We’ve all heard the saying about one man’s ceiling being another man’s floor (and those of us of a certain age may remember Paul Simon’s clever song about that very subject back when bell bottoms were in style).
Which brings me to the subject of gimmes.
Not all gimmes are created equally and, in a recent case of gimme whiplash, I discovered some gimmes don’t exist at all.
Through the kindness of friends, I recently played in a friendly game at Bulls Bay Golf Club – the captivating Mike Strantz design outside Charleston, South Carolina, and one of the game’s true happy places.
A few days and about 300 miles later, I played in a similar game at Blowing Rock Country Club, a charming layout in the North Carolina mountains that demonstrates how golf courses can be closer to 6,000 yards than 7,000 yards and still ask all the right questions.
As it turns out, the two games were as different as their settings.
Need to make a 3-foot, left-to-right slider to save par and count in the two best-ball match? Show us what you’ve got.
In the South Carolina lowcountry, it’s difficult to miss from inside 4 feet because, at least in this particular standing game at Bulls Bay, anything inside the length of a driver – give or take a couple of inches – is conceded.
It’s easy on your nerves but, at least on the day I joined the group, we made 16 birdies and that wasn’t enough. To be fair, most of the birdies we made came from outside the generous gimme range but there were moments when the locals eyed their own putts and decided they were good because “the guys we’re playing against wouldn’t putt these.”
Flash forward to Blowing Rock, where the twice-weekly game is called Real Golf and has a commissioner who charts everything from tee times to no-shows to how much each player has won or lost over time.
The rules are simple. One ball off the first tee. Play it down (though we were granted an exception because of a steady rain in 55-degree temperatures that made early September feel like late November) and – this is the big one – putt everything out.
Leave one hanging on the lip? Putt it out.
The best you can hope for in the Blowing Rock game is your team has all the pars or birdies it needs and you can casually pick up your 6-footer for bogey, though you still might get a side eye from someone in the group.
Both ways of playing – the benevolent Bulls Bay way and the by-the-book Blowing Rock way – have one thing in common.
I left both places a little lighter in the wallet but with a smile on my face.
Ron Green Jr.
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Top: Vichien Petchmai, Getty Images