This year was a big year for us - our 10-year anniversary. Although we celebrated our anniversary in June, we decided to take a trip to celebrate the big event in September in conjunction with Chad's Golf Channel Am Tour Nationals event which he qualified for during his season this year!
After dropping the kids off for their Grandparent Vacation (see previous post), we flew-out on Saturday morning for Florida. We arrived without incident and were excited to hit the road for our drive from Orlando to Ponte Vedra Beach for the Am Tour event. Since we were sans kids, we rented a convertible - it was great (and made me want to get one to have all of the time - glorious!). We had a nice drive to the beach and checked into the Marriott Sawgrass for our stay. On Sunday we took a short drive to the courses Chad would be playing to check-out the clubhouses and get the lay of the land. We spent quite a bit of time at TPC Sawgrass ("The Players") and even had the opportunity for a storyteller to walk us around and give us some of the inside scoop! While there, we also saw Vijay Singh driving a cart around the property - pretty cool! Sunday night we also enjoyed the players dinner and met several other nice couples at the event as well.
Monday started the competition for Chad and some relaxation time for me! While Chad played his round, I attended a spouse's brunch and met several nice ladies (and enjoyed some tasty food!). After the brunch I headed to the spa for a facial and then some relaxation time at the heated pool where I read a book and simply enjoyed the quiet.
Tuesday morning Chad teed off pretty early at the second Ponte Vedra course while I slept-in and then hit the beach with one of the other wives I met at the dinner & brunch. We had a nice time visiting and then enjoyed lunch at the beach before heading back to the hotel where I met-up with Chad after his round. We then went back to the beach for a couple of hours and enjoyed listening to the waves crashing in. After our time in the sun, we had a great early dinner with the ocean as our background noise. After dinner we went back to the hotel for the Casino Night (unfortunately we didn't win anything...) and then bed!
Wednesday was a late tee time for Chad again, this time at his first TPC Sawgrass course - the Stadium course. Since this course was the most famous of those he was playing, especially the 17th Island green, I decided to walk along for the back 9. The course was amazing and the guys he played with were great too. I was able to get some great shots of Chad on the course (see below) and loved seeing the famous 17th! Chad did great and only put 1 in the water on the hole (one guy scored a 30+ on the hole!) but still managed to post an 11...that sand was brutal!
Thursday was the last day of the tournament and man did it rain! In-between rain storms, I snuck-in some time at the pool before Chad made it back from his round. We wrapped-up Thursday with an awesome dinner at Ray's, a hawaiian fusion restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. We wrapped-up our time in Ponte Vedra with a drive along the beach with the top down - seriously the best way to travel!
I don't want to speak for Chad but I think he had a great time playing in the tournament - he got to play some amazing courses, met several great guys, enjoyed the competition and is ready to go back again next year!
Friday we started our drive back to Orlando but stopped-off at St. Augustine to visit the World Golf Hall of Fame. I must admit, I wasn't super excited about this stop but it was really cool! Many of the trophies were displayed, the player lockers were really cool and the history of the game was really interesting - definitely a must-see if you are in the area! After lunch at Caddyshack - why not? - we continued our drive. Once we arrived in Orlando we stopped by Downtown Disney and took some time to just relax a bit before flying home on Saturday. We had an amazing trip and although we were excited to see the kids again we were sad to see our vacation end!
1 comment:
Happy you guys had a great anniversary/golf trip. Happier that the kids didn't go!
Post a Comment