Play the World Am in Myrtle Beach; It will make a Professional out of You!

CLICK HERE for Andy's PLAY-BY-PLAY on Social Media for the 2019 World Am! Competing in the 35^th World Amateur in Myrtle Beach, SC was the best competitive golfing experience of my lifetime! Granted I am an amateur golfer and my game this week certainly is proof of that but I have been up close and personal with golf for my entire lifetime. Club Champion, Member-Guest Winners, and even qualified once for the Illinois State Championship and competed against a bunch of flat-belly college players is my amateur experience. Plus I have followed the PGA TOUR for the last eleven years and worked over 200 professional events. Why am I telling you this? So that you know that when I say ‘Competing in the 35^th World Amateur in Myrtle Beach, SC was the best competitive golfing experience of my lifetime!’ that is authentic and true! IF you want to know what it feels like to compete in a 4-day, 72-hole professional tournament then sign up for next year’s World Am in Pebble Beach! Seriously, we aren’t really professionals, that’s why they call us amateurs, but this golf tournament for 3,200 golfers in 66 flights on 50+ golf courses is run by Professionals! Plus there is an unbelievable, from every perspective, 19^th Hole every evening after the golf! Plus Plus you are in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina a world-class tourist destination! What an experience for a lifetime is the World Am in Myrtle Beach! This year’s week of competition, entertainment, and FUN started with a Welcome Party at Broadway at the Beach. It was a blast! Festive atmosphere, entertainment, a brief introduction program and lots of raffle giveaways! Don’t miss it next year! Any professional golfer knows the key to a god week is a good bed. Find your bed as soon as possible and get a good night’s rest for tomorrow’s Round One! My home for the week was a more than comfortable, more than fantastic oceanfront studio room with a efficiency kitchen at The Caravelle Resort! Nice to swim in the ocean after golf. Sunrises (moon rises too) are spectacular! Be comfortable, be rested, and play good golf! For the record my Handicap Index was 9.6 and I received 11 strokes each round of golf. I was in Flight 17 and my division was “Senior Men (50-59).” Start time every day was 9 am as a shotgun. This was always preceded by the Head PGA Golf Professional welcoming us and going over the local rules and orienting us to the club. In your welcoming package is a listing of your course assignments, strokes for the day, and start hole. Know the day, know your course, so you drive to the right one and avoid a DQ (and that is not a drive thru Dairy Queen). The final round starting hole is determined based on your standings within your flight so you get to play face-to-face with your competitors down the stretch! Did I tell you this is a very well organized golf tournament run by professionals? My first competitive round in the 2018 World Am was at the Wachesaw Plantation East Course. We had a great foursome with Duke, Barry, and Clay. Let me tell you how nervous I was taking back the driver on our first tee, the par-5 17^th hole. No, I can’t tell you because it makes me anxious just thinking about it. Of course I yank my first tee shot left into the water hazard. But I recover well and 2-putt from 30 feet for a bogey. Of course my drive on the next hole goes to the right and I have to chip out and drain a 10-footer for bogey. Still nervous a bit I pure a 9-iron to 6 feet and make a birdie on our third hole. As the round went on I settled down a bit and added three bogeys to post a 2-over par 38 on the front nine. Then I add three more bogeys finishing up the back nine to go with my two-bogey start and post a 5-over par 41 on the second nine. A double-bogey-free 79 for me is a very good score and I was happy about it! When I got to the 19^th Hole later that evening I was ecstatic to see my net 68 leading my flight by 4 strokes!   Did I party that night! You bet I did, after all I am an amateur and a 19^th Hole with thousands of golfer guys and gals that fills up the convention center—main musical stage on one side and free food, a mini PGA Show that is open to the public and golf entertainment on the other side—is seductive! Did I mention that they have beverages, i.e. open (free) bars on both sides! Partying was Mistake No. 1. Mistake No. 2 was knowing that I was the leader by four strokes! It gets to your head. It definitely got to me! Now I was real nervous and not so well-rested for Round 2 which was at the beautiful and challenging Caledonia Golf & Fish Club. We started on the 150-yard par-3 11^th hole. An Augusta-like No. 12 par-3 if you know what I mean. Not the hole you want to take your first swing on! Water hazard left, a green that angles away from you right to left. I was not prepared to start and quite frankly did not know the exact yardage as I had not set up my trusty Shot Scope V2 GPS watch the night before. Another consequence of Mistake No. 1! I hit a tentative 8-iron that goes left into the water hazard. I find it and can play it and I did find the courage to play it a little too strong over the green. From there I do an ’85 U.S. Open T.C. Chen double hit chip. Worse yet I don’t make the green. By the way T.C. Chen had a 4-stroke lead over Andy North and needless to say we know who won. I chip onto the green, take two putts and walk away with my own personal quadruple bogey 7. There goes my four stroke lead! Needless to say we are not going hole-by-hole for all of the 72 holes of Andy’s World Am but I will say I rebounded with a birdie on the very next hole, then two pars, and then another birdie to be back in the zone, not mine, at plus-2 after six holes for the round! After I posted three more bogeys there was a rain delay and by chance we were just finishing on the 18^th green when the skies opened! Good omen I thought but silly me sat down for the half hour or so and tightened up. Yep Mistake No. 3 was not staying loose during rain delays. My second nine 45 was not pretty. Neither was the second round score of 88 net 77. We had a great foursome with Aaron, Don, and Dan. Dan my cart mate shot a 79 so we did see some good golf!  