On January 15 of this year, Sam and I played a round of golf at the Links at Norman. I’d just finished up my “top golf shots of 2025” post that I was extremely proud of and wanted to try something new for 2026. On the extremely short par-3 3rd, I dropped my tee shot 10 feet from the hole and putted home for birdie. Why not keep a list of all of my real, honest-to-god, no mulligans, no gimme putts, no frills birdies for the year? Sam and I talked about it; it could be a fun quest for a clean dozen of them in 2026. A few holes later, I dropped another great tee shot onto the green on the par-3 8th and made a slightly longer birdie putt. Hey, I was 1/6 of the way to a new goal. I nearly made it 1/4 of the way with a narrow miss on the par-4 10th. This was going to be a fun thing to track.
Skip ahead almost 4 months exactly to May 14, and I was still sitting on two birdies for the year. It turns out that if you add another source of external pressure to the already difficult task of making it onto the green in regulation, and then one-putting from wherever you are, you might be setting yourself up for failure.
The Lotte Skyhill Country Club on Jeju was not one where I was looking to make a birdie. But sometimes lightning can strike out of a clear blue sky. Let’s dive into May 14, 2026 – the day lightning struck Jeju Island. (And yes, there are twelve things from this day. Golfing with Pam and Winston was potentially the most fun part of the whole trip. This is my blog and I make the rules.
- The most thorough brown-bag breakfast in history
Our tee time was a bright and early 7:42 am at the Skyhill Jeju. It wasn’t a long drive from the JW Marriott, but none of the three of us golfers (Pam, Winston, myself – Elizabeth and Moira opted out of this adventure) wanted to get there late. So I was up and changing into golf clothes before 6:30 as the sunrise shone over the ocean beyond Elizabeth and my window.
The JW Marriott told us they would provide a bagged breakfast for each of us, and boy, they weren’t lying. I was expecting maybe a pastry, a granola bar, and a banana. Instead, each of our brown bags was weighed down by all of the fruit in it. There were huge steak sandwiches for us and Jeju-fresh orange juices. That amount of caloric intake at 7:00 am would have put us straight into a food coma. Not exactly where you want to be going into the biggest golf round of you year, at…
- The fanciest golf club I’d ever been to
The Lotte Skyhill on Jeju is the 19th-ranked golf course in Korea, according to top100golfcourse.com. I have a hunch that this means a lot more here than it does in similar-sized countries elsewhere, because Koreans take golf very seriously. I’d already lost count of the number of driving ranges that we had driven past in the last week, but it was a lot. And if there was one thing to be confident in based on a week of experience, it was that a nice course in Korea was going to be a posh experience.
But even with that, the entrance to Skyhill was enough to leave Winston and myself speechless. There was a leafy path from the parking lot to the well-hidden clubhouse, the inside of which just oozed “classy money”. It was the kind of place where you speak in hushed tones and pray you don’t get called out for doing something incorrect (like me, wearing my shoes into the wrong part of the locker room. That’s a cardinal sin in Korea).
Even the starting area was intimidating. All of the other early tee times were gathered around (Skyhill is actually a collection of four 9-hole courses, so you can send off quite a few at any one moment). We were the only white people in sight. Not only that, I couldn’t find anyone else wearing shorts. It was mid-May and at least 60 degrees already, for goodness’ sake! Was this some unknown etiquette thing I’d fallen befoul of, apparently?
- The opening hole jitters
Getting the jitters on your first tee shot of the day is an entirely normal process in golf. Hell, Rory McIlroy once started off The Open with a quadruple bogey after sailing his tee shot way out of play. Golfers didn’t invent the term “breakfast ball” for nothing.
But if you’re the foreigner in a sea of golf club members, and you have a caddie you’ve never met before, and you’re the idiot who showed up in shorts, and you stopped and posed for a family picture before the first tee, you have to feel the pressure a little bit more.
I’ve always been a “first to tee” guy, and I definitely wanted this shot out of the way. Winston wasn’t in any rush to drive his ball, so I stuck my Skyhill Lotte Jeju tee into the ground and put a (newly purchased – if you can’t tell, we arrived with no golfing supplies) ball on it. I pulled out my rented Yamaha RMX 220 driver, set up about 10 degrees to the left of the short par-4 fairway, took a deep breath… and was stunned at how easily the ball came out in a low, controlled fade to the right side of the fairway. Apparently the equipment you use does matter in golf?
