Since 1985 antiques and collectibles dealers have gathered to display their wares in the village shops and along the streets of Cameron’s historic district. Like wine — and people — it only gets better with age! Head up the road for a free event with more than 150 dealers, shopping, food and fun on Friday, May 6, and Saturday, May 7, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Downtown Cameron, Carthage Street, Cameron.
Calling All Hats
Treat your hat to a night on the town at the Derby Day fundraising event for Weymouth’s new free after-school program, Weymouth Equestrians, from 5 – 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 7, at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Enjoy bluegrass, bourbon and BBQ while competing in the best hat contest and a prize raffle for your win/place/show Derby picks. Info and tickets: www.weymouthcenter.org.
Buggy with the Fringe on the Top
Spontaneous singing of Broadway show tunes not required to enjoy this year’s annual Carthage Buggy Festival, though it’s never discouraged. Come out to enjoy arts and crafts, beer, wine and food 9 a.m. to4 p.m. on Saturday, May 7. There will be a kids zone, classic car and truck show, and buggy and tractor show. Downtown Carthage at 1 Courthouse Square, Carthage.
Strawberry Fields Forever
The Women of Weymouth’s final meeting of the season will conclude on Monday, May 16, from 10 a.m. to1 p.m., with an outdoor luncheon, featuring strawberry shortcake, music and a Talbot’s fashion show. Wear your most fashionable fascinators and win some sweet prizes. John Lennon may or may not be on the playlist. Reserve your tickets by May 6. Cost is $20 for supporters and $25 for guests. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.
Bocce with a Big Heart
Brush up your bank shot and break out your bocce balls to benefit children who have special developmental needs at the Sandhills Children’s Center’s Backyard Bocce Bash. Check-in starts at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 21, at the Pinehurst Harness Track, 200 Beulah Hill Road, Pinehurst, for the teams of four competing in the round robin tournament. Info: (910) 692-3323 or www.SandhillsChildrensCenter.org.
Double Play Books Bash
There are two separate author events to scratch your lit-itch on Wednesday, May 11. Michelle Huneven will be chatting online about her book, Search, from 12 – 1 p.m. The talk isn’t just cheap, it’s free, but registration is required. For in-person bibliophiles, Taylor Brown will be discussing his book, Wingwalkers, from 4 – 6:30 p.m. at The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info and tickets for both events: www.ticketmesandhills.com.
Memorial Day Muscles
Start off the Memorial Day weekend with the Murph Workout Challenge, an energetic way to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this great nation. The workout consists of a mile run followed by 300 air squats, 200 push-ups, 100 pull-ups, and another mile run, but can be modified to suit physical ability. Southern Pines CrossFit will host its annual Memorial weekend tribute to the fallen while supporting the amazing Gold Star Teens Organization. Corner of New York Avenue and Bennett Street, Southern Pines, on Thursday, May 26 at 5 p.m. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.
Fun Times Infinity
All day long. We’re talking alllll day long. The Village of Pinehurst Family Fest is a full day of live music — three bands on hand — from 10 a.m. to5 p.m. on Monday, May 30, with a skydiving jump by the Black Daggers, a kids zone, North Carolina’s premier video game truck, a photo booth with the U.S. Women’s Open trophy, various food and beverage vendors . . . and the list goes on and on. Pinehurst Harness Track, Beulah Hill Road S., Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.
Sip, Sip, Sip
Thirsty Thursdays get a glow-up on Thursday, June 2, from 6 – 9 p.m., when Babson Real Estate Advisors presents “A Taste of North Carolina: Whiskey and Wine” at the Agora Bakery and Café, 15 Chinquapin Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com. Time to treat yourself.
Is it possible to predict and thereby alter an individual’s spiritual destiny by analyzing emotional frailties that are inherited genetically from long-forgotten ancestors? That’s the question at the heart of Jamie Ford’s novel The Many Daughters of Afong Moy.
Afong Moy was the first known Chinese woman to immigrate to the United States. In 1834, she arrived in New York City and was exhibited as “The Chinese Lady.” Americans, most of whom had never seen a person of Asian heritage, had immense interest in her language, her clothing, and her 4-inch bound feet. She toured widely in the United States, appearing on stages in major cities on the East Coast. She met President Andrew Jackson and was employed for a time by P.T. Barnum. But her popularity waned in the 1840s, and there’s no record of Moy after the 1850s. She was, however, the first Asian woman that many Americans had seen in the flesh, and her appearances influenced perceptions of Chinese women and culture long after her disappearance from the American theatrical scene.
