Long post warning!
We had a great time on this trip. I didn't play good golf though, which was a bit of a let down. Only broke 90 on 2 of the 6 rounds. I think it was a combination of weather, new courses, and fatigue. I cannot hit the ball out of Bermuda to save my life. I also may have built the thing up in my mind too much and forgot to have fun at times. This was the first real "golf trip" Ive done and I was pretty amped up about it. Nevertheless, a great time was had by me and my buddy. It was a bonus that the best man at my wedding was able to get out Thursday morning for a long weekend away from being an Attorney and having 4 kids under the age of 6 (including twin 18 month olds)
We pretty much followed the itinerary in my OP except we didnt play 9 holes at Sewanee. We didnt get back to the hotel in Chattanooga until about 11pm after playing at Sweetens Cove until dark. We also stayed Wednesday in Asheville instead of the casino near Sequoyah National. We had to pick up our third at the Asheville airport Thursday at noon. Asheville is AWESOME by the way.
We had most of the courses pretty much to ourselves. The only time we were paired with another group was on Labor Day at Cumberland Mountain.
Here's how I'd rank the courses we played:
Sweetens Cove
Bear Trace at Harrison Bay
Sequoyah National
Stonehenge Golf Club
Bear Trace at Cumberland Mountain
Bear Trace at Tims Ford
Sweetens Cove really was the highlight of the trip. I had read about it, but was not prepared for exactly what it was. Everything is mowed as fairway that is not a bunker. It's really wide open. That's probably why I had my best round there because you just had to hit it where there wasn't a bunker the size of a residential lot. The two pins layout is really cool. We alternated pins. Basically the blue pins were in places where just about any shot would feed to the hole, especially long. The white pins were set in high areas where if you didnt hold a shot it would roll off. The condition was pretty immaculate with only bits of crabgrass in the fairways. The greens were absolutely pure even though it looked like they'd been punched about two or three weeks ago. The sand was perfect and the bunkers were maintained really well. Its just a golf course though. That's for sure. There's one port-a-john. The shack where you check in was 90 degrees inside and consisted of empty bourbon bottles, random clubs, and a desk. We paid for our second round of nine with Michelob Ultra. The guy we played the second round with spent the night after we finished in his van. Absolutely perfect
Bear Trace at Harrison Bay was the surprise of the trip. That course was in great condition and the layout was really fun. The 5th hole is a par 5 that is one of the best par 5's Ive ever played. There were more views of the lake here than at Bear Trace Tim's Ford. Just like the other Bear Trace courses, the clubhouse is pretty minimal and utilitarian.
Sequoyah National was the course I was most looking forward to. It lived up the hype when it comes to elevation changes. If you like elevation off the tee box then this is heaven. There's maybe 2 holes that don't have less than a 50 foot drop to the fairway or green. The condition was not ideal though, especially the tee boxes. It's also a bit of a funky layout with no turn and a lot of random holes crossing one another. It also echoes a lot which was distracting because a cart that was a 1/4 mile away sounds like it's hauling ass right around the corner to your green. They had just bought new carts though and they were comfy and fast. Overall, it was a really fun course but I could see some people really hating it.
Stonehenge was our first course. It completely dominated us. We started on the white tees which had a slope of 136. It showed. We moved to the hybrid tees after about 6 holes. This course was in great shape and was the most traditional of all the courses. The par 5 15th hole was easily the hardest hole we faced all week. The vibe here was country club stuffy though and I really didn't like it. The cart ranger at the clubhouse told me twice to move my cart from one spot to another. Definitely not our scene.
Bear Trace Cumberland Mountain was a great design. Lots of elevation and very typical Nicklaus with lots of carries on drives and into greens. The 7th and 13th holes were two of my favorites of the week. It was sad how bad this course was out of shape though. Lots of bald areas around greens, crabgrass everywhere, rocky unraked bunkers, and bad tee boxes.
Bear Trace Tims Ford was my least favorite. It was also hotter than hell when we teed off at 3pm. I probably cant give it a fair review because I played so horribly. The 16th hole was the only one I remember. In retrospect, we should have gone straight from the Jack Daniels tour back to Sweetens Cove and skipped this one.
Here are some pics we took throughout the week. We didn't take a ton and sorry for the pics of me and my buddy but those are some of the only shots of the courses.
"Whiskey For Destruction" became the unofficial slogan of this trip
Saw A LOT of deer on all the courses we played. This is at Stonehenge
13th hole at Stonehenge. Probably 100 feet down to the green.
1st tee box at Cumberland Mountain
13th tee box at Cumberland Mountain. Long downhill par 4 with a carry over a creek to the green that is behind me (yellow shirt)
Sweetens Cove Clubhouse and parking lot
1st tee box at Sweetens
2nd green at Sweetens. You can see the two pins here. "Easy" pin in front with the backstop, "hard" pin in the back on a shelf
4th hole at Sweetens. Listed as "King" as an homage to a local legend. Two huge tees and a huge 20000 foot green. You could't see the "easy" pin where we played from without walking 50 yards to your right around the bunker. I thought I pulled both shots to the left of the hole really badly but both found a huge ridge and ran down 10 feet from the hole. Wish I had a picture of that green.
5th tee box at Sweetens
6th tee box at Sweetens
9th hole at Sweetens. Closest I can to an ace on the trip was here. Was about 2 feet out the 2nd time around.
2 tumblers of bourbon and coke in on the 2nd time around
5th tee box as the sun was going down
Jack Daniels "Angels Share" tour is awesome!
10th tee box at Harrison Bay. You can see the cooling towers at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in the background across the lake. They had an emergency test right as I was putting for birdie on the 18th hole, which I missed
Stopped in Asheville at New Belgium to see some of the fine quality manufacturing work from the company I work for
4th tee box at Sequoyah National
6th tee box at Sequoyah National
Trigger warning! 9th hole at Sequoyah
13th hole at Sequoyah. An absolutely beautiful hole. Those damn tee boxes though. We did all hit it on and make par though which was quite memorable
15th at Sequoyah. Crazy elevated on this one. I hit my best drive of the week right over that skinny little tree you can see on the right and ended up on the fringe.
Got a great picture on that tee box
Spent Thursday night through Sunday on Lake Keowee attempting to recover. I wont discuss how the game went on Saturday
