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I’ve suppressed the majority of my worst day ever on a golf course, but one memory lingers: a vow that I would never play the Woodlands Course at Chateau Elan Resort ever again.
It was mid-May 2008. I was 18 years old and had just had one of the worst rounds of an overall mediocre competitive golf career: a 91 to open the Division III National Championship.
That miserable, dejected feeling has stuck with me ever since. The narrow confines of the course, its fast greens and the tournament pressure were just too big for me. I played a little better the next three days at the resort’s Chateau Course - rounds of 81, 73 and 78 - but it was a lackluster performance overall that didn’t contribute much to my team's (the Generals of Washington & Lee University) effort.
Emotional 18-year-olds say a lot of things they don’t mean. Fast-forward almost 16 1/2 years and when presented with the opportunity to return to Chateau Elan and prove that know-nothing 18-year-old wrong, I seized it.
The circumstances of my second round at the Woodlands could not have been more different. I was playing by myself, riding a cart in a non-tournament situation, 30 pounds heavier, nearly twice as old and at least a little wiser. And still, when I got to the first tee to greet the snaking uphill opening par 5, my heart rate climbed into darkly familiar territory. It wasn’t just the August heat of Georgia. It was panic, like what ended up flustering freshman-me all those years ago.
But I was better equipped this time. I managed to remember the competitive rounds I’d played since that failure, taking as much comfort from the bad ones (of which there have been many, and will be many more) as the good. I noted the tendencies that only tend to show up in my swing under the gun, and my tactics for managing them.
Momentarily reassured, I smacked a good first tee shot, opened with a par (I think I made double back then) and from then on, things felt normal. The Woodlands was not some unbeatable final boss, but just another golf course I was eager to understand and enjoy.
Mission accomplished. I actually ended up playing one of my best rounds of the year to this point. All the traps I fell into in 2008, I sailed over in 2024.
Ultimately, the vengeance I took was not against the golf course, but my young-punk self.
Golf teaches many lessons. One of the biggest: there is no substitute for experience and no teacher like time. My 18-year-old self didn’t know and couldn’t have known what my 34-year-old self would eventually understand, who he’d be and where he’d be willing to play again, demons of the past be damned.
CHATEAU ELAN GOLF CLUB (WOODLANDS)
— Tim Gavrich (@TimGavrich) August 16, 2024
Braselton, Ga.
Denis Griffiths, 1996
$154
Bunkering has been noticeably reduced since I was last here in ‘08, mostly for the better. Good elevation change handled with a mix of up-and-over, drop-shot and down-then-up holes. Well-sited greens. pic.twitter.com/VTQDtjkRge
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