Winston and Pam dealt with the jitters a little more on their opening shots, so it was just me and my 9 iron waiting for them to reach me for a while. But this rented 9 iron was so nice-looking, there was no way it wouldn’t have Nolan-proof forgiveness. I took my time, set my feet in the dewy grass, took a nice backswing… and skulled the ball 15 yards beyond the green. That led to a nice opening triple bogey.
Ah, so the equipment you use matters if you aren’t completely terrible.
- A Shoutout to Ken
When I was researching Korean golf in preparation for this trip, the most daunting factor by far was the necessity of having a caddie. Every amateur golfer hates having someone watch their shots; now imagine that the someone watching your shot is someone you’re paying to pick out your club. Winston and I were both looking forward to and dreading that aspect of the outing. Over 18 holes, there’s just no way for me to avoid showing how bad at golf I am. Any illusions of the sort would have been laid to rest when I topped my tee shot on the second into some thick rough 30 yards off of the box. Various people who had golfed Korea said online that their caddies were kind of mean, and nobody was looking forward to a snarky local getting upset at Pam when she was trying her best.
I need not have worried. Ken was awesome. When Pam sent her tee shot on the first hole into the trees, he clapped his hands and exclaimed “Practice, practice!” and cheerfully drove our four-person cart up the path to the ball. He never lost that patient attitude: “Practice, practice!” Ken’s other catchphrases included “ill-u-sion” – emphasis on the middle syllable – for greens that looked like they would break one way but actually wouldn’t, and “und-u-la-tions” – emphasis on the third syllable – for fairways that were too sloped to break out a 3-wood. He was great at letting surrounding groups know when a ball was going to miss the target, as Winston found out the hard way after his tee shot on the 6th.
Ken was prepared for just about anything. When Pam commented that she was hungry (not a surprise in a 5.5-hour round), he pulled out a bag of Korean cheese puffs. When we needed a little pick-me-up after 5 holes, he pulled out a thermos from the back of the cart and poured us each a Dixie cup of coffee. When we ran out of balls (again, and again, and again), he had more for us. And all of this while dealing with 3 very unskilled Americans who were probably breaking all sorts of norms and rules at his club!
I salute you, Ken, the greatest caddie I’ve ever had.
- Beautiful surroundings
Once we were able to settle into the round and get away from the clubhouse, we were able to appreciate what a scenic spot Lotte had put their golf course on. The club sits on the southwestern part of the island maybe 5 or 8 miles away from Hallasan’s peak. The volcano was wreathed in a morning fog, which made Pam’s shot on the 3rd look pretty epic.
Some of the holes that sloped down toward the water gave ocean views like the one in the video above. And then there’s just the fact that the fairways were green, lush, dried out in the midmorning sun, and the greens were fast but fair. You don’t always get that even with the best of intentions in Oklahoma.
- Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Moira’s morning
Not everyone in our little group went golfing. Some of the group chose to stay at the JW Marriott and sleep in. Sleeping in? On vacation? When you could be golfing?
Please enjoy this picture from the luxurious spa morning that Elizabeth and Moira had while the other three of us were fighting for our lives on a golf course that wanted to destroy us.
- Things going well, things not going well
The Lotte courses are not easy. The Ocean course in particular was a brutal 9. I followed up my triple bogey on the first with a topped drive on the second, then recovered to start a string of three bogeys in a row on 2-3-4. Hey! Golf isn’t that bad! Then we played a water hole on the 5th that Winston and I were just unable to clear the pond, and then followed that up with a brutally difficult par-5 6th where I chose to walk away after a second failed bunker shot and just put a 10 in the scorecard.
Actually, golf is hard.
I really found it difficult to hang in there mentally after putting a 10 up. It was such a cool course and a once-in-a-lifetime experience that you don’t want to be crashing out the whole time. But anyone who has golfed before has gone through the discouraging feeling of standing over the ball and feeling a sense of dread when you start your backswing, because you just don’t know where the ball is going to end up. But that’s the sometimes-great, sometimes-terrible thing about golf. You can get into a swoon and feel like it’ll never end, and then eventually it does. I made a par on the 8th, and then another on the 10th, after feeling like I might bogey-or-worse every single hole. It was still a 55 on the front which is one of my worst rounds of golf ever, but hey. You’re only as bad as your last shot.
