I hope some day you have the chance to play the Donald Ross gem just refurbished in Charlotte, NC as I did this week.  Charlotte CC, home of the Best Fried Oysters In Golf, is one of the greats…and a place for one of the Most Underrated Things In Golf.

Fall golf is without a doubt one of the true small pleasures in life.  Teeing off at nearly 2:00 allows for a late twilight finish which comes with it’s own special bonus…it’s already cocktail time!

My friend John “Isn’t it Wunnerful?” Corder hosted us for this walk in the park with two superb caddies, Dave and Box Car…the latter got his name when he used to ride the rails to work and one day the train was moving too fast for him to jump off at the construction site where he was working…so he had to ride it to the end and walk back the 30 miles…good Sherpa lore.

I remember working at the golf course as a kid in the fall with the smells of burning leaves in the air…stealing a three hole loop before dinner and riding my bike home in the dark.  No way I’d let my kids do that but that’s another story for another day.

But the fall is a time for some of the best things in life.  We move too fast, especcially in these times, to really enjoy them.  Football, Thanksgiving, fireplaces, and maybe the best of all…golf. 

One of the truly great fall trips has to be Pinehurst, both the resort and the area.

We’ll start with your home base…in this case the Carolina Hotel. The Carolina is the hotel at Pinehurst Resort…the structure you think of when you hear “Home of American Golf”. It is without a doubt our St. Andrews, our beginning…and the best part? It’s open to anyone with a little room on their Visa card.

The actions of James W. Tufts, founder of Pinehurst, are only remarkable in our era.

In his day, the sort of risk, vision, and just plain onions to open a health resort in the middle of nowhere was much more common. It’s the way that generation rolled. Today we would need lawyers, researchers with feasibility studies, consultants of every brand.

All J.T. needed was a few thousand bucks and a dream.

Tufts was one of three heroes, and perhaps the most important, to early golf in America.

The second (and I personally love the irony) was a nobody golf pro from the north of Scotland who saw the sandhills as a place to plant what would become his masterpiece…and that’s saying something since by the end of his life there were 500 courses attached to the name “Ross”.

The third hero of Pinehurst, and therefore to golf ,was Robert Dedman, Sr. By the 70′s most everything old was being knocked down for the sake of progress. The progress that took place in Pinehurst was the building of hundreds of homes and condos which could be fixed easily…with the help of a few dozen bulldozers.

Mr. Dedman saw Miss America, a crucial part of our history, in a polyester dress and fake pearls around her neck…and he fixed it. The cynic will say it was about profit…I prefer to think it was respect. He also saved The Homestead so enough said?

On to your trip…

First of course is the golf. These, in order, are the courses to play while in the area. As always, I would encourage you to spend the money for caddies…there are some beauties in the area as you would guess. For the accomodations, we’ve already established you are staying at The Carolina.

1. Pinehurst #2- home of the ’99 and ’05 U.S. Opens but more importantly the place where Hogan finally broke through and Arnie and E. Harvie Ward battled in the 50′s.

2. Pine Needles- go for a day trip just a few miles down Midland Rd. to the Bell family farm. Another Donald Ross classic, a course you might come off thinking is the best in town…you would be right until you played the Deuce a few more times…then you would see the light.

3. Pinehurst #8- A Fazio which, in my humble opinion, is perhaps his best…or at least Top 2 with Wade Hampton being pretty sporty as well…also, home of the Big Pine Incident.

4. The Elks Club a.k.a. Southern Pines G.C.- Another Ross that would never be called a classic but for the fact it’s where the local color hangs out…a true swinging screen door place which as all BIG readers know is an automatic 4-star to me. I take my kids there when we are in town for Thanksgiving…it’s just one of those things.

5. Pinehurst #4- Fazio again. A really fine golf course and site of next year’s U. S. Amateur.

6. Forest Creek GC- as always I’ll include a private club in the trip just in case you can wiggle access. This is a beauty, 36 holes of who else, Fazio, but awesome in it’s understated southern charm.

Where to eat? The breakfast at the Carolina is second only to The Homestead as The Best In Golf…and if they had the home-made doughnuts it would be a tie. Lunch of course is the least important meal on a golf trip so grab what you can. For dinner, a jacket and tie at the hotel is a great experience…or a burger in the bar at Pine Needles is pretty stout also.

But make sure one night to amble over to the Pine Crest Inn in the Village. Scotty or Carl will whip up a good martini for you followed by one of the best fillets in golf…an alternative, but only on certain nights, is the turkey dinner with all the trimmings…cranberries, stuffing, the works.

