Dyslexic caddie only one highlight of Golf Odyssey's year in review

The first hole at Lundin Links is everything Golf Odyssey says it is, one of the best starters int he world.

    This is the time of the year that many publications take a deep breath, meaning they cut and paste from their dozen or so issues during the year and spit out a special "best of" or "review" issue.  Ironically, the most faithful subscribers feel a bit cheated with an issue that repeats what they read just a few months earlier.
    Subscribers to Golf Odyssey, which reviews golf vacation destinations, should not feel cheated at all with

their publication's 2008 in Review issue, the December edition.  Editors David Baum and Craig Better treat their readers to an offbeat and entertaining grab bag of odds and ends they encountered during their excursions around the world in the prior 11 months.  Consider the Irish caddie who transposed an 8 and 6 in calculating yardage, and then admitted to dyslexia after his player's iron shot wound up 20 yards short.  Or how about the noted golf course designer the boys happened upon while he was raking a trap on one of his layouts in the Caribbean?  
    Golf Odyssey tempers the offbeat with serious disquisitions on golf courses they have played around the world; and where my own trips have taken me to places they have reviewed, I can only say they are spot on.  Although I might have played a better opening hole than their favorite opener of the year, at Scotland's Lundin Links, I can't recall one; and their description of the hole and its glories match my own vivid and fond memories.  And to their comments about the surrounding Kingdom of Fife being the "most glorious golf neighborhood," I second that emotion.

    The year end issue also includes a comprehensive list of "platinum" places to play arranged by categories with which most golfers will identify, not just "top 100" or the like.

    If you are a traveling global golfer, or want to feel secure about that expensive impending trip to Pebble Beach or Pinehurst, consider seriously a subscription to Golf Odyssey.  I like it because, like me, David and Craig travel anonymously, paying their own way for accommodations, golf and food.  And like Golf Community Reviews, they are unique in that they review objectively the courses they play, never accepting any promotional fee or other consideration that might color their opinions.  You can trust their judgment, and in this world of Madoffs and Blagojeviches, that is worth more than the modest subscription price.  Click here for the Golf Odyssey sign up page.