A moment of appreciation to the course design, hole layout, and nods to traditional Jeju culture from Lotte as well.
I get my chance
The round began dragging a little bit on the back 9. The sun burned off the fog, and Ken actually had to prompt us to move faster a few times (Pam sat a hole out). But we were nearing the finish line now, and Winston and I had a big opportunity. The 16th hole was a really short par-4. Honestly, it was drivable with these big-ass and nice-ass drivers. And it dog-legged right, which as a brand-new hitter of an exclusive fade off of the tee felt like it would benefit me. Unfortunately, I came in a little steep on my drive and bounced off of the ground a bit, but still muscled the ball up the hill and managed to avoid any of the bunkers on the right. It was going to be a short, uphill (blind) pitch onto the green. Once Pam made her way up the hill, of course.
Winston and I were both in similar spots but he was a little further back. There was some sort of distraction from behind as I went through my routine (another group teeing off into Pam, maybe?), and it forced me to step out and re-take my swing routine. There’s almost no chance that something goes well when you get thrown that far out of whack. Except this time I did – the ball came out high and soft and directly at the flag. Winston could see the level of the green and I couldn’t, so he was narrating. “Wow, nice shot… it’s going right at it.” Sure enough, when I scrambled up to the level of the green the ball was sitting directly on-line and three feet short. A tap-in birdie chance!
Once again, I had to wait a little bit for everyone else to catch up. But there was no way I was going to NOT film my Korean birdie putt, so Winston pulled out his phone for me.
Oh no. Oh, oh dear. You aren’t going to get chances like that very often as a 21 handicap.
A par had never felt so bad.
- Closing it out
Following the colossal disappointment on 16, I stuck my tee shot on the par-3 17th into a bunker, then failed to get out of the bunker, then failed to get out of the bunker again, then missed the green, then holed out for an adventurous double bogey. Maybe I should have stayed at the spa with Elizabeth and Moira after all. Still, it had been a better back 9 all things considered, and if I shot a bogey on the par-5 18th (just 475 yards!) I could put up a 50.
Tee shot: so far, so good. A long, tight fade up the hill and settled on the right edge of the fairway. It was about 205 yards and a little down to the hole from there. I asked Ken for a wood. “No, no. Too much UN-du-lation. You take 5 iron.” He handed it to me, I walked to the ball, and while everyone else was busy watching Pam hit her hybrid 100 yards straight down the fairway I gave it a mighty thwack.
That felt pure. The ball jumped off of the 5-iron toward the right side of the green. It was drawing just a little. There was a frontside bunker, so I really had to catch it to clear… “Get over, get OVER!” I exclaimed as one of the greatest golf shots of my life landed three yards clear of the bunker and rolled to the right center of the green. A green hit in two on a par 5!
I had a full 5 minutes to wait anxiously at the edge of the green before Pam and Winston were ready to putt. It was about 10-12 feet away and sloping awkwardly left, with a huge run away from the hole. It was so easy to envision the putt sliding by another 8 feet and the most disappointing 3-putt par in history. I could not let that happen again. On the other hand, this was a bonafide makable eagle putt. I’ve never made an eagle in my life! How can you not try? What would you do in this situation?
I know what I did. I lagged it right next to the cup. And I tapped that birdie putt in without a backwards glance.
A Korean birdie!
- A lunch buffet to behold
It took a little while to get back to the hotel after the round. After all, we had to profusely thank Ken, wash our clubs, look for any discounted gear in the pro shop, and then drive all the way back to the JW Marriott. That meant it was the very end of lunchtime and that bagged breakfast was a long time ago. I was ready to consume an unhealthy number of calories. As usual, a fancy Korean hotel was willing to oblige with their buffet.
Those are just two of my plates. Yes, I ate all of it. Yes, I went back for more pastries. Yes, I ate all of those.
Underrated great meal at the JW Marriott.
- A relaxing afternoon. No, really.
