Radio host Peter Kessler, a longtime friend of FG Magazine, often teases me about having the greatest job in journalism. And who am I to argue? After all, this gig has taken me to some pretty cool places — all in the name of golf. I’ve been swimming with sharks off Moorea and wandered with a pride of lions in Kenya’s Masai Mara. And my buddy, Vic Williams, and I once played Rio Secco, both Lake Las Vegas courses (rest their souls), Cascata and Shadow Creek during a 72-hour Las Vegas run that we refer to as our own personal version of The Hangover. Still haven’t played golf with Mike Tyson, though.

But for sheer volume of golf-travel, none of that rivals my crazy summer of 2009 — a season so busy that I’m just now beginning to appreciate the quality of golf I encountered.

How’s this for an itinerary? Played golf in both the Colorado and Canadian Rockies, the latter traveled by overnight VIA Rail train. Played on both coasts. Played two Ryder Cup courses and two tracks set to host major championships in the next five years. Played what many people consider to be the two best golf courses in Canada (the refined Jasper Park Lodge and the new, rugged Tobiano), the best track on America’s East Coast (Kiawah Island’s Ocean) and what some now believe to be the best course on its West Coast (Chambers Bay) as well.

Played perhaps Pete Dye’s two greatest design achievements (Kiawah and the new Dye Course at French Lick Resort), not to mention stellar courses by such great names of the game as Donald Ross, Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Stanley Thompson plus newer talents with names like Lehman/Hurdzan/Fry and Thomas McBroom.

And along the way, I racked up my share of frequent-flier points, drove through seven states in one day (Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina) and found story after story during a golf-dazed blur that I’m glad is over but will never forget.

IT'S NO LONGER A DRY HEAT
That’s what I thought standing on the practice tee at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course, knocking balls oh-so-close to the Atlantic, just a slice away. The humidity was on the rise, my pores were clear and the gators were sunning themselves. Golf in the South doesn’t get any better.

Turns out I was playing behind a fundraising tournament for House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-South Carolina), so I got to see the political process from a whole new, sometimes ugly, perspective. And regardless of how I feel about our elected leaders, one thing was certain: Kiawah Island gets my vote.

Scheduled to host the 2015 PGA Championship but best known for the “War by the Shore” where the United States team reclaimed the Ryder Cup in 1991, Pete Dye’s masterful layout is actually a contrast in styles, either of which would make for a top-rated golf course on its own. The more marshy, slightly inland holes open the round with an emphasis on shot placement while the rousing back nine, all windswept dunes and native-grass beauty, is as impressive as any golf you’ll find on this continent.

Although the layout was originally designed to sit behind the dunes, legend has it that Dye’s wife, Alice, a great player in her own right, suggested raising the entire course to allow players unobstructed views of Kiawah’s beautiful coastline from every hole, resulting in the unprecedented 10 holes along the Atlantic with the other eight running parallel to them. This improved view, however, made the course substantially more demanding as it also exposed players to the area’s brisk and unpredictable sea breezes.

And that wind can certainly blow. Of course, on a sweaty day in the South, oftentimes the breezes are a welcome relief — if you know how to negotiate them with your golf swing.

As for me, I put my faith in the hands of expert caddie, Daniel, and enjoyed the view, even if that view occasionally included a Congressional shank.

SWEET AS AN OUTSIDE JUMPER
This golf course is long. Really long. At more than 8,100 yards, it’s certainly the longest track I’ve ever played, even though my caddie and I are only tackling about 7,800 of them on this Indiana morning.

Welcome to French Lick, known as home of basketball’s favorite son, Larry Bird, but gaining a reputation as an emerging golf destination with two exceptional hotels, 45 holes of golf and even a casino. In fact, after a day on the $350-per-round Dye Course and a night at the craps table, this little town in the middle of nowhere (fly into Louisville, Ky., and drive more than an hour to get there) feels like a midwestern slice of Las Vegas, only with nicer people and none of the annoying glitz. And that’s why Indiana billionaire Bill Cook purchased the hotels and amenities in 2007 with an eye on turning this little town into a worldwide golf spot on par with some of the best vacation attractions in the United States.

The Dye Course is expected to be a high-roller magnet for flush travelers looking for golf’s next big thing Ironically, though, Dye and Co. did an outstanding job of making his major-championship-worthy beast feel both grand in scale and intimate in playability.

Set atop the highest point in the state, with views that go for miles from the clubhouse deck, the Dye Course is the good walk that so many great players seek. It’s a challenge that feels invitingly open and tickles your senses with Dye’s playful volcano-bunker-topped mounding throughout the course. And although it has opened to a host of accolades, Dye, with his dry wit, will never presume to proclaim greatness on one of his masterworks.

