I spent the last few days living the HotFatGuys dream though…
Here goes,
The name of the trip (organized by a colleague of mine) is 72 in 72, we play 72 holes of golf in 72 hours. It takes place in Ocean City, MD. This has been the 5th year for the trip but the 1st for this HotFatGuy.
10 to 15 guys get together rent a few vans and head down for a mid-week golf-a-thon, if you were thinking of planning a mancation this is the way to do it.
Day #1
We rallied in the metro Philadelphia area (because that’s where the majority of the guys are from) at 8:00AM Tuesday morning. This year there were 10 of us so we were able to load all the guys and gear into 1 van.
3 hours and many beers later we arrived at the Greene Turtle in Ocean City for wings and beer. This place is the sh*t, it really is. Wish we had one around here. Then it was off to our 1st tee time at Light House Sound, this is quite a course I’ll tell you. Way to nice for the likes of this HotFatGuy but I took my cuts and enjoyed the day. It’s a beautiful course, great views, challenging and most important… the beer cart girl is cute.
View From The Room
Once our 1st round was in the books we headed down to the Howard Johnson Oceanfront Hotel. It’s literally on the boardwalk, really great location and a sweet view of the ocean.
There is also Fausto’sBistro in the lobby which has really good food, cheese steak to be specific. This was the second cheese steak of my trip (there will be an entire article devoted to the cheese steak and it’s relationship to the northeast steak and cheese).
The only downside to Ocean City (as in Boston) is that the bars shutdown pretty early so around 11:00 PM we were getting the “so you guys all set” bit. Fortunately for the overwhelmed bartender, we had been up since 7AM and had a 3 hour drive & 18 holes of golf under our belts. We were in fact, all set.
In traditional HotFatGuy style though we made a pilgrimage to the local ice cream shoppe and slid in a few more calories before bed.
Day 2
The second day started with a 7:30 AM Bloody Mary on the porch of the hotel then off to play 36 holes of golf. The destination for day 2 is the Ocean City Golf Club which is made up of 2 courses, Newport Bay & Seaside. We arrived a few minutes before our first tee time and had some delicious home made breakfast sandwiches, bacon egg & cheese on english. They were really good.
Good Morning! Day 2...
The key to playing 36 holes in 1 day? Actually there are 2… Plenty of Yuengling and make sure the second 18 is best ball.
The Ranger allowed us to play two 5 person teams for our best ball round. If you’ve never played best ball (also called Florida scramble) the rules are simple. You have to use at least 1 or 2 tee shots from each player (we did 1). Everyone hits a tee shot then you take the best tee shot and everyone hits their second shot from there and so on. Once you hit the green only 1 player needs to hit the put.
My team finished -1 for the round and the “other” team finished -6, so we lost but a good time was had by all.
A very tired group of golfers then made the trek to Carrabbba’s Italian grill. This place is excellent as well, I had “The Johnny” which is a sampler of the steak, chicken and pasta. Throw in 5 or 6 Coors Light drafts and some deep fried cheese and this HotFatGuy was feeling good.
We wrapped up day 2 back at the lobby bar and eventually Pickles Pub for literally 1 beer. Finish it off with some DQ soft serve from the boardwalk and it was bed time again.
Day 3
The 3rd and final day started at the same time, 7:30 AM rally in the lobby. This time though everyone brings there gear because once the golf is over it’s a cannonball run home.
The 3rd and final course was (and always is) Rum Pointe, it’s run by the same folks that run Lighthouse Sound so it’s also a very nice course. Two things to know about playing this course:
1) There is no chef/cook for breakfast, so if you order a sandwich it’s coming out of a microwave.
Rum Pointe, great course!
2) There are bugs EVERYWHERE, particularly bad on holes 1-3 & 10-13 so bring a ton of bug spray. The good stuff with deet not the sin so soft crap.
It is a really nice course though, the bartender was great and if you ask they will put all your beers in a little cooler that you can put on your cart. Makes all the difference on the back 9, I tell you.
Once that round was in the books we hit the road, a quick pit stop at Taco Bell/KFC was very successful. If you haven’t had the new double beef volcano burrito you don’t know what you are missing! We arrived a few hours later in Philly and said our goodbyes.
6 hours, later I was home with 72 holes of golf, 900+ miles in the car, a ton of food, many beers & allot of laughs under my belt.
It’s a full program but if you like golf have a good crew and love to eat & drink I highly recommend it!
Punching Out (for now)…
-Biff
