Dear Rick,

I’d like to nominate something for your Best In Golf Blog.

A few weeks back I was in London and had an opportunity to play golf on a Monday morning. As you know, there are several great heathland courses around Southwest London that we’ve all heard of: Sunningdale, Wentworth, Walton Heath, The Berkshire. Truly amazing golf.

We end up at New Zealand Golf Club just about a mile from Sunningdale. New Zealand was built about the same time as these others but is truly one of those hidden gems.

So the three of us (me, my business partner Nick Green and one of his friends who lives nearby) show up at 9am as “visitors”. No introduction is necessary here. It is a private club. But like most in Britain, they keep their monthly dues low by taking money off of visitors like me. In America, we pay to keep the unwashed masses off our private clubs. There they like to keep the dues low. Different strokes and all of that.

Anyway, we have a fantastic round with some really fun holes. Finish in 3 hours toting our own bags (the way golf should be played). We don’t see anyone out on the course. Afterwards we head into the clubhouse and order lunch (3 Shepherd’s pies please with a pint of lager), and then head into the lockerroom to change shoes.

It was there I discovered what I have never seen.

Their lockers, which are original from the 1920s, have been passed down from member to member…with the previous occupants all listed above. When a member dies, his name is scratched out and the next guy inherits the locker. I know at Deepdale on Long Island there’s a similar tradition, but I don’t believe they scratch the guy’s name out!

Anyways, chalk this up as the Best Locker Doors in Golf.

And I highly recommend the Shepherd’s Pie.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Scott

Thanks Michael…sounds like you better not miss too many Saturday morning games at New Zealand or you just might lose your locker. I can hear the board meeting now:

 ”Anyone seen Purlmutter lately?  No, not for some time.  Scratch him off then and be quick about it.”

• The redolence of the locker room and no I don’t mean sweaty socks. There used to be a combination of Old Spice, shoe polish, and fresh cut grass that I just miss. The last time I smelled it was at Latrobe CC last summer.

• The Shagbag- there was a time before driving ranges (now they’re called practice facilities and take up more acreage than a high school) when we would go over to the side and practice with our shag balls. They were yellowed with age or had a “smile” in them, but they worked just fine. Hell, today’s golfer has never even seen a smile in a golf ball let alone a shagbag…what a shame.

• The Long Lunch at the Club

• The 9-hole golf league- guys on Mondays, gals on Tuesdays, couples on Fridays, and kids on Saturdays. Want to know why golf is hurting? Look no further.

• Spikes- I don’t miss the pockmarks between me and the 4-footer to halve a match….but man I miss with a passion the sound spikes made on the pavement when you walked from the parking lot to the starter’s shack.

• Dave Marr saying anything…but mostly “man he’s a tough dog to keep under the porch”

Condition of the greens comes in at #4 while condition of the course doesn’t really rank at all.

On to my story…I stole an afternoon Thursday at Cassique GC down on Kiawah Island. Just a two-ball with a caddie that was a better kid than caddie, which works just fine for me…two and a half hours of a nice walk on a really good golf course.

They do well on all of the above…the greens are the best in Charleston at least that I’ve played, and they have a great Locker Room man in Eugene White.

Eugene lives on Wadmalaw Island not far from Kiawah and lives on the land his ancestors didn’t own at the time and who didn’t have a lot of employment options…get my drift?

Fascinating man…we got talking about a few things including family, property taxes, and of course food.

When I told Eugene I was taking my son camping the next night on Wadmalaw Island at the Boy Scout Camp he for some reason felt the need to spend the next twenty minutes or so scaring the hell out of me with ghost stories.

There was one about his daughter, then 4, who woke him up in the middle of the night scared that their was a “policeman” in her room. Turns out the policeman was a Union soldier complete with blue uniform and rifle over his shoulder. No biggie.

Or the one about the man who mowed Eugene’s lawn every Saturday. The poor guy was killed on a Thursday riding his bicycle down the road…when Saturday came though, he was there to complete his usual job.

The riding lawnmower he used, and that belonged to Eugene, started up by itself and began to mow the lawn! No problem, he called his mother-in-law, who he describes as “spiritual”. She told him to chase the mower down and put his Bible on it…sure enough that worked, but only after the 3rd time it happened. HMMM

And the Boy Scout camp? Eugene said to check out the Red Rock cemetery on the property…”ain’t no tellin‘ what you might see down there at night” says Eugene.

“Oh yes there is,” says me…”nothing ’cause I ain’t goin“

Now that’s a great locker room guy…Eugene White is +2 at pouring a Guiness just right and scaring it out of you …all in the time it takes to play a short par 5.