I moved recently. This aging hermit crab has bought a new shell. I could no longer (in principle) continue paying rent, and the hassle of deciding every nine months if I was staying with a lease, or moving on, was just getting to be too much.
Now, I wasn’t doing much praying on it, to be honest, but the thought of owning has been at the fore of my mind for some time. I wanted a home base. A place to come back to, after traveling (stay tuned) and playing golf all over. Yet, what began on August 16th 2026 must have been my better angels at work leading and guiding me. In the last 45 days, with what seemed like Divine serendipity I secured the best realtor in Indian River County, (shout out Gina Pouliot) located a condo, secured the financing, sailed through the pre-qual, inspection, HOA Approval, mortgage approval, homeowners insurance, and the moving process. To top it all off I managed to get a storage unit within a drivers length of my new condo…and right inside the gates of the facility…and I was able to move in by September 30th! This is nothing short of a miracle. Trust me.
During the entire process nothing stalled, went backwards, or got in the way. All the smallest details just aligned and fell into place. I found myself, after every small little event, thanking God for His presecene in all of it because I am telling you, if you could have witnessed some of the things that occurred with the timing of tasks, and people just appearing out of nowhere, and actions just becoming outcomes with such little effort you’d also be using the same two words I used most during this entire process “Huh?”, and “Wow!”
It’s too much to record here, but hey I’d be happy to tell ya’ all about it over a nice cuppa Joe and good pastry if you want to hear it.
The bonus is, the community I moved into has a golf course, and despite it being under some solid renovation, it has some teeth, can play tough.
The best part?
It has Paspalum grass greens! Now for those of you lacking the agronomic training of a golf superintendent: “Paspalum is a large genus of warm-season perennial grasses in the family Poaceae, native primarily to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas,” and which can be treated with salt-water. Yep, you read that right. A sprinkle of saltwater and the grass heals.
It just so happens I LOVE Paspalum grass! It’s like putting on the finest grass surface you can imagine.
[Sidebar: if you really want to treat yourself, I urge you to go play Osprey Pointe in Boca Raton, FL where the tee-boxes, fairways and greens are ALL Paspalum. It’s phenomenal!]
Me, I’m easy to please, so just having Paspaulm greens thrills me, but I am secretly hoping that once the owners of Mangrove Sands renovate the fairways maybe they too decide to lay-in the Paspalum?
Anywho, I was feeling all nostalgic the other day for a good walk spoiled, and ventured to walk all 18 holes just so I could get to know the course from her bones. Problem was, Vero Beach, like much of Florida recently, has experienced monsoon like rains for about the previous ten days. The course was closed for several days and in hindsight they probably could have kept it closed another day or two. I got out around 3:00 pm and it was sunny, nearing 85 degrees and humid but not stifling, with a good steady 5-8 mph breeze (a gift). I soon learned the course wasn’t really ready for play when my first tee shot, a beautifully struck 4-iron, tracking on a baby draw line and carrying about 220 yards suddenly disappeared from radar like a plane over the Bermuda Triangle!
The ball reached it’s peak, I could see it down to the fairway and then nothing. No bounce, no roll out. Soon after I got to where it landed. No ball either. The earth just swallowed it up! Time to invoke Rule 16.1e:
“Relief for Ball Not Found but in or on Abnormal Course Condition” which for all you rules nerds states: If a player’s ball is not found but it is known or virtually certain to be in or on an abnormal course condition, the player may substitute relief under Rule 16.1b, c or d using the estimated point where it last crossed the edge of the condition. Once another ball is put into play, the original ball is no longer in play. Otherwise, if not known or virtually certain, the player must take stroke-and-distance relief under Rule 18.2. (For the full, unabridged text, please refer to official USGA Rules of Golf).
So, applying this rule (frequently), and playing from the tips I managed to eek out a 76. Not bad, but in all honesty, I was whupped coming off eighteen green. Walking Mangrove Sands is a bit of a feat being that some groups of holes are quite a distance from one another. All in all, and if Google maps is correct, to walk the course is 5 to 5.5 miles! Being that the course was as soggy as breakfast pancakes with too much syrup, my shoes (not my waterproof pair – duh!), my socks and feet were just sopping wet. My legs and hips were not too thrilled either, not having walked a course in about 2 years (shame on me).
Will I walk the Home Course again? Absolutely, but after a bit of fitness training, which incidentally started back up the morning after with more aerobic activity! I’ve got to strengthen my legs back up, and although all the bending, reaching and stretching that moving from my apartment and into the condo provided, it’s not really enough to get one back into the shape necessary to huff it across a generous track like Mangrove Sands GC. Thank goodness I took the pull cart and wasn’t carrying the bag.
I relish long walks across golf courses and God willing I’ll have many, many more before I am off to the big Caddie Shack in the sky. If there’s one extracurricular about walking the turf, it gives one time to contemplate, to take stock, to appreciate all the small things that make life worth living. For me, that was just being grateful to my Maker for taking good care of me during the whole move process. Out there, as I made one good shot after another, it confirmed for me this wisdom (which will soon be hanging as a beautiful wall installment in my home):
Look back and
thank God…
Look ahead and
trust God…
For me that says it all.
And honestly, my small simple life need never be more than the company of good golf buddies, long green fairways, undulating greens, and trees, and water, and all the variety of winged and furry little inhabitants that endow the cathedral of a golf course and make it what it is.
Here’s to the Home Course. May she rise like a diamond from the rough!
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