Chechessee Creek Club

Your alarm echoes in the dark room. It startles you, but you’ve been awake for hours, thinking about the days ahead.

You feel the child-like excitement of Christmas morning as you throw your dopp kit into your bag, the final piece in the three dimensional puzzle. Zipping it closed, you walk with a great deal of alacrity to the front door, a silent departure into a weekend sure to be filled with friendly banter.

I hopped on a plane down to Charleston last week to meet one friend (the host) and four strangers for an overnight at the Chechessee Creek Club in South Carolina.

I met the host briefly at a wedding in November, and we immediately hit it off over our shared passion for the game of golf. 3 days later I received a text from him. He was searching for a sixth guy for an overnight. I gave him a very quick “Yes”.

Editor’s note: Talking to strangers has little to no downside and nearly infinite upside. It’s an emphasis of mine as we approach 2026.

Anyway, Rob (host) picked me up at 7am on Thursday and we were off to the races. The morning car ride with a coffee in hand and 54 holes of golf in front of you is the closest thing to Christmas morning I’ve experienced since graduating from the Santa years. Pure blissful anticipation.

I avoid all media, and do no research before playing at a new club. The golf media landscape is teeming with noise, and I prefer to make all judgements in the moment as I step on the grounds for the first time.

Although I did my best to avoid googling the club, a few people in the right circles who knew about the trip reached out with nothing but positive things to say.

One particular, auspicious insight: The former president of Pine Valley, Ernie Ransom, joined the club after its completion in 2000. As the story goes, he couldn’t carry the hazard on the short par 4 12th, and immediately after the round placed a sizable check at the front desk insisting that a forward tee be built by the following week. It was. Aspirational stuff.

After a chilly 20 minute warm up, we meandered to the first tee. My first tee ball found the fairway, and we were off to the races.

On the walk up the first fairway, I glanced at the scorecard for the first time. I noticed the card only read about 6200 yards from the members tees. That’s short by modern golf standards. I was intrigued.

The total yardage immediately made sense as I arrived at my ball and stared down the barrel of one of the most demanding 115-yard wedge approach shots I had seen all year. The first green (and many others) is the size of a dining room table with a severe back to front cant. A miss right, left, or long was a sure bogey. BTG was a fan! (I hit an inch behind the ball and made 5).

Now, golf course “ratings” are inherently subjective, but something I try and look for at a course is how “re-playable” it is. (Would I be excited to wake up and play this golf course every day?) At Chechessee, I constantly found myself with a wedge in my hand, but needed to hit a properly struck and flighted golf shot to get it close. Anything less? It was an outside look at par in the best case. Spin control and flighting the shot were at a premium. How refreshing.

Editor’s note: Hitting driver- 5 iron on every par 4 = boring snooze fest. Hitting driver - wedge/short iron is a lot of fun, especially with demanding green complexes.

Now, to the second element of re-playability - optionality around the greens.

Dormant Bermuda is a great surface for golf. Chechessee may have single-handedly changed my opinion on this as a native bentgrass player. The optionality provided around the greens is unmatched, and the rough off the tee is a real penalty.

When I missed greens into run-off areas, the prospect of saving par was bleak, but I had options from either the closely-mown fairway or the Bermuda rough. It sparked a great deal of creativity, including a putt from about 40 yards away on the 12th. (I don’t trust my hands).

Finally, let’s go back to the green complexes themselves. They are all-world. Not a single gimmicky or quirky one in the lot. Small and demanding, they ask precision and touch with every lag and knee-knocking 3 foot slider. Leave it on the high side? Better make it or you’ll have 10+ feet coming back. The best.

Roberto Castro, former TOUR pro, made the point that the course is likely only fun to low index players given the severity of the greens. I’m inclined to agree with him.

Chechessee passed the “fun” test with flying colors.

Ok, now that I’ve broken down the course, let’s get into a little discourse about money games on golf trips.

I am pro-money game. Let me be clear on that point. Playing for a few bucks to make the putts mean something keeps the round engaging.

With that being said, let’s not overcomplicate the games to the point where the group is still calculating what each person earned in a spreadsheet the next week. It defeats the point! (Love you, Rob).

In my view, there should be 1 inter-group game (preferably better ball gross and net skins) and one intra-group game (pick one, doesn’t matter).

Make sure everyone has cash on them and settle up after each round. I am partial to skins as it’s easy to track and having gross/net allows everyone playing to get in on the action.

Editor’s Note: Check out the “Banker” game. Rob taught me this game on the final day. A bit complicated, but if someone in your group loves to gamble and is committed to tracking all the bets, it’s a lot of fun.

Chechessee has these squirrels that are apparently endangered? They are too friendly I guess? Anyway. They were everywhere.

After the first 18 on Thursday, we ate a quick lunch and went back out in 2 threesomes around 3:20pm. It was a race against the clock to complete the 36 hole day.

A random 4th joined the first group, but bailed after 9. I saw the opportunity.

I yelled up to Rob and Ben on the 10th tee: “Alt shot as a 6-some?”

After some confusing back and forth, we caught them on the par 3 11th and decided on teams. A pure alternate-shot 8 hole skins game. It was the most entertaining 90 minutes of the entire trip. The combination of Creek Teas + not wanting to short-side your partner made for some quality banter and shotmaking.

We finished the 18th in complete darkness, spending a good chunk of time looking for a ball that found it’s way to the center of the fairway.

Editor’s note: the short putting "Y” words had gotten so bad by that point that one of the boys gave me his LAB putter for my final 4 footer. I hate that I made the putt, and hate even more that I liked how it felt in my hands. Shoutout Will.

I walked toward the warm light of the clubhouse behind 18 firmly believing that alternate shot is golf in it’s purest form. Camaraderie-building at it’s finest.

Chechesse is a top tier overnight experience. The cabins on premise are spacious and in excellent condition. The perfect place to crash for a night and recap the day of golf.

The post-golf nap + shower to bring you back to life is a top 3 feeling in the world. Rob graciously offered to grill us some food for dinner and we settled in for an evening of drinks and banter.

As much as playing 36 holes will tell you about someone, you can put more pieces of the puzzle together by listening and participating in conversations like “Mount Rushmore of Movies” and “Conspiracy Theories I Actually Believe”. The list of topics goes on and on. As the one guy on the outside, I did more of the listening than talking.

The overnight boys trip rocketed up my power ranking of best golf trips after this one. I think it’s the perfect amount of time and golf, especially if you have other things going on at home (wife + kids + work etc).

Here’s to many more overnight trips for all of us.

Geoff Ogilvy. I love this action because it was shown to me innumerable times as a teenager by my swing coach.

I hated certain elements of my swing back then (slightly across the line, released the club hard at the bottom), and he had to frequently talk me off the ledge when I’d see him a few times each year.

He’d pull up a video like the one below and we’d compare it side by side

Unfortunately, the pro shop didn’t have any of these logos in stock or it would’ve been the quickest purchase of my life.

Weekly plug for the podcast with good friend UES Golf.

Watch the first episode here:

Talk soon,

BTG