Summer Holiday

I will be taking a short break from posting to enjoy the remainder of the summer. I will resume posting around the Ryder Cup with an exciting lineup of courses.

As my regular readers know, I have been trying to arrange a trip to play in Japan, home of three top 100 courses. On the good news front, I have a trip arranged for the Fall and will be providing a blow-by-blow account of my Asian trip while there, with plenty of pictures.

As I mentioned in my writeup of Friar's Head last year, the party looked like it was about to stop. The excess display of wealth that their grandiose clubhouse represented signaled to me that there was trouble ahead. Trees don't grow to the sky and excessively extravagent golf courses can't be built forever. Not only is Loch Lomond being put into receivership, but tales of woe abound in the high-end golf circuit about Wall Streeters having to put their $3 million Hamptons home on the market at fire sale prices and having to ditch the kids private tennis coach. A recent apres-round Southside at Maidstone confirmed a sense of schadenfreude among the Social Register crowd. I can attest that they are feeling no pain at this WASP bastion and a pullback among the masses puts them squarely back at the top of the heap. Their grand-parents made money the old-fashioned way, unlike these upstarts, so it can be satisfying to see the arrogant new money types get their comeuppance.

The mortgage meltdown and bear market are inflicting pain on many of us, your faithful blogger included. The small indignities I have had to suffer include doing my own laundry to save on dry cleaning and taking the subway instead of a black sedan. Worst of all, I will be doing the fourteen and a half hour direct flight to Tokyo in coach. I can hear the sympathy cries going out now. Thank you for your support. These are in fact, tough times.

I must say that I hope our own Gilded Age is not at and end. I am pulling for the new-money types to make a comeback. They have been a good source for me to gain access to some of these high-end private clubs.

Below are two pictures from the Charles Blair Macdonald gem in Bermuda, The Mid Ocean Club, taken during more prosperous times. Have a safe and enjoyable summer!

The 3rd hole at Mid Ocean

View from the 18th tee at Mid Ocean

* My two proof readers (in their 20s, like many of my tech saavy readers) didn't recognize Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn from the 1953 classic Roman Holiday. Their loss.