Ford fleshes out the unknown details of Moy’s life, and although there’s no evidence that she had children, her fictional descendants and their trials and traumas are the subject of his novel. Their stories, especially their emotional sufferings, are explained by using the theory of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, which is, simply stated, the transmission of epigenetic information through the germline — a theory which will, for most readers, immediately beg the question: Do the emotions we feel influence our genes and those of our descendants?
Online sites explicating transgenerational epigenetic inheritance abound, but Ford offers his own simplified explanation in his Author’s Note (which conveniently relieves him of having to craft an awkward explanation in the text of the narrative): “Take a moment and think about your own family, their joys and calamities,” Ford writes. “Do you see similarities? Do you see patterns of repetition? Rhythms of good and bad decision making? Cycles of struggle and triumph?”
It’s a tenuous thread upon which to base a novel. While the inheritance of epigenetic characteristics may occur in plants and even in lab mice, the extent to which it occurs in humans remains unclear, and readers are likely to harbor doubts as to the theory’s validity. Might not the transgenerational theory be an attempt to escape our problems in the present by blaming them on distant ancestors? What could be easier than attributing our personal troubles to the dead? And how far into the past might this psychological necrophilia extend?
Nevertheless, Ford has crafted an intriguing novel that’s contingent on the reader’s acceptance of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, a term which surely sounds impressive and therefore has enough intellectual import to entice the curious. If the novel is a protracted exercise in illustrating by use of example, there are interesting stories to be told, and Ford does a workmanlike job of telling those stories.
He explores the lives of six generations of the Moy family — Afong Moy, Lai King Moy, Fei-jin “Faye” Moy, Zoe Moy, “Greta” Moy and Dorothy MoyAnnabel — and although each character is adequately developed and the narratives interestingly interrelated, the two primary storylines involve Afong and her mid-21st century descendant Dorothy, Washington state’s former poet laureate, who is channeling dissociative episodes that are affecting her mental health.
The novel opens with Faye Moy, a nurse working with the Flying Tigers in China in 1942, who unsuccessfully attempts to save the life of a wounded pilot. After his death, she examines his personal belongings, which include a pocket watch with a newspaper article that features a photo of her — a photo she’s never seen and has no memory of having been taken. On the back of the newspaper article are written the words “FIND ME.”
Moving forward from that intriguing clue, the narrative jumps to 2045 and Dorothy’s life in Seattle, where the city is besieged by the adverse consequences of climate change. The world of the future, for better or worse, manifests itself all around her, as when a computer-generated elevator voice chats with her: “Good morning, Ms. Moy. You’re up awfully early. Might I offer you direction to a nice coffee shop or patisserie? I could summon a car for you”; or when Dorothy recalls her doctor’s explanation of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, “How each generation is built upon the genetic ruins of the past. That our lives are merely biological waypoints. We’re not individual flowers, annuals that bloom and then die. We’re perennials.”
And so it goes with Afong’s “daughters”: in 1927 Zoe Moy is a student in England at a school run as a pure democracy; Lai King Moy is quarantined in San Francisco in 1892 during a plague epidemic and a great fire; Greta Moy is a contemporary tech executive who creates a multi-million-dollar dating app, etc. These narrative transpositions culminate when Dorothy overcomes her psychological inheritance via a plot twist that borders on science fiction/fantasy.
If this seems confusing, well, it is, and readers will be required to focus their full attention on a plotline that is crowded with characters and frustrating complexities. When the episodic storylines finally come together, readers who have bought into the transgenerational epigenetic inheritance theory will likely experience a sense of completion. Skeptical readers might well feel they’re the victims of a 350-page shaggy dog story.
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy will be in bookstores in June.PS
Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press Awards.
Se Ri Pak, who retired from a Hall of Fame career in 2016, didn’t compete in the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open, but as sure as there was drama during a topsy-turvy final round at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, her enduring influence on golf was clear.
Se Ri Pak celebrates during the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open Championship.
By winning the U.S. Women’s Open in 1998 — along with the LPGA Championship that same season — Pak ignited a golf revolution in the Republic of Korea. Many girls in Pak’s home nation were brought into the sport through the groundbreaking achievements of the 20-year-old major champion, with South Koreans soon becoming a force on the LPGA Tour. Nearly a quarter-century since Pak motivated her countrywomen to excel, women golfers from across Asia have made an astonishing impact in majors and beyond.
Chako Higuchi of Japan (1977 LPGA Championship) was the only Asian, female or male, to win a major title prior to Pak’s breakthrough. Starting in 1998, 25 women representing six Asian countries have won 45 of the 104 majors that have been played. Trophies have been lifted by athletes from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, China and the Philippines. (Two major victories by Korean-born Lydia Ko, who plays for New Zealand, where she grew up, aren’t counted in the total.)