Neville’s Bar in downtown Southern Pines is unique for a few cold ones as long as you agree with Neville that Frank Sinatra was the greatest person ever, living or dead…you’ll see what I mean.

Fall is for football, pigs on the cooker, and Jack & Ginger Ale…but mostly fall is for golf…trust me you won’t spend a better 3 or 4 days than the trip listed above. Go do it…it’s The Best In Golf.

Consequently every travel writer will succumb to the usual (lazy) description of the area. It almost never fails. He or she gets to town, sees the neon and traffic, and inevitably goes to the negative.

On Day 1 go play The River Club or Willbrook Plantation, or both. These courses are a good warm-up, quality courses always in good shape and won’t wear you out.

Have I given you a cheap golf trip? No, but what I’ve described to you here is as good a trip from a quality and value for the money standpoint you can take anywhere in the country.

You would love David, one of his stories follows to show you why. He owns The Pilot…Pinehurst’s and Southern Pines’ daily newspaper.

Before you think he is a small town newspaper man, consider that James Dodson is among his columnists…not bad. Read Jim’s great columns here

My companions on Saturday were David, Blair Leburn (my favorite partner next to Ed Butler), and Laura Sequenzia, National Director of Travel for Golf Digest Publications, a Top 10 person as well as salesperson.

To digress for a moment, my friends will acknowledge that I am a +3 at giving it but a 22 or 23 at taking it…In fact Blair and my wife Audrey held a bit of an intervention at a recent holiday we took together. So, I’m working on it.

“Hello, my name is Rick, and I’m a baby” It’s coming around I think.

So we play the first 9 holes at CNCC and head into the halfway house. A nice woman is cutting up what appears to be her 6th dozen hard boiled egg and depositing them in the biggest stainless steel bowl this side of The Marine Corp.

Thinking of lunch at 10:00, I naturally say “Oh, are you making egg salad?”

I knew what was coming next…not a chuckle, snigger, or guffaw, but the more simple (and deeply cutting) from Laura…”Hard to get anything past you Ricky”.

I’m working on it…that didn’t hurt.

In the meantime, Blair orders a hot dog…innocent enough. What emerges is at least a one-half pound of pork-beef-whocares , toasted bun smeared in butter and grilled. It’s too much even for His Fuzziness so I get a bite. Man that’s fine.

Storytime…Dave is in New York with a fellow newspaperman when they find themselves alone in Times Square. The ladies had made their way to American Girl for a doll facial and manicure, I’m down with that.

Dave’s pal decides that they should head on over the The New York Times to see some fellow Brothers in Print…when they reach the security desk of the hallowed grounds, Dave’s friend says something like “Hey there, we’re a couple of news guys from down south and thought we would stop by and see yall’s shop”. Yall’s shop?

The security guard was impressed to say the least and, dare I say, inspired and sympathetic. He knew in his heart of hearts that a gatherer and distributor of information to the public is at the very heart of our Constitution, our values, and our way of life. Without a free press we would be void of Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Studs Terkel, Saul Bellow, Walter Cronkite, and Snoop Dog.

He rose from his post, pointed east and replied “Yous two, get the f— outta here!”

Now, that’s a story that is at once touching and poignant.

OK, not really , but the hot dog at CCNC rocks.

Tony “Hello m’ friend” Orfanos tells me that a little temper tantrum now and again is healthy…could be…but yesterday I had lunch with John Corder (nominee for loving the ancient game the most, at least Top 10) at his “wunnerful” home base… Charlotte Country Club.

Now it would be hard to pick CCC for any one thing…from the front door, to the bar, to the golf course itself (D. Ross naturally), this is a spot…the staff knows your name as soon as you are introduced…that is to say they can introduce you to someone else 5 minutes later and get it right…they give “Golf Professional” the respect it deserves.

But the thing that stands out at Charlotte are the fried oysters…in fact they say right on the menu “CCC Famous Fried Oysters”…now your fearless reporter calls a 2-stroke penalty on this alone. You can call them famous but I’ll be the judge if they are The Best In Golf.

First of all you can order them in anything, on anything, or all by themselves…

OK, that’s a good thing…I’m calmer…in fact our host ordered the shrimp salad with fried oysters on top…even the wait staff was impressed with that play.

I had them on top of the Mediterranean Salad…they were like me…crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. They were at once unpretentious and bold…I laughed I cried…John paid the check.

Congratulations Charlotte CC…you say they are famous, and now we see why.