The real treat of the day went well beyond the bikes. Dylan and I have ridden them all over the continent - we definitely share Mitch’s passionate endorsement. “Literally THE best.” He’d get no argument from us. “Finn Cycles are the best way to social distance ( hate those words) on a golf course,” Mitch added. “You’re in for a real treat today,” Mitch smiled, breaking the COVID “laws” to give me a hug, then saddling up on his two-wheeled rocket ship. Whether or not they remain at Caledonia for eternity, the “golf motorcycles” were there the day we visited - me, my then 17-year-old son (Dylan), and legendary local THE Mitch Laurance. Then Rick Reimers invented the Finn Cycle. I used to try to experience golf courses like the architect did his first time around - on foot, carrying my clubs. “People who live in the Carolinas are lucky,” he adds. “I’m still only scratching the surface of his brilliance,” Darin claims modestly - more of a Strantz fan and advocate than anyone I know. Jeff is right, to appreciate Mike’s ingenuity, you really need to play all of his nine courses, and each of those courses a half-dozen times … maybe even twenty (as my editor, Darin Bunch has done at Tobacco Road). Strantz fan and similarly underappreciated modern-day architect, Jeff Brauer - who built his own tribute to Strantz’s Tobacco Road in Minnesota, at Giants Ridge - told me, “Mike loved to have his golf holes get in the golfer’s face and say, “What are you going to do about it?” He was brilliant at giving the golfer a number of ways to deal with each challenge - many of them not obvious the first time around.” Mike Strantz developed a “mad scientist” reputation for his willingness to push the envelope on golf course playability and personality. Only one year after starting his own company Golf World listed Mike Strantz as “The most in-demand course designer in the United States.” Only a decade later Golfweek crowned Mike as one of the “Ten Greatest Golf Architects of All Time.” Caledonia was his first solo golf project and, apparently, one heck of a publicity catalyst. Who is Mike Strantz? ( Please tell me you know!) Never having met the man (he died in 2005) I know him as a Tom Fazio protégé who left Fazio’s team after a decade to create his own design company. Why have you never heard of it before? That’s a question that merits some serious self-reflection.Īt the southern tip of both the Grand Strand and the Grand Strantz, Pawley’s Island, South Carolina is home to two Mike Strantz creations - Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue. It is three times longer than Myrtle Beach’s 60-mile “Grand Strand” and possesses four of the world’s most unique and underrated golf experiences. Experts contend that, as imaginary lines go, The Grand Strantz pales in relevance only to the Equator and Time Zones. You can get started right here.The Grand Strantz is an imaginary line roughly drawn along Highway 501 and Interstate 74 - from Myrtle Beach’s Atlantic shoreline to the golden dunes of the Carolina Sandhills. If you've never written a review, we hope you'll join our community. It's also extremely heavy in the usual architecture suspects: Pete Dye (7), Jack Nicklaus (9) and the Jones family tree (9). The resulting 50 courses include watery southeast courses, undulating mountain courses and tactical desert courses. Our community's skill level in golf is pretty reflective of the overall avid, amateur golf population: When you write a review, one of the optional fields is "Course Difficulty." There are five choices, and we converted each option (from Extremely Easy to Extremely Difficult) into a numerical rating from 1 to 5 to determine an average difficulty score for each public golf course in the United States.Ībout 35% of our reviews have a difficulty rating, giving us more than 350,000 ratings dating back to September of 2012. We pored over more than 1 million reviews at Golf Advisor to uncover the most difficult public golf courses according to you, our reviewer community. They may not be the courses you want to play everyday, but every golfer from time to time wants to see how their game stacks up on the most difficult golf courses they can find.
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