Their success has been particularly striking at the U.S. Women’s Open, where Asian players have captured 11 of the last 14 editions of the oldest major in women’s golf — a championship that was won by only three international players in its first four decades: Faye Crocker, Uruguay, 1955; Catherine Lacoste, France, 1967; Jan Stephenson, Australia, 1983.
Yuka Saso wasn’t a familiar name to American golf fans until early last June. That changed when the 19-year-old representing the Philippines steadied herself from a rough start on Sunday at The Olympic Club. Saso capitalized when Lexi Thompson lost a large lead over the final eight holes, coming home in 41 strokes on a course notorious for being the place where Arnold Palmer blew a seven-shot advantage after 63 holes at the 1966 U.S. Open to fall into a tie with Billy Casper, who defeated him the following day in a playoff.
Yuka Saso poses with fans and the trophy after winning the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club
With Thompson throwing away her hold on the championship, Saso, who trailed by six strokes through No. 10, closed with a 73 and tied Nasa Hataoka of Japan at 280. On the third playoff hole, Saso made a birdie to win the Harton S. Semple Trophy and the $1 million first prize. The daughter of a Filipina mother (Fritzie) and Japanese father (Masakazu), Saso matched Inbee Park of South Korea (2008, Interlachen Country Club) as youngest U.S. Women’s Open champion. Uncannily, Park, who has gone on to win seven major titles, and Saso were each 19 years, 11 months, 17 days old at the time of their victories.
“I was just looking at all the great players on (the trophy),” Saso said after winning. “I can’t believe my name is going to be here.”
Five other golfers from the Far East finished in the top 10 behind Saso and Hataoka at The Olympic Club, further proof of the region’s strength in the women’s game. A milestone was reached last fall when Jin Young Ko won the BMW Ladies Championship in her homeland. It was the 200th LPGA victory by South Koreans.
“This is a tremendous honor,” said Ko, No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings, the ninth Asian golfer to sit atop the list since its formation in 2006. “And I think it’s very fortunate that I am the player, the 200th-win player, and I actually think that it’s really fortunate that it was an event held in Korea as well. Obviously, being the player of the 200th win by Koreans was not a goal that I was working toward. It just happens that I was really focused, and I did my best and this came along.”
The trail of success for South Koreans that culminated with Ko’s landmark victory began with little fanfare in 1988. Ok-Hee Ku broke through that spring at the Standard Register Turquoise Classic in Arizona, defeating standouts Dottie Pepper and Ayako Okamoto, of Japan, a 17-time winner on the LPGA Tour. Because the 1988 Summer Olympics were being held in Seoul, the country’s attention was focused on that, and Ku’s victory got little attention — certainly compared to the fanfare that greeted Pak’s double-major success a decade later. It was a start, though, and brought to mind a Korean proverb: “If you collect pieces of dust, eventually you will have a mountain.”
Ku, who won 23 tournaments on the LPGA of Japan, never added to her lone LPGA victory. She died at age 56 in 2013, by which time Koreans had become a dominant force on the LPGA Tour.
“I can’t imagine that so many Korean women are playing and succeeding on the LPGA, even in my dreams,” Ku told Golf World two years before her death.
The timing for golf to bloom was better when Pak, a golfer who interspersed smiles between powerful and accurate shots, came along. When Pak returned to her native soil in late 1998 after triumphing in America, her hero’s welcome was complicated by the fact that she was worn out, hounded by paparazzi even as she was treated for exhaustion and a viral infection in a hospital.
Pak knew she would be a beacon for women golfers coming up behind her, but that so many talented players emerged surprised her. “To be the best, you have to put everything into it,” Pak said a decade ago. “But they shouldn’t have too much pressure, extra pressure. But I think they feel it. There is only one No. 1 spot.”
The battle in 2021 for first place at The Olympic Club’s Lake Course — hosting the women for the first time after being a five-time U.S. Open site for the men — was intriguing. Megha Ganne, a 17-year-old amateur from New Jersey, shared the first-round lead and remained in contention at three under par, tied for third place, through 54 holes. Ganne’s performance put her in the final grouping on Sunday with Thompson, whose Saturday 66 put her at 7 under, one stroke ahead of Saso.
It was just Saso’s third appearance in the U.S. Women’s Open. Although Thompson was only 26 years old, she was competing in her 15th national championship, having debuted at Pine Needles in 2007 when she was 12. The talented and popular Floridian arrived in San Francisco with 11 career LPGA victories, the most recent two years earlier. Despite her skills, Thompson had only one major title, the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship.
