Golf

 John Mills started playing golf when he was a kid growing up in Scotch Plains, N.J. As he caddied at local courses, he learned to play the game and to love it.   

John worked hard, got married and raised a family. During those busy, active years, John dreamed about the day he could retire, relax and play golf to his heart’s content. 

As the years passed, the focus of his dreams became Brunswick County, and eventually the dream materialized into a beautiful home on the seventh hole of the Irwin Course at St. James Plantation.  

 Sandpiper Bay Golf and Country Club began its final stage of green renovations June 1. The Dan Maples designed 27-hole public golf course in Sunset Beach hired Modern Turf, from Rembert, S.C., to convert all putting greens to MiniVerde Ultradwarf Bermuda Grass from Sandpiper’s 1987 original Penn Cross Bent Grass greens.

The 2010 Brunswick Beacon Tournament of Champions will be played Nov. 13-14 at the Members Club at St. James Plantation. This will be the seventh Tournament of Champions and the second hosted by St. James.  

Scott Harrell, publisher of The Brunswick Beacon, is delighted with the growth of the event over the past six years.  

 I’m sick of bad golf. I hate shanks, skulls, chili-dips, three-puts and leavies in the bunker. I hate losing brand new golf balls in water hazards and hitting banana ball slices that sail out-of-bounds into flowerbeds in other people’s yards.

Worst of all, I hear myself constantly complaining about my poor golf. Last week, one of my dear friends asked me whether I wanted “a little cheese with my whine?”

So now, by gosh and by golly, I’m doing something about it.