I wasn’t so happy at the 19^th Hole when I looked up to the projected and rotating through flights scoreboard. I was now T5 nine strokes behind some guy named John that shot a net 63 on the same course I tried to play that day! Here I will digress to point out two things that make this a professionally run golf tournament. First, there is a room you go to at the 19^th Hole to receive a printout of the up-to-date standings of your flight. Pretty nice, very professionally done so everyone knows where they and everyone else in their flight stands. Secondly, the guy that shot the net 63 in Round 2 did not tee it up in Round 3. If your score is too good to believe and statistically way out there on the bell curve well then, being fair to the other competitors, the tournament committee will remove you from the competition. I still hoped he still got to play golf and enjoy the 19^th Hole every night like we did. As I mentioned the 19^th Hole is amazing! Stage musical entertainment, golf entertainment and personalities the likes of Charlie Rymer, Chantel McCabe, Paige Spiranac, Katrek & Maginnes on Tap, and Damon Hack. If you get tired of golf there is the beautiful and talented Ewa Mataya Laurance—The Striking Viking—the most visible superstar in the history of pocket billiards for your entertainment and viewing pleasure. You might even get to play her! Did I mention all the beverages, including alcoholic ones and the food is FREE? There are no hidden costs when it comes to the World Am! Pure Inspiration, Pure Courage, & Pure Determination is Hugh III Royer... he shared his chilling commentary on skin cancer during a break in the golf entertainment schedule. Hugh’s message was to take ownership of your healthcare despite the failings of healthcare professionals. Live and love life to its fullest! I first met Hugh Royer III several years ago when he was inspiring juniors in golf... now he is inspiring adults in life! So now it is Moving Day, Round Three for Flight 17 at The Legends on the Parkland Course. A special place for me as The Legends was my first taste of Myrtle Beach Golf back in the late 80s coming down from New York in the winter with my brother and brothers-in-law. But today was the day to make up for all the mistakes of Round 2. We had a fun foursome with Jeffrey, C.J., and Anthony. But it turned out to be no moving for me on Moving Day. I shot a disappointing 87 (net 76) still T5, but well back 9 strokes behind the leader Gay William (82-82-83; Net 212)  But as Tiger would look at it there were only four guys in front of me! I still have a chance to win this thing! Another great 19th Hole experience in the evening. It was seafood & karaoke night! There were some real pros up there impersonating professional singers and bringing the house down! The Biggest Party in Golf just goes on and on and on! Before I knew it the final day of the 2018 Myrtle Beach World Amateur was here. Technically not the final day because if you win your flight you play the next day for the overall World Am Champion title! As I mentioned the final round starting hole is based on the standings so I was, as they say in golf broadcasting, in the penultimate group starting on No. 1 right behind the lead foursome. Perfect position for our foursome of Scott, Richard, and Kevin to watch and make a move as we played the Highlands/Meadows at Aberdeen CC. With a 4-stroke lead over the field and 9 strokes ahead of me it was Gay’s tournament to win or lose. I wanted to shoot in the 70s and maybe be there to back door a World Am flight championship, who knows maybe still win the whole thing! I started with six pars but 3-putted the par-3 7^th hole and bogeyed the difficult ninth for a first nine 39. A good start but needed some birdies on the second nine. I suffered another 3-putt bogey on the 10^th but did manage to birdie short par-4 12^th making a nice little left-to-right downhill 6-footer. After a par at the 13^th I was only plus-3 through 13 holes. I was hoping for a couple birdies on the way to the clubhouse but it was not meant to be. My short game let me down on the 14^th for bogey and a poor drive and another 3-putt on the par-5 16^th pretty much ended any of my chances. As it turned out I shot 80 and finished T4 ten strokes behind flight winner Gay William who shot a final round 79 to win by four strokes. The fourth & final night of the 19th Hole was a celebration extraordinaire! WOW, what an amazing experience to play & party my way through this 4-round handicapped competition! Definitely an add to any golfer's bucket list. Organized, orchestrated, & conducted to the perfection, pleasure, & performance of all the golfers participating! I felt the thrill of being a professional golfer for the week! The World Am was the concluding experience on the 2018 East Coast Golf Journey for Andy's Golf & Travel Diary! It was time to head home to Ponte Vedra Beach! Hope to see you next year at the World Am in Pebble Beach! CLICK here to play in the 2019 World Am in Myrtle Beach! Here are 183 pictures of golf, the 19th Hole and a whole lot of FUN at the 2018 World Am!