The sun is just starting to rise on this beautiful July 3 morning and Friday Screencaps is here to inspire you to go out and have a weekend the boys will be talking about 250 years from now.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room –– my MASSIVE golf trip to northern Michigan that spanned parts of seven days and included an astonishing (for me) 166 holes of golf, and not one drop of rain. There was even a first for me on this trip in the weather department –– a round that was called off for lightning that never produced rain over our heads.
The round ended as I was standing in the middle of a fairway after a beautiful drive. There I was in the fairway holding my graphite shaft in mid-swing when a bolt flashed right over our heads. I’ve never moved so fast to a weather shelter than on Monday morning. That round ended after 15 holes, hence the odd number of holes played over the trip.
INVESTING IN PRODIGY JACKSON KOIVUN AND FOUR OTHER GOLFERS AT THE 2026 JOHN DEERE CLASSIC
It was mission accomplished for not getting electrocuted.
Trip details: 16 guys made the first half of the trip; 40 guys were on the second half.
Best course we played: The Bear (Traverse City) This one probably isn’t close. This Jack Nicklaus course lived up to its reputation as one of the hardest golf courses in Ohio, with more bunkers over 18 holes than I’d ever seen in my life. Let’s just say going out the night before playing this beast isn’t the best idea. I did card a full integrity 46 on the back to take the sting out of the front nine.
Believe it or not, I’ve played at some nice resorts in Michigan, and Grand Traverse might be the classiest. The beer hut behind the 18th green was super classy. The carts were high-end. The soft music coming out 40 or 50 speakers hidden around the clubhouse were at the perfect level.
Best party scene: (tie) Shanty Creek Resort (Bellaire, MI – home to Short’s Brewery) & Garland Golf Resort I know, I know…have a backbone and pick one, right? Guys, you can’t go wrong with either here. Shanty has a ski village area with bars and restaurants with bachelorette parties, wedding parties and golfers right in the mix. Hence, it’s a party.
Money is flying around. Everyone is in a good mood. Young guys shoulder to shoulder with weekend warrior dad golfers. It’s adult summer camp.
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And then there’s Garland, which is like partying at your own lodge in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere Michigan where cellphone reception can be a legit issue. The tiki hut bar at Garland is sneaky. Very sneaky. If you end up on that patio with the right crew, you’re in for a couple of nights you won’t soon forget. Dave Sanderson, who runs the place, is a Georgia native, Auburn fan, and an OutKick reader. If you’re looking for a resort run by a guy who gets us, Dave is the man. He’s one of us.
Best golf course food we ate: Garland’s hanger steak. Game over. I’m actually surprised the chef didn’t run out of hanger steak based on how much of it our group bought over three nights. Runner-up would be Garland’s firecracker shrimp. Tuesday night, I witnessed Millennial Chris B. in Bowling Green all but lick his plate clean of the sauce they pour over the shrimp.
At Shanty, you’re ordering steak bites at the hotel bar. You won’t be disappointed.
Best sandwich we ate: Get the white pepper sandwich at Short’s in Bellaire. It’s a turkey avocado with roasted red pepper and an aioli that is to die for. We had the sandwich two straight days.
How did I play? Did I shoot in the 80s? No, but I did shoot a 95 at The Legend, the Arnold Palmer course up there that kicked my ass in the fall. Due to the difficulty of the greens, that feels like a major accomplishment. Give me about 3-4 more times playing these courses and I would know where to place my misses.
My biggest issue remains around the greens. I need to chip much better, especially when I’m playing on greens that are 50 yards wide and I’m leaving myself 40 footers for pars. I had my fair share of pars, but I also had three-putt triples that are absolutely soul crushing.
Bonus weather information: Friday morning, it was in the low-to-mid-50s and we were wearing pants. By Tuesday afternoon, the heat index at Garland was hovering somewhere around 105 and we were playing in a swamp that had received seven inches of rain the week before. Yes, the bugs got bad.
Prices: At Shanty, we paid $430 for two nights in their hotel (nice rooms, which actually shocked me because the resort is aging) and four rounds of weekend golf. I think Garland was $530 for three nights, four rounds and a round on The Sawyer, a walkable 10-hole reversible course where you take out three clubs and go for a barefoot stroll, if you’re one of us. The Sawyer was a blast. I know some of the guys in our group weren’t happy about hitting off a mat, but once we got out there, it was no longer an issue. The course is beautiful, green, spongy and the type of course where you soak up Pure Michigan.
If there’s one thing I would change, it would be that The Sawyer needs a pop-up bar on the course and maybe a beer cart girl with a cooler on one of the holes. Dave said he’s working on a plan. I trust the guy.
Were there any trip surprises? Nobody got arrested or needed medical attention. That’s a solid trip. But there will be a surprise piece of content from me that you guys will see next week. Garland has a “Tee Shot Tuesday” Facebook content series that they asked me to appear in as a guest golfer. I’d played approximately 158 holes of golf by the time we shot “Tee Shot Tuesday,” so keep that in mind when I post the video next week.
Bonus suprise: Mrs. Screencaps called to let me know our hot water tank started leaking on Saturday and had to be replaced. Needless to say, that wasn’t cheap.
Conclusion: I was telling someone before this trip that Up North is now my Vegas. In my 20s and 30s, I needed the action of Vegas to get a dopamine rush. Those days are over. Now I just want to drive through the woods, listen to music, drink some beers with buddies and hit a golf ball a few hundred times.
At this point in life, I’m very fortunate to have found guys who share similar feelings about what these trips mean to the soul. It’s that brief period of time in life where you can let loose before heading back down I-75 to the real world. It’s like when we all used to get back on that plane heading home after a Vegas weekend.
You go home with incredible memories, stories we’ll tell for years, and a determination to do it all over again next year.
Reminder: Jena’s husband has five major championships. Let’s just say that Jena wouldn’t shoot under 200 Up North, but she’d sure love the Garland tiki hut bar scene.
Maybe it’s by design that Brooks doesn’t press Jena to become a better golfer. Guys, if she’s a competent golfer, she’s going to want into your golf groups.
That brings me to a new trend that I heard of over this golf trip –– Women who just want to ride along on the golf course while their husbands/boyfriends play. Is this a huge issue where you live? Courses around here are starting to not allow riders due to cart shortages because so many women want to ride along.
Ladies, please, just let us go act like morons for 4 1/2 hours by ourselves.
Do you set the thermostat to 78 when it’s 95 out? Seems crazy, right? I was talking to my buddy Diesel on the way home from golf and he planned on setting his to 76 because his electric company was charging double for energy rates due to high temps.
Are these power companies setting us up for a future where THEY choose what’s a reasonable temperature in your house? Remember, we now have these smart meters. Some of you have the smart thermostats that are wired in to the power companies.
I have a very, very bad feeling where this is all going.
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And with that, we head right into the most important 4th of July I’ll live to see. The weather could be a major issue this weekend, but we will soldier on to celebrate the freedom we all enjoy (minus the double energy costs).
As I’ve said many, many times on here, never lose sight at how fortunate we are to call this place home even as we live among people who absolutely hate this country. We must never allow them to become the norm. This country continues to be the greatest experiment in the history of the world because of all of you who believe in what those founding fathers wrote up 250 years ago.
Let’s have an incredible weekend. I’ll be back in the morning to add more perspective.