When Thompson played a steady front nine at Olympic and Saso carded double bogeys at the second and third holes, it looked as if her major drought would be coming to an end and Saso would be left with a learning experience. “I was actually a little upset,” Saso said of her shaky start. “But my caddie talked to me and said, ‘Just keep on going. There are many more holes to go.’ That’s what I did.”
Strange things tend to happen at the famed Bay Area club — in addition to Palmer’s 1966 collapse, favored Ben Hogan (1955) and Tom Watson (1987) suffered U.S. Open disappointments there — and Thompson played a poor back nine, unable to close. A bogey on the final hole meant Thompson wasn’t even going to make the playoff and give herself a chance for redemption the way Ariya Jutanugarn did in the 2018 championship at Shoal Creek, where the Thai star lost a 7-shot lead with nine to play but won a playoff against Hyo-Joo Kim.
Ariya Jutanugarn won the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open in a playoff with Korea’s Kim Hyo-joo
In contrast to Thompson’s back-nine slide, Saso birdied Nos. 16 and 17 to tie Hataoka, whose 68 was one of only four closing scores under 70. After both players parred the two holes of an aggregate playoff, Saso’s birdie in sudden death made the difference as she became the 11th consecutive major champion from outside the United States, the longest American drought in women’s golf history, that Nelly Korda soon ended at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
To see Saso swing — taut, complete turn going back, hips quickly and fully clearing on the way through — is to think of another world-class golfer. Saso modeled her action after that of four-time major winner Rory McIlroy, watching his swing for many hours on YouTube. The similarity of their movements is striking when viewed side-by-side on video. Two weeks after winning the Women’s Open, Saso got to meet her idol as he played a practice round at Torrey Pines Golf Course for the U.S. Open. His advice to Saso: Keep a swing journal. “Everyone’s got a blueprint of what their swing is,” McIlroy told reporters. “If they keep on top of it and they do the same things, do the same drills over time, you fast forward 20 years you’re probably going to have a really good career.”
The first major winner from the Philippines, a country of more than 100 million with just 100 or so golf courses, Saso isn’t the first talented Filipina to earn golf headlines. More than 80 years ago, Dominga Capati, a laundress on a Manila sugar estate that bordered a golf course, picked up the game and defeated visiting foreign women players in the Philippine Women’s Open. A couple of decades later, in 1964, Capati played for the Philippines in the inaugural Espírito Santo Trophy, an international women’s competition. The Dominga Capati Memorial Tournament is still played to honor her contributions to golf.
Saso had plenty of support as she made history at the Olympic Club. Nearby Daly City is known as “Little Manila” for its large number of Filipinos. “I don’t know what’s happening in the Philippines right now, but I’m just thankful that there’s so many people in the Philippines cheering for me,” Saso said. “I don’t know how to thank them. They gave me so much energy. I want to say thank you to everyone.”
When the defending champion tees off at Pine Needles, she will be playing under a different flag. Saso, who competed for the Philippines in the Tokyo Olympics last summer, is now representing Japan. Under Japan’s Nationality Law, a person must choose one nationality before turning 22 years old. Saso cited business reasons, particularly the ease of global travel with a Japanese passport, for making the switch.
“We are obviously saddened to see her go, but she will always be Japanese and Filipino to us,” Bones Floro, an executive with the National Golf Association of the Philippines, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “We hope that our countrymen understand and respect her decision. It’s sad that we lost her in terms of representation. But Yuka will always have a special place in our hearts as a Filipino, and we are happy for her.”
A golfer representing Japan has never won the U.S. Women’s Open. If Saso successfully defends her title — Australian Karrie Webb is the last to do so, at Pine Needles in 2001 — she would make history two years running. Given the Asian success of the last couple of decades, it wouldn’t be wise to bet against her.PS
May is the daughter of dandelions, queen of the daisies, the giggling maiden of spring.
In a sunny meadow, where the soft grass glitters with morning dew, she is gathering wild violets, singing the blue into each petal.
One handful for candy.
Two handfuls for syrup.
A heaping third for tea.
She moves like water, stirring swallowtails and skippers as she drifts from flower to quivering flower. Constellations of buttercups manifest before her. A choir of bluebirds twitters in her wake.
Her gaze is tender. Her presence full. Everything she touches seems to blush.
The Southern magnolia offers its first fragrant blossom.
The tulip poplar blooms in boundless rapture.
An oxeye daisy sings out: She loves me. She loves me lots. She loves me. She loves me lots.
No flower is forsaken.
A sweep of dandelion brightens beneath her feet, yellow blossoms plump as field mice. There is nothing to do but bask in the playful light of spring.
As the maiden lowers herself onto the lush and golden earth, one hundred songbirds pipe her name. The mockingbird repeats it.
May is here! May is here!
