Bob Bestler | Teeing up more important than golfing at prestigious — and pricey — course
On Tuesday, I'll be playing my first round of golf since January at Whispering Pines, a course I've always liked.
I'll be paying $28 for 18 holes, the result of a group discount as well as the generally reasonable cost of playing golf in Myrtle Beach.
I mention this after reading about the green fees at some of the nation's top 100 public courses — most of which are as far beyond my budget as a trip on a Richard Branson space flight.
The highest of the high-enders remains, as always, Pebble Beach. You'll be paying $495 to walk its manicured fairways while listening to the roaring Pacific next door. Don't get wet.
Closer to home is Pinehurst No. 2, just down the road in North Carolina. It'll cost you $450 and that does not include a nearby ocean. Just sand dunes.
Whistling Straits in faraway northern Wisconsin and host of this year's PGA Championship carries a $385 green fee, but first you have to find it. Think Lake Michigan.
Closer to home we have the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island at $370 and Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island at $290 — both of which make paupers of most Grand Strand courses.
But not all.
The Dunes Club (No. 50 among the top 100) is listed as charging a $205 green fee and Caledonia Golf & Fish Club (No. 73) is at $199 — both a far cry from the $28 I'll be paying Tuesday.
As I continue my trek through retirement I do not expect to be playing any of these great courses.
I was, however, fortunate enough to play several of them back in the day, when I was still in the media loop as a Myrtle Beach golf writer — and, yes, they were all great golf courses, but, bottom line, they were just golf courses. Not exactly the Parthenon.
Anyway, at age 75 and with an increasingly anemic game, I no longer care whether I'm playing Whispering Pines or Pebble Beach. I'm just glad to be back out there.
Contact Bob Bestler at bestler6@tds.net.
This story was originally published May 15, 2015 at 10:57 AM with the headline "Bob Bestler | Teeing up more important than golfing at prestigious — and pricey — course."