Will This Oyster Yield a Pearl? “Breaking Par with Charlie Rymer” Episode 41 at Oyster Bay
Gotta break the streak at some point, right? Charlie just wants to do it the right way – in this case, ending his lengthy string of pars with an overdue birdie (or better!). That’s just what “The Big Timer” has in mind in sizing up the par-5 9th hole at his next stop, Oyster Bay Golf Links in Sunset Beach!
Charlie:
Cancer knocked me down, but not out. Now, I’m cancer free. The recovery? It’s been tough. I’ll need patience, a lot of humor …
(Did I mention I made birdie there?)
… And support from friends and family. Over the last two years, I haven’t played much golf, but there’s no better place to get back in the game than on 66 courses in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We’re keeping score, but just teeing it up means I’ve already won!
(You go Google “perfect,” and see if that shot doesn’t come up right there!)
Join me on my journey to break par!
We got a Maples double dip and another par-five. They’re trying to wear me out, I swear!
But I tell you what, this one’s a great way to finish at front nine at Oyster Bay. Find the fairway off the tee. Give yourself a long iron second shot and steer clear of the bunkers that flank each landing area. That’ll leave you with a short iron in. Let’s get us a birdie!
That’s going to fly in the fairway here on the ninth hole of this par five at Oyster Bay Golf Course. Now, I grew up just a couple of hours from here and this was the first really cool outside-the-box golf course that I ever played. When it came online in the early ’80s, it’s all the world of golf was talking about.
I came here for the first time with my dad. I had this unbelievable feeling that I was going to get to see something really special, and I did. And what’s cool about it is every time I come on property these days, well beyond my teenage years, I still get that same feeling.
I really can remember coming here with my dad as a teenager. I was so excited. We’re going to get to play this golf course that we’ve seen all these pictures of in all the golf magazines. And once he got over how much it cost, I don’t know what it was back then, but keep in mind, the golf course that I was a member at growing up was $8 a month to be a member there, so I mean, it might’ve been a hundred dollars, so he wasn’t very happy about it. Certainly was worth whatever he paid for us to play here. We just hadn’t seen any golf courses like this out into the marsh, island green. It’s really cool. It’s a lot of fun and just incredibly different.
Well, I missed the fairway, but I miss it on the right side. I’m actually going to have a chance to get on this par five in two, and I’m going to go with a 5 wood. I’m like maybe 215, 220. And I sort of get a chuckle whenever I pull 5 wood out because for a lot of years when I played professional golf, I didn’t carry fairway metal at all. It was a driver, one iron through a lob wedge.
And then I found the 3 wood I liked and I laughed at people that carried fairway metals. And then I recently started hitting the 5 wood. I love it so much. Pretty soon I’m going to be adding a 7 wood. I might be one of those guys that got a whole bag full of woods.
I don’t care much for the hybrids. I hook those. But I like the fairway metals and I like that. I think I’m going to have a shot at eagle right here, ladies and gentlemen. All this walking down memory lane has got me fired up.
I tell you what, I can’t stand hybrids. Hybrid is like a dog that has bitten you. Never trust it again. I always hit a cut and hybrids are built to get the ball up in the air and draw it, and I like hitting a low cut. When you’re trying to hit a low cut and it gets up in the air and goes left and bounces off a house, you’re never the same person again.
So when you get to be my age, 54, you never know when you’re going to have your last eagle putt. Hopefully this won’t be the last one, but I’m not going to leave it short.
All right, I got a lot of elements I’m dealing with here. I got some right, I got some left. I got some uphill, I got some downhill. I got some grain going against me, I got some grain going away from me.
We’re also on a rock that’s spinning 26,000 thousand miles an hour while it’s rotating around a giant fireball as it’s expanding in the Milky Way. Other than that, it’s pretty simple putt. Considering all the factors that went into that, I’ll take it. Nothing like a good old-fashioned two-putt birdie at Oyster Bay! Been coming here for 40 years. Can’t wait until the next time I get back.
Man, that one felt good. Let’s head on over to Calabash, but the seafood’s gotta wait – I got some more birdies to get!