All hail the giggling maiden of spring.
Flowers for Mama
Mother’s Day is celebrated on Sunday, May 8. Not that the garden would let you forget. (Read: Bring her flowers.)
Sometimes simple is best. A sprig of dogwood. A vase of bearded iris. A single magnolia blossom.
Or get creative. Wildflower bouquets. Pressed flower notecards. Wild violet jelly.
If she’s the “roses only” type, you know what to do.
But if your mama’s busy scratching and clawing around in her own garden, perhaps you can glove up and join her.
Prune the hedges if she’ll let you.
Since May is the month to plant summer annuals, plant them together.
In July, when her prismatic zinnias are the crowning glory of the block, she’ll surely be a happy mama still.
The Night Sky
According to Smithsonian magazine, two of this year’s most “dazzling celestial events” happen this month: a meteor shower and a lunar eclipse.
If you haven’t yet downloaded an astronomy app, consider doing so before the Eta Aquariids peak on May 5. Why? So you can locate Aquarius, the faint yet richly fabled constellation on the Eastern horizon. If conditions are favorable, and you are, in fact, gazing toward that water-like configuration of stars, then you may catch up to 20 meteors per hour beginning around 4 a.m. What you’re actually seeing? Debris from Halley’s Comet, of course.
A total lunar eclipse will paint the moon blood-red in the wee hours of Monday, May 16. The moon begins entering Earth’s shadow on Sunday, May 15, around 9:30 p.m. Totality occurs around midnight when, for 84 glorious minutes, the moon will appear to glow like a sunset. Dazzling indeed.PS
The dominoes started falling in 2008 when Pinehurst Resort President Don Padgett II and USGA Executive Director Mike Davis were both of the opinion that Pinehurst No. 2 had evolved over time into a course that was too green, too smooth, too organized and too tidy. That led to the decision in 2009 to hire architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to recast the fairways, the rough and the bunkers into a presentation more consistent with what architect Donald Ross knew from his days as a young golfer and greenkeeper at Royal Dornoch Golf Club and the St. Andrews Links.
Jim Hyler, the incoming president of the USGA, threw down the gauntlet in February 2010 at the association’s annual meeting, held coincidentally at Pinehurst and just days before Coore and Crenshaw would begin surgery on No. 2.
“We must reset the way that we look at golf courses,” Hyler said. “As we have for the U.S. Open, I believe that our definition of playability should include concepts of firm, fast, and yes, even brown, and allow the running game to flourish. We need to understand how brown can become the new green.”
One of the shapers on the Coore and Crenshaw team was a young Oregonian named Kyle Franz, who had worked on bulldozers the world over, not only for Coore and Crenshaw but Tom Doak, Gil Hanse and other architects. Given a dollop of ambition and entrepreneurial spirit, Franz approached Kelly Miller, head of the ownership family of the Pine Needles and Mid Pines resorts in Southern Pines, and suggested similar overhauls to those classic Ross courses — like No. 2, layouts sculpted from the sandy soils in the early 1900s that over time had become too suffocated in long Bermuda grass. Miller accepted, and away Franz went to Mid Pines, engineering a remarkable face-lift that was finished in 2013 to rave reviews.
Mid Pines was now exquisitely framed with sand, wiregrass, ragged borders and an array of textures, and Franz began tinkering across Midland Road in 2016 on Pine Needles. The result will be on display in late May and early June, when the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open is held at Pine Needles for the fourth time. Its previous champions include Annika Sorenstam in 1996, Karrie Webb in 2001 and Cristie Kerr in 2007.
The banner headline: There will be essentially no rough on the golf course.
No rough at a U.S. Open? Egad. The starched shirts and rep ties are rolling over in their graves.
“I was looking at some photos from 2007, shots showing Cristie coming down the 18th fairway,” Miller says. “You had thick Bermuda everywhere you looked, all green grass. It’s quite a contrast now.”
The last time the Women’s Open was held at Pine Needles, a golfer could stand on the tee of the par-4 fourth hole, for example, and look to the left and see a round bunker with 10 yards of lush grass between the hazard and the fairway. What was the point of the bunker given the ball would rarely run though all the vegetation into it?
Now the bunker is amoeba shaped and juts into the fairway. The right side of the bunker is bordered by tight Bermuda fairway, the left by hardpan sand and pine needles. On the top of the bunker is a profusion of scraggly wiregrass. The fairway on both sides rolls straight into sandy waste areas. Gazing up toward the green, there is nothing that speaks of structure or organization.
“We’ve cleared out all the rough and now have sandscapes, hollows and hardpan,” Franz says. “There are some Pine Valley looks out there.”
