Regular Golf Club

Special guest Bryan recently completed his first golf trip with a group of friends. Feel free to check him on on BlueSky @bryanmgrantham.bsky.social

I’m a bit of a lone wolf at work. I work alone, rarely with other attorneys, and I probably don’t do as good of a job at pushing work down to associates or paralegals as I should. I like things done a certain way, and maybe I’m not always the best collaborator or team player.

In that respect, golf is the perfect game for me. There are no teammates to rely on. There’s not even anyone playing defense like in football or basketball or most other sports. It’s just you, your thoughts, and the course. The only factor that affects your score at the end of the day is how well you’re swinging the club and rolling your putts.

Over the last 14 years, I’ve played some of the most famous golf courses in the world – by myself. I’ve been to Sawgrass (4 times actually), Pebble Beach, and Saint Andrews. Throw in TPC Scottsdale for good measure. I played them all as a single, and my wife tagged along for the trip. They were great, bucket list trips. I had mostly eschewed the boys golf trip because (1) it’s just easier to plan a single trip, and (2) it’s really hard to find a group that has the time, money, and work flexibility to drop a few grand to go play.

Well, fortunately for me, I’ve found a core group that fits that bill. And last August we began to plan our first “Golf Bros” trip – to Pinehurst for June of 2026. 

I took over the planning of the trip and worked to set up the rounds – we planned on playing Nos. 2, 4, and 10 since those were the three that had been recommended to me. With travel, a lot of the fun for me is the planning and the anticipation. As the trip got closer, we all got more excited and anxious. We even all got each other “gifts” for the trip: I bought “Ryder Cup” uniforms for the day we played No. 2, another member of the group bought everyone custom ProV1s, another got custom koozies, and another got us custom golf towels and pool floats. It was a pretty fun haul honestly to get all geeked out on our “first annual” trip.

We rented a minivan and drove over from Georgia to Pinehurst. We stopped in the Carolinas for some elite barbecue, and a few beers were cracked on the way to Pinehurst. But mostly the drive over was conversation with some light 90s/early 2000s tunes playing in the background for nostalgia. Dudes rock.

We made it to Pinehurst, got settled in, and took a trip to the main clubhouse to make our first round of retail therapy and really just took it all in. If you don’t know Pinehurst, it has 10 golf courses with the five oldest being at the main clubhouse.  The other 5 are all on their own property (although they’re building No. 11 which will share facilities with No. 10 when it opens in 2027). The clubhouse is lined with trophies from major events that have been played there and even a framed shadow box that house Payne Stewart’s sleeves that he cut off before Sunday at the 1999 U.S. Open.  

Every day was a little bit the same – in a good way.  Breakfast at the hotel, catch the shuttle around 7:15, and an 8:30 tee time. It was around 100 degrees everyday, so we also took advantage of the pool before pre-dinner drinks at the hotel’s bar after 5 hours of golf in the blistering hot sun.

The golf courses were pristine, and the company was great. Cold beer awaited us at the end of the round where we marveled at some great shots, we laughed at some terrible ones, and generally we just had a good time. The scores were what they were, but the boys golf trip isn’t about winning or losing.

The great part about playing courses like No. 2 is you can feel the ghosts. You can stand where Payne Stewart holed his famous putt or where Bryson hit that incredible bunker shot on the 72nd hole in 2024. The starter – dressed like Stewart, knickers and all – told us that we were all now a part of U.S Open history by playing No. 2. What a way to start a day, right?

Just like Zack Galifianakis in the Hangover, my wolfpack grew from one to four.  There’s just something different about getting out of town the with boys, playing a few rounds of golf somewhere new, and getting to laugh and joke about it at the end of the day over beers and cigars. And the best part? We’ve already booked the 2027 trip for Kiawah. See you on the Ocean Course next June.