June 2024
I knew this trip was going to test my strength and commitment to the quest. I wasn’t able to cluster any other rounds of golf so it was a trip to Briarcliff Manor, New York just to play Sleepy Hollow.
I boarded my flight to Charlotte, where I would then connect to Westchester County. The entire trip from leaving my house in Austin and returning to Austin would take 36 hours. About 12 hours to get to my hotel. And then another 9 hours to get back home the next day, with a single round of golf squeezed in between.
I settled into my window seat on American in Austin with a young child next to me in the middle seat. A lovely boy who may have been 3-4 years old, with his young dad in the aisle seat. I should’ve known something was up when the dad ordered himself two glasses of wine and the kid got a Sprite to go along with his Cheetos. My Spidey Sense was tingling that this was going to be annoying. At some point during the flight I looked over to see the dad completely asleep. So much asleep that when the flight attendant poked him to ask something he didn’t wake up (some people call this sleep, other people call this “passed out”). His son, meanwhile, had a gigantic iPad and was watching a movie from the Nemo franchise. Incredibly (shockingly?), he was doing this without the use of headphones. I was using professional-grade, over-the-ear, noise-cancelling headphones so couldn’t hear a thing but everyone within two rows of us got to listen to Nemo for 2+ hours. The kid kicked the seat in front of him, reach through to touch the woman in front of him several times and knocked on my arm and leg countless times to play some version of peek-a-boo.
This episode with the kid didn’t help the thoughts I was already having about traveling like this to play a single round of golf. ”What are you doing, dude? This is insane.” In addition to four flights in less than 24hours I was lugging my clubs with me which meant violating my rule that you don’t bring your own clubs to play only one round of golf. To top it off, Rory and Bryson were battling at the USOpen and my updates were coming via text from my mom. Professional golf has been sucking for a long time and it finally delivered something amazing to watch and I was getting text updates while brushing off errant Cheetos dust from my lap.
I was upgraded on the leg to Westchester, which was a great way to wait out the equipment problem on the aircraft (broken arm rest) that delayed our departure. Also, I could check my email which meant finding out that the following weekend's trip to Pine Valley would be rescheduled for what was forecast to be bad weather. I've already realized that, for me, the hardest part of playing all of these top courses isn't getting access but the scheduling and rescheduling. In June alone I've missed three planned courses. I know, I know, first world problems. But these things do make you question the sanity of attempting a quest like this.
A couple of hours later I was in Westchester, New York and couldn't wait to put my head on my hotel pillow. My Uber driver was quite friendly. So friendly, in fact, that he completely ignored the fact that I had AirPods in my ears to avoid conversation as well as the Uber app set to “don’t want conversation.” He talked to me from the moment I got in the car, so after five minutes I just gave up with the AirPods act and put them in their case and rolled with it.
My hotel in Nyack was very cool but smelled of marijuana. Which is funny because I thought everyone did gummies these days. What do I know? Five whole hours of sleep replete with second-hand weed smoke and I was off to Sleepy Hollow. Despite the proximity to New York City, this looked nothing like New York. Rolling hills, trees, water, small towns and main streets. Very charming.
We entered the gates at Sleepy Hollow. I should have guessed that all of this travel was about to be very worth it.
Comments