Mid Pines opened in 1921 and Pine Needles followed in 1928, the former a lynchpin of a hotel and private club, the latter the drawing card for a hotel and new residential development. Franz marvels at how Ross built disparate layouts within the same footprint of what was known at the beginning as the Knollwood development.
“I love the contrasts between Mid Pines and Pine Needles,” Franz says. “Mid Pines is built more in a bowl, and a lot of balls get kicked back toward the center of the fairway. At Pine Needles, most of the strategic elements of the course are derived from the fact that you’re constantly trying to hit on top of a hill on the tee shot. That’s Ross’ genius with the routing.”
One-third of the holes at Pine Needles have crests running perpendicularly across the fairway. Hit into the slope on one, two, six, seven and 12, and you lose distance. Carry the high point and you get a slingshot boost toward the green. The 18th doesn’t have that ridge, but there’s definitely a speed slot you can catch with a tee ball curved right-to-left. And by expanding the fairway widths, the golfer has more latitude to aim tee shots one way or the other to afford a better angle to the pin on a particular day.
“The course will play firm and fast, the way it should play,” Miller says. “I think it will be fun for the golfers. Last year at the Olympic Club, if you missed the fairway, you were in the hay. There’s virtually no rough here. Kyle has revealed the genius of Ross’ routing — you have to hit to the proper side of the fairway. You can have a tough approach if you hit to the improper side.”
The final significant change to the course from previous Women’s Opens is the speed, firmness and articulations in the putting surfaces. The greens were converted in 2016 to MiniVerde Bermuda, following the trend throughout the Mid-Atlantic of the last dozen years to ride the wave of more heat-tolerant Bermuda grasses that don’t need the water and maintenance demands of summertime. Franz took the opportunity during the conversion to integrate what he calls “horse-and-blade caliber micro-contours” in the greens to add interest and challenge to the putting element.
“There aren’t any elephants buried in these greens, but Kyle put far more movement in them,” Miller says. “There are cool locations on all of them. I think the Bermuda greens and wider fairways will work well. In Ross’ era, golf was played more along the ground. Now it’s more in the air. But the Bermuda greens are firmer and offer a more challenging surface.”
USGA officials expect weekend crowds upward of 15,000 spectators, similar to the draw from 2007, but the corporate hospitality footprint will be more modest given that two years of COVID suffocation left the USGA and potential clients with no clarity of what late May and early June 2022 might allow.
But the vision for the golf course is razor sharp, a remarkable thing indeed for a layout now 94 years young.PS
Lee Pace has written about the Pinehurst-area golf scene for more than 30 years, including authoring Sandhills Classics — The Stories of Mid Pines & Pine Needles. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.
Let merelate an experience — every detail accurate — that touches on COVID, technology, luck and the basic goodness of mankind. Or, as it happens, womankind. After months, if not years, of tribulations we must treasure every crumb.
My grandsons live in Montreal, where I lived for 26 years. They are now 23 and 25. The older one is an attorney, the younger, a certified auto mechanic/service department manager. They are tall, wickedly handsome, happy, affectionate and self-supporting.
Their father, my son Danny, died when they were 6 and 7. I was a presence in their lives from birth until I moved to North Carolina in 2007. Until recently I flew back to see them every six weeks. Now, I go three or four times a year, a joyous reunion with many hugs.
Due to COVID I’ve only seen them twice in the past two years. Flying, especially internationally, is a hassle; fewer and more expensive flights, lots of paperwork.
I prefer to depart from Greensboro — PTI is a fantastic airport, not crowded, with convenient parking and plenty of flight options.
My most recent trip began March 15, the infamous Ides.
I knew the ropes from a trip in November: passport, vaccine card, results from a specific COVID test within a specific time period. Other information (like quarantine location at destination, if required) was loaded onto an Arrive/CAN QR code.
I’m good at details. Everything was in order.
I presented the vaccine card and paperwork to the American Airlines agent in Greensboro. He separated the pages, took a quick look and handed them back. I put the bundle in my purse.
The flight to Charlotte was quick, followed by a long layover before connecting to Montreal. At the departure gate I was asked for passport and vaccination card. Without them I could not board. My vaccination card was not among the papers the agent had handed back. I emptied my purse, pockets, wallet. No luck. I felt panic rising. Not only would I be denied boarding, I’d be stuck in the airport overnight before returning home.
An off-duty AA agent in the gate area observed the developing catastrophe. She was a larger-than-life, friendly woman with a loud, happy voice. She was about to become my angel.
“Don’t you have (the card) on your phone, hon?” she asked,in disbelief.
No, I’m not cell-centric. Hard copies remain my style.
“How about on your laptop?”
