What does it take to be a Golfest golfer?

(1).  First off, you have to understand the concept.  Is there a real measurable difference between your local municipal course and an 18-hole work of art from the Top 100 List?  You can bet your green fees on it.  But it's a little like going to the Grand Canyon.  You can take hundreds of photos and tell everybody how awesome it is, but unless your are there, -- you really can't do it any justice.

(2).  You'll get to a point where you can recite the top 10 courses in order - Pebble Beach, Pinehurst #2,Shadow Creek, Pacific Dunes, Whistling Straits, Bandon Dunes, Bethpage, The Ocean Course, Spyglass, and Arcadia Bluffs.  Eventually, you will pick them off a map faster than the state capitals.

(3).  The annual dates of the Golfest trips are logged into the same important dates lists as birthdays, anniversaries, and key holidays.

(4).  Once you set foot on a Top 100 course, you have to open all of your senses to enjoy the experience - no matter how bad you may golf.

(5).  You can't take the game too seriously.  In a Golfest outing, it is not uncommon for a scratch golfer to be in the same foursome with two 30-handicappers.  Good shots happen and get complimented, and bad shots (get laughed at) and complimented.  If you are one of those golfers who fires off a sneer and a couple of F-bombs if someone farts in your backswing, your country club deserves you.

(6).  You have to be able to appreciate the really good things that happen -- getting to -- getting on -- and leaving the course.  There is no age limit on some of the frat boy activities that take place.  Some of the stuff that happens is just downright funny.

(7).  You have to realize that a Golfest trip is not necessarily a vacation, as much as it is a quest to conquer the best!  Double-rounders are pretty much the norm, which barely leaves enough time for three squares a day.  When you get on the plane to come home, it's a good kind of tired.

The page links provide profiles on most of our group ...