Just back last night from the 9th Annual Myrtle Beach Birdie Championship (MBBC).  There are four of us; 1 from Baltimore (me), 2 from Philadelphia and 1 from Pittsburgh.  Our format is VERY simple; whoever makes the most birdies is declared the champion. Since this is pretty much the only time at least three of us ever play any golf, we do not use handicaps, and the birdie totals are not usually very impressive. Our motto is: Score Doesn't Matter.  Now, we certainly keep score and, in fact, we keep stats on fairways hit, GIR's and putts, but all that really matters is a good, old-fashioned birdie. The winner gets a trophy, which has been dubbed "The Big Woody."  In Ryder-Cup Style, the defending champion retains "The Big Woody" in the event of a tie (has only happened once).  The champion also earns the right to select the site of the opening round the following year.

For the last several years, we have all flown U.S. Air into Charlotte and then connected into Myrtle.  However, U.S. Air's rate this year was much higher then normal (mid-$200's, as I recall).  Alternatives for the guys in Philly and Pittsburgh were not particularly attractive, so they ended up biting the bullet.  I couldn't pass up  taking Spirit Air out of Reagan National with a round-trip rate of $118.00.  If anyone in the Baltimore/Virginia area is heading out soon, check Spirit for this rate.  The only problem for me was the commute to and from the airport (D.C. Beltway), but there was nothing major about it.

For the first time in years, I actually slept SOME the night before, and made it to Reagan in PLENTY of time for my 10:00 a.m. flight.  Guys in Philly were delayed for unknown reasons.  I made it to Myrtle in just over an hour to discover then my friends' flight from Charlotte was delayed by about 45 minutes.  They did finally arrive, along with all bags and clubs.  No problem with the rental with Dollar (they actually took 1 day off the bill if we agreed to bring it back by 1:30 on our final day).

We now stay at the Holiday Inn Express at Broadway By the Beach.  It is adequate for our needs (a bed, a shower, a pool), it's CHEAP and we save cab fare to and from Broadway, where we spend most of our evenings. 

August 5 - Blackmoor ($59.00)

As stated before, the defending chamoion selects the site of the opening round.  Traditionally, we try to play the opening round at a new course, although we are slowly running out of "playable" courses.  We went directly from the airport to Blackmoor.  It felt like it took a long time to get there, but that may have just been the anticipation. The course was wide open and the starter was extremely friendly. We were disappointed that we would start on the back nine, since we were all looking forward top playing their "signatire" hole, the Par 4 8th hole, which, as many of you know, is a dog leg right if played as designed, but there is a "shortcut" which provides players with the option of trying to drive the green (birdie opportunity). The course was in good shape overall, although several of the greens were brown and appeared to be pretty dried out. The bermuda greens were still pretty quick.  Gary Player's love of dog legs was also a little bit frustrating, but it was still a well-designed course, and we were pretty pleased with the round. The 18th hole camera is also a cool feature and my buddies were able to call their wives as we played the 18th, and they were able to see us, although we didn't hear very much excitement at their end.  We finally made it around to the 8th hole.  2 of us (me included) made miserable efforts to drive the green, 1 hit a monster and ended up on the front of the green, and the last, not confident he could reach, elected to play the hole the traditional way. I actually found my drive and, somehow, managed to put my second shot within 6 feet. Unfortunately, I missed my birdie putt, and my buddy who drove the green three-putted for a disappointing par. My buddy who went the traditional way, also managed a par. Someone in a few groups before us had apparently gotten upset about something (would assume a three putt after driving the green), because there was a massive "trench" a couple of feet from the hole.  It appeared fresh, and looked like something done with a putter head. When we reported it to the starter, he said he was aware of it and was eyeing one group, and that it was worst damage he had ever seen done to a green in however long he had been working there.   I was the only one of the foursome to manage a birdie, so after day 1 the scores were 1-0-0-0.

After golf, we grabbed a steak at some no-name steakhouse, which was okay, and had a few beers.  Grabbed some additional beer for the room, cleaned-up and headed out to Crocodile Rocks. As usual, things were lively, and we had too much to drink and stayed to late, especially for a 6:15 wake-up call the next morning.

