Board Meetings Can Be Fun?

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m on the NGCOA board.  The NGCOA is the National Golf Course Owners Association.  I represent a Single Course Operator in the Midwest.  The board has many operators in different capacities which help to represent a look at golf course owners as a whole.

In the fall, they have their annual meeting in downtown Charleston.  If you’re dying to know, here’s a link to last year’s recap.  Since last year was my first year on the board, I didn’t realize that many of the board members bring their spouses to the fall meeting.  If you have never been to Charleston, I highly recommend it be put on your places to see before you die list.  It’s a beautiful town.  It makes for a nice tourist-y place.

Since the meeting falls near our anniversary, I thought it’d be fun to drag bring my husband along for the ride.

We left our two teenage boys in charge of their ten year old sister and boarded a plane.  Not quite.  My parents were around, too.  We’re not that dumb.  Luckily the house didn’t burn down while we were away.  The board meeting covered many hot topics that are currently plaguing golf courses.  It was a very interesting discussion.

 I always enjoy hearing from other points of view about what’s happening around our country.  After talking with people with courses in California, I’m so happy that I live in Iowa.  After the board meeting, we had lunch out on the pool deck.

In the meantime, my husband went and did lots of fun activities.  He’s a Navy guy, so he went to check out the USS Yorktown.  He also went to explore the downtown area of Charleston which has many interesting shops, markets, and beautiful homes including a few from Naval officers from long ago.

Once my meetings had concluded, we headed over to Daniel Island Country Club to play a little golf.  This is the same place where I attended my first board meeting.  Since my husband and I work too much, we haven’t played golf together for about two years.  In fact, I haven’t really played much golf lately.  It seems like I’m always busy working at the golf course or taking a child somewhere.  It was really fun to get away for a few hours.

While we were walking up to the clubhouse, my husband pointed out a tree frog that was hanging out on the pillar.  I’m short, so this is a bad picture of it.  It is, however, a great picture of the blue ceilings.  When my husband and I went to the Keys a few years ago, we learned from a tour guide that the blue ceilings are thought to keep away insects as well as ghosts.  Not sure if either of those are true.  It’s pretty regardless.

We climbed in our carts, which happened to look exactly like our old blue Club Car carts that we traded in the beginning of this year.  It’s nice to think this swanky course had similar tastes in golf carts.

I was pretty excited about my Taylormade rental clubs.  They even came with a badge declaring me a member for the day.  I took a picture of the badge, but was foolishly not facing the right direction of the sun.  Just picture it saying “Best Golfer of the Day.”  It was fun to pretend like we were retired and enjoying a round on an upscale golf course.  If you look closely at my husband’s eyes in this photo, you can tell that he thinks I’m crazy.

I really liked this feature they provided in their golf carts.  It was a map of the pin placements on the course.  I took of picture of it with the intentions that I might make something like it to put in our carts for next year.  Don’t hold me to it, though.

The starter shed, where a starter with a Boston accent helped us out, had some instructions for the day.

 Once we got everything situated, we headed to the first tee.  On our way, we saw the coolest sign.  I want to buy a few alligators just so I can have this sign at the golf course.  I could probably make a sign that says Beware of Big Brother.  Golfers could have contests with spottings of my brother, Jason.

This is a private club, so there were very few golfers that day and the grounds were absolutely spectacular.

 My husband is easily entertained.

The south has a really interesting breed of squirrel.  It kind of looked like a cross between a squirrel and a raccoon.

We had to take a selfie and send it back home to our children and family back home.  Taking a break is always more fun when you can brag about it to those who are back home going to school or working.

Check out their water they have on the course!  Complete with an ice machine!

I also had to take a picture of how they handle bad drainage spots to give to my superintendent.  He always loves it when I tour other golf courses because I return with lots of super fun projects for him to duplicate.

This golf course is in a newer area of Charleston (Daniel Island) and the building market is clearly booming.  There were hammers going in the background during our round and we easily saw 20 houses or more being built.  I love the south’s architecture.  It has so much character.  I couldn’t pick a favorite house.  I wanted to live in them all.

It has occurred to me that on a golf course blog, I have never posted a picture of me golfing.  That is about to be remedied.  My husband managed to capture my best side.  I have no idea what I’m thinking.  I’m going with, “Was that a tree?”

As soon as we were done golfing, we headed to the airport for our flight back to our little munchkins back home.  We had to stop in Chicago and purchase some cheddar and caramel popcorn from Nuts on Clark during our fifteen minute layover.  Have you had this stuff?  It’s amazing.  My husband doesn’t look happy here, but you can trust me.  He is.

We had planned to give the kids some of the popcorn as their souvenir, but we ate it all on the plane.  You snooze, you lose, I guess.