The Up and Downs of a Life in the Sky: Botany Bay to the U-S of A
Alex Frolish has been a pilot for approaching 20 years and now travels to all corners of the globe in his role as a commercial airline pilot. His passion for flight is only equalled by his passion for golf and golf travel. Having picked up a golf club over 35 years ago when aged just 3 years old, Alex has played over 600 courses across every continent on planet earth furnished with a fairway. Over the next few months you’ll be able to follow Alex’s golfing travels as he brings you anecdotes of his life both in the air and on the course.
Eleven rounds of golf, played on four different continents, in one month. It sounds crazy when you say it out loud. Even crazier still is that, in travelling to those rounds of golf I flew over 24000 air miles and spent over sixty five hours some six miles above the surface of the earth. You could well assume I was severely inefficient in my golf planning, were it not for the fact that most of my golf is played while I’m away on my travels as a commercial pilot.
The month started in Australia, at a golf course that is the furthest from my home in the U.K. that I have ever played. I had visited the peninsula where New South Wales Golf Club is located once before, playing at St Michaels Golf Club on a previous visit. The course was very pleasant and a decent challenge, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t looking enviously over the boundary fence toward the Alister Mackenzie crafted greens of New South Wales. Our flight landed in Sydney a little after 5am, and our flight path meant I got a birds-eye view of the golf course on our final approach. A little over 3 hours later, I was standing on the 1st tee of the 49th best golf course in the world, teeing it up in the Saturday morning medal competition! Surreal is an understatement.
Now you would think that with pretty much no sleep and barely enough time to collect my golf bag, never mind time for some breakfast and a practice putt, my golf might have arrived in a rather jet-lagged state. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to my playing partners when I found the first fairway, followed by the first green, and subsequently holed the 10 foot putt for the most improbable of birdie starts. Everyone knows the old golfing adage, never birdie the 1st hole, and even though my ball striking remained surprisingly intact, Dr. Mackenzie slowly exacted his pound of flesh, and by the middle of the back nine my card was in no danger of producing an out-of-towner upset.
New South Wales is one of the most unique and beautiful golf courses you could ever play. The green sites and bunkering are wondrous, the routing through the native bush is playful and utilises the ground wonderfully, while the reveal as you crest the hill on the par 5 5th and the walk to the par 3 6th tee, before you play your shot over the crashing waves, has to be one of the most jaw dropping experiences on any of my golfing travels.
My next round would be played just over 48 hours later, well over 3000 miles away in Asia. SICC Bukit sounds like an item you might need after a late night in the bar at the annual member/guest, but the Bukit course at Singapore Island Country Club is much more tasteful than that. The variety of the native foliage and trees, the improbably undulating land and the supremely pure playing surfaces made this a memorable jaunt in the jungle to complete my trip out east.
My next round would be some 18 time zones west of where I’d played my game in Sydney just a few days before. San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area is one of my favourite places in the world. Life over here is nearly as good as the golf, and although I’d visited many of the famous haunts, San Francisco Golf Club had always been one that had eluded me. On this trip, I was lucky enough to change that.
SFGC is a traditional and private place. The club sign outside the gates probably rivals Augusta for being one of the most photographed golf signs in the world. Due to the club employing a strict no phones policy, that photograph is often the only evidence that you visited here. For the trip, I rented a car from Avis, plumping for a mid-size that I hoped would be low key and not to brash so as not to ruffle too many feathers at the gate. Imagine my horror when I was told I’d been upgraded due to a lack of cars to a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4XE, a car that cries ‘I’m here’ at the top of its lungs! As the gates drew open to allow my car inside, I crawled along the driveway, parking as far away from sight as possible. My exit from the car was akin to that of a special forces raid, extracting myself and my clubs in record time, without anybody noticing.
The golf course at SFGC is truly spectacular, routed across ground that contains a historic site in the political history of the U.S.A. I’m no American history expert, but even I can could feel the significance of setting eyes on the spot where the last legal duel took place between Senator David C. Broderick and Justice David S. Terry in 1859. Terry shot Broderick somewhere beside the now 7th tee, sparking a chain of events that would eventually propel Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency.
The front nine here is dramatic as the history of the ground, with the holes navigating through and over impressive ridges and two impressively deep valleys, creating some dramatic precipitous drives and eye catching chute fairways. The way the ground is utilised is the real master of the piece, and this is as perfect a nine holes as you could ever wish to play. The back nine is less dramatic but still perfectly formed and as an experience, it will linger in my golfing daydreams for many years.
More golf in California was followed by a quick fire trifecta of Welsh golf, at St Pierre (Old), Cradoc and Builth Wells, visiting each for the first time on Top100 duty. St Pierre has hosted some notable professional events in years gone by, and you could feel the course would pose a decent test to the professionals, particularly through the closing stretch. Cradoc, nestled in the lee of Pen Y Fan and the rest of Brecon Beacons is a parkland golf course that ranks high on good vibes, while also boasting plenty of quality. And just down the road in the Wye Valley, Builth Wells bursts with quirk, particularly on the back nine, and I left Wales with my enthusiasm for seeing some of the hidden gems in British golf truly reinvigorated.
Pennsylvania was the destination for my final long haul voyage in July. We played at an underrated course named Treesdale on our first day, where Arnold Palmer carved 27 testing holes through the undulating and heavily wooded terrain. The golf and the company were tremendous, but it was difficult not to get ahead of myself, as what lay ahead the following day had been keeping me awake at night for weeks.
Henry Fownes left the ultimate architectural mic drop out in the suburbs of Pittsburgh; one world beating layout and he was done. It really is some legacy. Oakmont has been undergoing a renovation under the guidance of Gil Hanse, in preparation for the US Open in 2025, and it was touch and go whether we would be able to make it out for a game, with the works and weather a dangerous duo to navigate. However my luck was in, it had been member/guest weekend which meant the works were minimised, while the storms had rolled off into the distance, leaving us with one of world golf’s finest golf courses almost to ourselves on a sun kissed summer afternoon.
My take away from playing Oakmont is that it is even more testing than I had imagined, yet somehow, it is still eminently enjoyable golf, which really explains why it is so highly regarded. It is undoubtedly much harder than most of the elite clubs I have played in the USA. Your strategical nous and execution is heavily tested throughout, the bunkers admonish most of the punishment, but you can make a big score by merely missing the treacherous greens (which are kept close to US Open pace routinely) on the wrong side by a only couple of yards.
My July might have been the most varied and far reaching month of golf in my life to date. Three world Top100 courses, 25,000 miles of golf travel on the ground and in the air, and a camera roll of memories (both physical and in my head) to last a life time. August would be no lighter on the air miles, with more trips to the Far East and North America planned. In the mean time, wherever you are reading this and whatever your August has in store, I wish you the straightest of drives, well negotiated four- footers and happy rounds.