By this point, I was on the brink of exhaustion. It had been a full seven days since Elizabeth and I had taken off from OKC. Those seven days had featured so much entertainment, sight-seeing, travel inside of the travel, and gigantic meals. The night before, Pam and I had both nearly fallen asleep in our respective rooms’ bathtubs. The early-morning tee time today was kind of a straw-breaking-the-camel’s back moment not just for me, but for Pam and Winston too. Maybe Elizabeth and Moira were tired, or maybe they were super refreshed from their spa morning. Either way, by unanimous decision we decided to spend the afternoon at the JW Marriott pool instead of waterfall sightseeing.
It was a perfect day for going to the pool – a little chilly in the shade, (Korea is further north than you think), but also as picturesque as anyone could want.
I spent most of my afternoon in the shade of a big umbrella, staying warm under my towel and reading a library book.
Sure beat the heck out of a normal May day in Oklahoma.
- Jeju black pork
The evening of May 14 was Winston and Moira’s big night to plan a meal out. From what I can tell of the two of them, that means the latter of the two did most of the planning. Whoever it was, they didnt disappoint. The culinary specialty in Jeju is black pork cured from these adorable black pigs on the island.
I don’t know exactly the name of the restaurant we were at. It seems that a ton of Jejuian restaurants will offer Korean bbq with the black pork. But per Moira, there is a *most* famous restaurant. The primary location is on the east side of the island, but there was also a location just west of Seogwipo in close proximity to the JW Marriott. I knew we were in the right spot from the moment that the five of us walked in and were greeted by several of those adorable black pigs, hanging in cases to dry-age.
Once again: dining in Korea is such an interesting experience. Menus at restaurants only have a few options, and yet you still have to order on an iPad. This one had the built in bbq burners like some of the other meat restaurants we’d been at. But instead of helping yourself, a worker will come over and cook the meat for you at the table. They generally speak no English and your main method of showing gratitude is by smiling, making approving noises, and eating a hearty meal. And don’t get me started on the big roombas driving around to bring people their drinks and take dishes back to the kitchen.
I’m not even sure where to rate this among the (many) insanely good meals of the trip. The black pork was delicious; it was like almost like well-marbled beef, but with a bacon-like flavor. The sauces and sides and everything else as always brought the perfect balance to the meal. You’d think at some point I would be getting sick of Korean food given that it does tend toward a very similar flavor profile. The answer: nope!
There was even a cute little gift shop upstairs where we could get Jeju merch and some ice cream pops.
- The world’s randomest Olympic soccer stadium
When you drive on the west side of Seogwipo along the coastline, it’s almost impossible to miss the big stadium south of the road. It turns out that this sleepy little part of the island once hosted three games in the 2002 World Cup. It seems very random – kind of like Mackinac Island in Michigan hosting an event in the Olympics or something (Wikipedia says Seogwipo has 180,000 people, but that’s because Korea has divided the entire island of Jeju into two towns. The urban center is much smaller).
So on the way back, we decided to park by the stadium, walk up to it, and see what we could see. It looked pretty neat inside (although as you might imagine, the interior was locked up for the night); kind of small for a World Cup venue, but not shabby.
The stadium seems to have been converted to municipal use since the World Cup – good, since so many of those big single-use stadiums end up being a drag on the local economy. There’s a local team in the Korean men’s national league that plays there. The outer part of the stadium has a public-use track – even here well after dark, little Korean ladies were walking laps on it. And there’s a rec area outside that included multiple basketball courts. There was a fierce-looking pickup game on one of the courts. Winston and I edged ever closer, trying to get an invite into the game. When that failed, we jumped to touch the rim of the nearby hoop so they could see how athletic we were and invite us. When that didn’t work, we went back to the car in dejection.
Our fast-paced Korean tour was drawing to a close. No disrespect to the immense heritage discoveries we had made over the prior week, but nothing will sit in my psyche from that country more than staring after my 5-iron on 18, exhorting the ball to clear the front bunker. It was a perfect culmination to the first half of the trip.
Tomorrow we were back on our way to Seoul for the second half (they weren’t equal-sized halves: it was going to be Friday, and all five of us were booked back to the USA on Monday. We were well over halfway to the return home point). From here on out, the insular family vacation was going to be replaced by a good old-fashioned Fairchild family wedding.