August 6 - Barefoot Fazio and Love ($145)

We play these courses every year and will continue to do so.  We have played the Dye and Norman courses, but these two are our favorites and it has been several years since we played the other courses.  We played Fazio in the morning and Love in the afternoon. Conditions were outstanding as usual.  Course was fairly crowded, but we didn't have to wait all that much. We play from the white tees, which obviously make both courses much shorter, but no one in my group is shooting in the 70's, so it's hard to argue that we need to move back.  One of my foursome caught fire and made 3 birdies in the morning and 3 more in the afternoon.  I managed 2 birdies in the afternoon round, and the other 2 guys also managed a birdie, making our scores 6-3-1-1.

We were exhausted that evening.  Ordered pizza in the room for dinner.  There was some talk about catching a movie, but the movie wasn't until 10:00.  By 9:00, any thoughts of catching a movie were long gone, as the lights were out and we were all in bed.  All were asleep by 9:30, meaning we were well-rested for Day 3.

August 7 (AM) - Angel's Trace - South

Everyone had NO problem waking up after a restful night, and we headed north for Angel's Trace.  This was another new course for us.  The North Course was having an outting, and the starters appeared a bit overwhelmed by the # of people arriving for the outting, so much so, that they did not appear particularly concerned about our arrival.  Also, we were supposed to be the 3rd group out, but, apparently, due to at least one of the groups in front of us showing up late, there was already a back-up on the first tee.  The starter gave us the option of starting off the 10th tee, but left it up to us.  He didn't seem to care what hole we started on, so I suppose we could have gone to the 5th hole if we really wanted to.  The group in front of us seemed to have a newbie who was really struggling, but they kept up the pace, and there wasn't much waiting.  There was a twosome behind us, who were probably frustrated by their wait, but they never asked to play through, and even if they had, there was nowhere for them to go.  The course was soaking wet, so it was cartpath only. The course was in pretty good shape, although several of the tee boxes were pretty hairy.  Bent grass greens were pretty quick and were in good shape.  So a monster croc on the back nine.  Ran over a hill (don't worry still a good distance away) to take his picture, but I must have startled him, because he quickly flopped into the water.  Even though I was a good distance away, his quick movement, still made me run like hell in the other direction.  Would recommend playing it once, but not sure that we'll return to play the North Course.  Although, the worst of our foursome caught fire and fired an 86, the best round of his life, so I suppose should he ever win the MBBC, we will be hitting the North Course.  Our leader fired another birdie leaving the score 7-3-1-1.

August 7 (PM) - TPC - ($65)

We had played this course several years ago when it first opened, but due to the fact that we were extremely hungover that morning, no one remembers much about the course, other than we all played really badly.  $65 was the right price to bring us back. We hit a few balls on the driving range and then hit the first tee.  Despite it being the middle of the afternoon, there was a group teeing off when we arrived at the tee and another group arrived after we were teeing it up. That problem was quickly solved when it started to rain and then the lightening siren sounded. We waited briefly on the second hole, and things cleared up pretty quickly.  TPC was in excellent shape.  I think the fairways were the best of the trip and the greens were lightening fast, as expected. Unfortunately, I had my worst round of the trip and threw-up triple digits. I did manage a birdie, despite barely being able to get off the tee, and that birdie is a perfect example of the point of our competition.  Despite shooting a huge number, I was pleased with my birdie, and the scores at the end of Day 3 were 7-4-1-1.

Despite being completely exhausted again, we rallied and headed back out to Crocodile Rocks.  Much tamer since it was a Sunday night, but still lively.  We drank a little more moderately and headed home for some decent rest for Day 4.