Don’t own one, but there’s an image on my desktop, at home.
Problem: Nobody at home.
However, I did have my IT guy’s phone number. And I had hidden a key outside in case the cat sitter forgot hers. But would Bill, my trusty techie for 13 years, even be home?
He was — a miracle. He heard my desperation, dropped everything and drove to my apartment, found the key, booted up my computer, accessed the file with the vaccination card.
Now what? I was afraid to have him send it to my phone. “Email it to mine,” angel lady suggested. He did. It came through. Sigh of relief. She photographed the image on her phone with my phone so I would have it for the return trip. Passengers witnessing this drama (including my mini-meltdown) applauded.
When I returned to Greensboro three days later I told the American Airlines manager what had happened. He was borderline rude, said it was my responsibility to keep tabs on documents, snapped, “Check the lost and found.”
Remember the 1990s TV series Touched by an Angel, where an angel in disguise played by the late Della Reese helps someone out of a crisis? Once home I Googled the show. My jaw dropped at the resemblance between Della and my American Airlines guardian.
I don’t believe in spooky stuff. My favorite angels were painted by Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli. However, this was the third event in my lifetime with paranormal implications. One happened at the dedication of Danny’s gravestone, in 2005. This one enabled me to hug his little boys, now grown men, and prepare their favorites for dinner. They laughed at my story, teased Nanny for not being more tech-savvy and hugged me back.
In a world plagued by death and destruction, once in a while an angel flaps her wings over a disbeliever.
My turn came at Charlotte Douglas International Airport on the Ides of March.PS
Deborah Salomon is a writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.
Although unquestionably the most sought-after bird species in North Carolina, the Bachman’s sparrow does not, at first glance, seem very special. But once you search for this incredibly adapted little bird, you will realize how special it is. One of a handful of endangered species in our state, you will have to find the right spot to get a glimpse of this cryptic little creature.
Endemic to pine forests of the southeastern United States, Bachman’s sparrows are only found in the frequently burned, open understory of the Sandhills and inner coastal plain. The best time to locate one is to visit in the spring, when males spend much of their time singing from low perches. Otherwise, the birds are down low, foraging in the groundcover and virtually invisible. A local species, Bachman’s sparrows do not migrate in the fall but rather become even harder to find. As insects become scarce, they subsist on a variety of seeds during the colder months.
Bachman’s sparrows are bland-looking brown and white with just a splash of yellow at the bend of the wing (which you will miss unless you are looking carefully with binoculars). Their song is a beautiful trill preceded by a single note. It carries a long way and is hard to pinpoint, in spite of the volume. And the nest, which is carefully constructed by the female, is an intricate cup of grasses at ground level. Often they will incorporate vegetation over the nest, creating a dome to protect the eggsand young from predation.
These birds are also unique in that they run, not fly, to evade potential threats. They will disappear into thick vegetation and have also been known to evade predators by diving into burrows dug by gopher tortoises — another species restricted to the sandy pine forests a bit farther south. More than anything, they are closely associated with longleaf pine and wiregrass, a plant community type that has become very rare over the last century. Habitat conversion and fire suppression have reduced the forests that they commonly inhabited by over 90 percent.
The individuals of the species were first noticed by one of the country’s most famous early ornithologists, John James Audubon. He chose to give them the name Bachman’s sparrow after his local host for the expedition, South Carolina clergyman John Bachman (pronounced BACK-man). Indeed, many birders have followed in Audubon’s footsteps, searching for this unique, secretive little survivor. Should you do the same, you just might be rewarded with a brief look at one of our state’s most prized inhabitants.PS
Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife photos and reports. She can be reached at susan@ncaves.com.
When I first started tinkering around with carbonating cocktails, I knew right off the bat I’d have an issue with juice. Juice flooded my thoughts with doubt; juice gave me night sweats. I knew that I couldn’t just juice lemons and limes and add them to a keg with other ingredients. The citrus would oxidize, separate, and go bad too quickly. Luckily, a book by the name of LiquidIntelligence came out, and I learned the importance of acids and clarifying juices. I fell in love with citrates. It was my saving grace and got me started down the right path in kegged-cocktail land.
For making drinks to serve at home, the issue with juice is waste and cost: If you’re having friends over for drinks, it’s easier to juice ahead of time, but that juice (especially citrus other than lemons) will start to oxidize after four hours; any leftover juice won’t taste the same the next day. Enter Nickel Morris and super juice: a new concept that will save you time and money.
