Driving the Fairways Off Coast of Georgia

The white line of golf carts at the Sea Island Golf Club curled like a breaking wave on the nearby Georgia coast. I approached with a friend and veered, automatically, toward the passenger side.

“No, you drive,” he said. “I’ll navigate.”

“I’ve never driven a golf cart,” I said, in that championship golf whisper I learned from TV.

“High time you did,” said my pal, who lives on St. Simons Island. He pointed down the fairway where alleys of giant live oaks, the state tree of Georgia, were hung with Spanish moss. “Head down there. I want you to see the view from the ninth hole.”

He told me to put my foot on the gas pedal and the cart would start rolling. Actually, he said to step on the electricity, but that was beyond belief.

The last time I felt so completely out of control was when I drove a bumper car at a seaside carnival in Sukhumi in the Soviet state of Georgia. Odd how the flotsam of memories surfaces with panic.

Off and Running

The golf cart was quieter than the machine in the Russian bumper rink, but both seemed to hurtle through space and take me along for the ride.

I had other complexes on the islands of American Georgia. I was brought up not to walk on the grass. Now I was being told to cut over immaculate knolls. The rubber tires, however, left no marks.

Scoops of white sand glimmered like clamshells in the jade turf. Golfers swung clubs and hit balls. Serenity threatened.

Suddenly the path narrowed and the world’s narrowest bridge arched ahead. It must be a footbridge, I thought, and only for children at that. I hit the brake and asked directions.

“Drive on across,” my friend said.

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” I said with a defiant smile, which was silly because I had been and he knew it. But the birthday party had ended by midnight and this day held new challenges.

I stared at the bridge and eased the cart forward to measure the possibilities. With an inch to spare I drove across.

The day was heating up, but the breeze was steady and the sunlight bounced like confetti on the languid waters of St. Simons Sound. With relief, I stopped the cart in the shade of an Eastern red cedar and savored a view of the shore, a view I would never have seen if I had kept to the highways.

I will remember the Sea Island golf course because of that long drive and because, when we came to a grassy circle not far from the clubhouse, my friend said: “Now, you hit a ball.” Before I could protest, the same fingers which had been clenching the steering wheel were wrapped around the tiny shaft of something called “No. 6.”

Teeing Off

I wiggled my shoulders and the rest of me; I had seen that form on television at the Masters tournament, from this same state. I looked down at the tee, closed my eyes and swung.

“Try again,” my friend said.

This time I watched and I hit the ball, low and steady and in the right direction. In fact, I sent two balls flying. One must have been nestled nearby.

“Interesting shot,” said my pal. “Do you play croquet?”

We celebrated my inaugural drives with a buffet lunch at The Cloister, a haven of seaside cottages built in 1928, a hotel that lives up to its name. Its walls are wrapped in trumpet vines and Chinese wisteria. Clusters of pink grape myrtle form 10-foot-tall bouquets. Loblolly bays and magnolias spear the lawn.

This grand old resort is popular with honeymooners, and with families who return year after year for holiday reunions. Photographs of parties line a corridor, like the pictures of passengers on cruise ships. Other walls show historical photos of Presidents who have visited these lush grounds.

“George and Barbara Bush honeymooned here,” someone was saying as I walked by the pool. “Now wouldn’t it be nice. . . ?”

The Southern voice drifted off into this hot political summer, and so did I.