August 8 (AM) - Grande Dunes ($105)

Day 4 started with another of our favorites, Grande Dunes. We love everything about this course, and would kill for a chance to play the members course.  The plan was to play Grande Dunes in the morning and then replay at Tidewater.  Unfortunately, mother nature had a different schedule in mind. We got through 9 + holes with clouds moving in slowly throughout the round.  Finally on the 10th hole, the skies opened up.  We sat for a while hoping it was a typical Myrtle Beach storm that would pass quickly.  But, when it seemed to rain even harder, we reluctantly trekked back to the clubhouse. We sat for a while in the clubhouse debating what to do and watching as small rivers formed on the practice greens. There appeared to be little hope of completing our round, so we got nine-hole rain checks and finally packed it in and went to lunch at Margaritaville at Broadway.  I won't go into details, but Margaritaville was terrible.  Jimmy Buffett is fine with me, but the food was fair, at best, and they put on some strange show at some point, but we couldn't hear a thing anyone was saying. The skies cleared during lunch, so we decided we should try and go back to Grande Dunes and see if we could possibly finish up the back nine and still head up to Tidewater for our afternoon round.  But the skies darkened again when we pulled back up the clubhouse.  We decided to wait and see what happened, and we were there for no more than 5 mintues, when the skies opened up again. We recognized the group that had been behind us in the morning, and they said they had only been able to play 3 holes since we had left before, so we were happy we had not stuck around. While we waited out the rain, we decided we would stay at Grande Dunes and simply play as many holes as we could for the rest of the afternoon.  Unfortunately, shortly after making this decision, the course announced that it was closing due to the rain.  We made a call to Tidewater to check their conditions and were told that they were open but had also just had 1/2 inch of rain within the last hour.  Not confident that things would be much different at Tidewater, we called an audible and decided to head south.  We first called True Blue and they said they had not had any rain, although skies were darkening.  We also called Legends hoping thins might be a little different a few miles inland.  Legends said they were under a lightening delay, but it was only $35 to play in the afternoon.  We decided to swing by Legends and see how things looked there.  The weather was bright and sunny when we arrived, although their ligthening detector was still detecting lightening and they wouldn't let us out immediately.  The pro shp actually seemed annoyed that we wanted to play and weren't anxious to answer our questions about the lightening system.  Finally, the warning was lifted and we headed on to the Moorland course.  The course was soaking wet, but in great shape. Dye was certainly a sadistic bastard in his design.  I liked the layout, although I don't thinkl anybody else did.  Then again, we were all fairly frustrated by the weather problems.  We trekked through 9 holes, when, once again, mother nature had a different plan and we started to hear rumbles of thunder.  We played a couple of more holes, before the threat became much to great and headed back to the car.  We probably could have gotten a rain check, but we don't think we'll be back within the year it's probably only good for and we had only paid $35, so we decided just to call it a day. Our bottom 2 managed to fire birdies at Grande Dunes, but no one was able to birdie at Moorland, leaving the scores 7-4-2-2.

That night, we decided to head to Comedy Cabana for the show.  We had never been there before, so it was something different to do.  It turned out to be a great time, and I highly recommend it, if you're looking for something different. There were a total of four comedians with Troy Thirdgill (I think that was his name) as the headliner.  He was absolutely hysterical and I think he's there for the rest of this week, so catch him if you can.  We ordered some appetizers, which were terrible, so eat somewhere else if you can.  We also had a few drinks and the show lasted about an hour and a half.  We left there, grabbed a quick bite at Taco Hell and then went to a bar called Shamrocks.  Played some darts, had a few more drinks and then went back to Crocodile Rocks.  Had a couple of drinks and headed home.

August 9 - King's North ($89)

We had the first tee time at King's North, since we had flights leaving at 3:00.  We were off at 7:30 a.m. and we were the pace setters.  Don't believe the group behind us should have any complaints as we tore through the opening nine in just under 2 hours.  Course was extremely wet, so cartpath only. We had played here during our first trip back in 1997.  Greens were quick and everything was in great shape.  The MBBC was essentially ove, especially since I needed 4 birdies to win the title. It also didn't help that I was hacking it around and didn't sniff a birdie all morning.  On top of that, our eader threw another dart and made his eigth birdie of the trip.  The third-place guy, who declared last year that he has a tree-year plan to win the title in 2006, fired another birdie for good measure and the book was closed on the 2005 MBBC with final scroes of 8-4-3-2.

We headed back to the hotel for a quick shower, packed up and hit the airport.  We were through the staunch security in Myrtle Beach in about five minutes and everyone got out safely, with me direct back to D.C.

Not much point in ranking the courses because they were all grest and I would recommend playing them all at least once, with the obvious ones to be played multiple times.