Sometime last year, I saw the term “super juice” for the first time — probably on Instagram or Google (cocktails, workouts, models and music seem to be the main topics on my algorithm). I read an article at punch.com about a bartender named Nickel Morris who co-owns The Kentucky Corn Palace in Louisville, Kentucky. Then, I went down the YouTube rabbit hole and found a lengthy interview with him on the “Portland Cocktail Week” channel. Morris, it turns out, has been working on ways to better utilize food-grade acids and juice for the past decade.
He used to work for a business named Road Soda, where he ran a kegged cocktail program (sound familiar?) and learned to use oleo citrates for serving thousands of people at once, e.g., the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. You may have heard of oleo saccharum, which is oil-sugar made from citrus peels (lemon, for example) placed in a container and covered with sugar. After a few hours, the sugar draws out the oil from the peel. Using acids with the oleo saccharum mimics the flavors of juice when kegging a cocktail. Nickel’s aha moment was when he discovered how to make a longer lasting, sustainable juice, without having to use fancy equipment. He put acids on lemon peels in a container, placed it in the fridge and forgot about it. Three days later he found it.
“All of the acid had disappeared, and the peels were really thick. And I was like, ‘Huh, that is not what I thought was going to happen.’ So, I took out an immersion blender and a liter’s worth of water, and blended it up into a liter’s worth of oleo citrate, and that was the first batch. Because, as it turns out, and despite what we would tell ourselves, acid is a fantastic magnet and sponge for oil. It will rip it all right out.”
By using the oils of the citrus, you create a flavor profile that remains constant. The flavors from juices like lemon, lime, orange and grapefruit slowly begin to change as soon as they’re juiced. As Morris explains in the video, “There’s no way for lime juice not to oxidize. Lime juice is so sensitive, it’ll oxidize in a zero-atmospheric pressure vacuum. It will do it all on its own because it’s a breakdown of the structure of the skin.” And when this happens, it’s no longer suitable for a cocktail. Oleo-citrates are great because they mimic the taste of citrus juice.
When you make the oleo-citrate, you have a shelf-stable citrus juice substitute. Super juice involves adding the juice from the peeled citrus that you used to make the oleo-citrate into the citrate. Super juice is the finished product. In the lime example below, you’ll see that using the peels from eight limes (I yielded 100 grams of lime peels) will yield one liter of oleo-citrate. Adding the almost 8 ounces of juice from those limes into the citrate will be your super juice.
You can use this juice for a few weeks with no huge difference in taste. That’s over 1 liter of “juice” with only eight limes. This will help bartenders with cost, waste and time. It also helps home bartenders, but at a much smaller scale.
Below are a few different super juice recipes I like with lemons, limes and grapefruits. You will need to have the citrus on hand, as well as citric acid, malic acid and MSG (for the grapefruit). Don’t freak out about the MSG; it’s glutamic acid, and it’s found in grapefruit juice (there’s more glutamic acid in grapefruit than in any other citrus fruit). MSG is salt plus umami, basically. You can find citric acid in grocery stores, and home brewing shops. You can also find these online — I recommend Modernist Pantry.
Since you’ll be extracting oils from your citrus, make sure that it’s organic, and make sure (goes without saying?) that you wash it. Very important.
Lime Super Juice
For every 100g of lime peel add:
40g citric acid
30g malic acid
1.6 liters water
If you use 45g of peel:
45g x 0.4 = 18g citric acid
45g x 0.3 = 13.5g malic acid
45g x 16 = 720g/mL water
(Thank you to Glen and Friends Cooking on YouTube for the lime recipe.)
Lemon Super Juice
— weigh lemon peels on scale
— use the same amount of citric acid by weight (if you have 50g lemon peels, use 50g citric acid)
— multiply the weight of the lemon peels by 16.66 to determine the amount of water
Grapefruit Super Juice
— weigh grapefruit peels on scale
— multiply weight of grapefruit peels by 0.8 to get amount of citric acid
— multiply weight of grapefruit peels by 0.2 to get amount of malic acid
— multiply weight of grapefruit peels by 0.033 to get amount of MSG
— multiply weight of grapefruit peels by 16.66 to get amount of water
Regardless of the citrus used, combine all acids with peels in a container. Seal, shake to coat peels with acids, and let sit for 2-3 hours. You’ll notice a sludgy/oily substance fill the bottom of container. Add everything in the container to a blender and use the water to get out the rest of the oils into the blender. If you have an immersion blender, you can use it if you like. Blend water, oils, and peels. Strain through a nut-milk bag, or cheesecloth. Juice the peeled citrus, strain it, and add to oleo-citrate. Stir, and refrigerate. Lemon will last the longest before noticing any subtleties with the flavor profile. The juice will start to taste a bit metallic and bitter as the weeks go on, but all juices will be great for the first week. Make sure to taste before using/serving. PS
Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.
