WINDERMERE, Fla. – The sound of chirping, playful birds. Fresh, blooming flowers with vibrant shades of all the brightest colors scattered everywhere you look. Sunny skies. A warm, gentle spring breeze. Ponds and lakes dotted with moss and a subtle, inviting ripple floating across the water – all surrounded by amazing, drop-your-jaw mansions.
And grass. Perfect, not-a-blade-out-of-place, proud and arrogant, wonderfully green grass. Grass
that burns inferiority into your psyche for ever watering or fertilizing your own lawn in a feeblish attempt to better it. Grass that makes you want to run out and join PETA for wearing shoes and walking on it, if by even the slightest measure you may harm or kill it.
Oh yeah, and there were 24 of the world’s best players slugging it out in a fun, yet ultra-competitive golf tournament that lingers somewhere between a Sunday four-ball and the Sunday of a major championship.
My first trip to the Tavistock Cup was as refreshing a look at a professional golf event as it was an injection of what living the life must be – how the other half does it.
Or, in this case, the tiny percentage of the world’s demographic that, this week, was divided into four distinct groups bearing four colors to support their teams – red for Isleworth, blue for Lake Nona, green for Queenwood and pink for Albany.
If you saw the images on Golf Channel’s telecast, you saw the patrons – club members, or those with affiliation to one of the four clubs involved – wearing team shirts with pride.
Golf tournament? Lake Nona won the event if you care. The patrons sure didn’t seem to.
When it comes down to it, the Tavistock Cup is the ultimate country club mixer, with a little bit of big-time golf thrown in. The gallery was as laid back as the players.
Take a Tuesday off of work and visit with friends while walking around, enjoying a cocktail and watching great golf? Who wouldn’t want to do that?
There were some ropes and marshals around greens and tees, and plenty of security, but to walk the fairways along side the players with no worry of talking on a cell phone or taking pictures – other than having normal golf etiquette, of course – is the truly unique aspect to this event.
It’s a refreshing idea that professional golf really is entertainment, above all.
Below are some pictures from Tuesday at Isleworth:
The giant – and fierce – bull on the joint first and 10th tees.
Tiger Woods on the 10th tee.
A beautiful backdrop to the 12th green.
Tiger Woods on the 13th tee.
A very colorful fairway.
Graeme McDowell ready to hit a putt on the 10th green.
A mobile 19th hole, fully stocked.