Wood is arguably the best restaurant in the entire state. (The New York Times once said so.) Stay at nearby Stowe Village –- a couple of nice courses there too –- and if you must, take the tour of the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory. (Just make sure they are actually making ice cream as the tour is boring when the pints aren’t moving along the conveyor belts.) At least you get to sample the flavor of the day at the end of the tour.
        Most of all, if you like beer, all the local restaurants serve Vermont craft beers on tap and in bottles, more different brands and types than you could drink in a year; don’t be afraid to order the weird sounding ones like Folk Metal or Heady Topper. And when you fall in love with one, head for Waterbury’s Craft Beer Store where you just may become tipsy while contemplating the mind-numbing selection of beers on the shelves.

        The last two weeks have put Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC, on the map for big time sports. Conway is the last town you pass from the west as you enter the much better known Myrtle Beach. In just one week in mid June, the school’s most famous graduate, Dustin Johnson, won the U.S. Open championship and then, a week later, the school’s baseball team earned the College World Series title in Omaha, beating the favored and more highly resourced University of Arizona Wildcats. Then, yesterday, Johnson, who has notoriously finished tournaments the way hares finish road races, closed with a flourish at Firestone Country Club near Akron, OH, to run down the favored and generally steadier Aussie Jason Day.
        Include this reporter among those who have never been big fans of Johnson. Having an enigmatic personality like Tiger Woods would be an improvement for the dry and diffident Johnson whose tragic pratfalls late in major tournaments would be legendary in the world of golf if not for a man named van de Velde.
        There has always been a sense, as well, that the 30-year old had not grown beyond his college days. Hard partying and competitive golf are undeniably incompatible, and Johnson, unlike a lost soul like Johnny Manziel, chose his sport after a stint in rehab earlier this year.  The sober reality of being a new dad seems to have shaken the boy out of both Johnson's personality and his golf game. He has sealed the deal in the last two tournaments he has played as emphatically as Tiger at his best. And his post-game comments have been more assertive and confident, without a trace of smugness. Good for him, his family and for golf.

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        If you can stand the heat, this is a great time of year to play golf in Myrtle Beach. Summer is actually the off-peak season for golf on the Grand Strand, and prices are at their lowest of the year. Almost next door to Coastal Carolina University are three excellent layouts of varying degrees of difficulty and eye appeal at the Legends Golf complex on Highway 501, the major east/west route into Myrtle Beach and home to the huge Tanger Outlet Mall. The Heathland course, designed by the celebrated “classic” architect Tom Doak in the manner of British Isles course, features deep greenside bunkers and sweeping, unobstructed views across the entire course. P.B. Dye’s Moorland course is a bit more like its sister courses throughout the Myrtle Beach area, which is to say composed of wide expanses of sand and enough bodies of water to get your attention (and, if you are not on your game, your golf balls.) The Parkland was designed by local architect and golf course developer Larry Young and features aggressive bunkering and tricky green complexes that inspire creative shot-making.
With any luck, you will catch the late-afternoon bagpiping between the clubhouse and practice range at The Legends.
        Those who come to The Legends hungry for more than good golf and thirsty for more than a Gatorade will be impressed that the Legends offers breakfast, lunch and two beers (or fountain drinks) to go along with the golf. Although by the time your round is done, you may feel transported to the British Isles, try to extend lunch to 4 pm when a bagpiper strolls out near the practice range and does his number.
        For more information on The Legends or for ideas about which of the many Myrtle Beach area golf communities might suit you best, please contact us and we will respond within 24 hours.