“Originally, when I first looked at the land, I told them, ‘I don’t think you should build a golf course up here,’” he told a group of golf writers shortly before the course preview last year. “But here we are, three years later and we finally have 18 holes and a driving range, so after you play tomorrow, you’ll be the ones to decide whether it’s good, bad or indifferent.

“I don’t know — it’s got grass up there, got some sand, not much water. But it has great ambiance, the views up there from the golf course — the Man Upstairs has done a great job.”

We’ll give the mortal designer a bit of the credit as well. And for a true test, the Dye Course will host the 2010 PGA Professionals National Championship in June, so we’ll get a glimpse at how some of the nation’s really good players tackle its sometimes treacherous tee shots and exceptional length.

Down the hill, the West Baden Springs Hotel and French Lick Hotel invite guests with a level of friendly service seldom matched. But the interior design is where these hotels come to life, whether it be the magnificent dome of West Baden (pictured, previous page) or the more subtle vintage tiling of the French Lick Hotel.

And although you’re likely to head straight to the casino for a bit of gaming action after a day’s round of golf — the Donald Ross Course, while not as high-profile as the Dye, remains a compelling test of your game — there are still a lot of hidden corners to explore in these hotels, like the downstairs bowling alley with a pizza shop attached.

Yes, French Lick feels as comfortable as a Larry Bird lay-in, and like the basketball great, it is equally reliable. That’s why I’ll be cheering this resort’s growth for years to come, even if I can just barely break 100 from Dye’s diabolical back tees.

SECRET MISSION NO MORE
That’s a heavy door. A thick door.
It’s 12 feet wide, 10 feet high and 18 inches thick, weighing approximately 25 tons.
Why? Because it was designed to protect Congress from the end of the world —
or at least that possibility.

You see, for all the elegance and variety visitors experience at the historic Greenbrier in the mountains of West Virginia, the most fascinating activity is the Bunker Tour, a glimpse into America’s national distaster plan at a time when the Washington, D.C. evacuation program (known as Project Greek Island) involved sending members of Congress to a secret lair built beneath a wing of the hotel.

Thanks to The Washington Post, which outed the “secret plan” in 1992, prompting an immediate change in protocol, guests can now see how the other half would have lived had they needed to survive underground in the event of a major attack on the United States. Most notable is the meeting room, designed to replicate House and Senate business as usual for the governmental body in the event of an emergency.

But The Greenbrier is much more than a bomb shelter. Quite the opposite, in fact. This exquisite property was saved from flailing financials last year when area billionaire Jim Justice bought the resort with plans (not unlike Bill Cook’s French Lick dreams) to not only recapture the hotel’s former caché but elevate it to a higher level of hospitality.

First, he joined forces with the PGA Tour to host a FedEx Cup event — The Greenbrier Classic will be played at the end of July on the resort’s historic Old White Course, designed by C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor — adding to a golf legacy that includes both Sam Snead and Tom Watson as golf professional emeritus and the 1979 Ryder Cup played on The Greenbrier Course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

Next, Justice upped the ante. Literally.

In October 2009 they opened Prime 44 West, a steakhouse honoring basketball great Jerry West, along with The Tavern Casino, an introductory gaming facility for guests of the resort. And The Casino at The Greenbrier, a 90,000-square-foot underground entertainment complex featuring a Monte Carlo style-casino, upscale retail boutiques and restaurants, is now open for business. Look out, Las Vegas, it seems you’re not the only one in the game anymore.

MEANWHILE…BACK ON THE WESTCOAST
Just when you thought golf on our side of the world couldn’t get any better — after all, the Bandon courses, the Pelican Hills, the Torrey Pines and Trump National, just to name a few, make for a pretty spectacular lineup — along comes something completely unexpected.

In April, Team FG got an e-mail from the USGA’s David Fay, saying how much he appreciated this magazine’s planning guide to this year’s U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. To us, it’s high praise: Fay is a guy whose opinions and experience are crucial when it comes to deciding where to stage future championships, including the Open.

Our reply back? “Thanks for the kudos, but more importantly, thanks for adding Chambers Bay to the Open rota.”

As most people in the free world now know, Chambers Bay will host the nation’s biggest golf competition in 2015 (and this year’s U.S. Amateur as well, an apt shakedown cruise for sure). By then it will have eight years of operation under its sandy, scenic belt. No doubt the fescue will rise waist-high in spots, fairways will roll faster than the Open has ever seen (except for, perhaps, those at Shinnecock Hills), and the greens, also fescue, will send the Stimp into fits. We can’t wait. It’ll be unlike any U.S. Open before it.

Good thing we don’t have to wait ’til then to play it ourselves. Like its fellow Open first-timer, Torrey Pines South in 2008, Chambers Bay is a municipal, the brainchild of Pierce County mover and shaker John Ladenburg. It’s also, arguably, the best golf course on the entire West Coast.

Them’s fightin’ words for the legions of Pebble Beach and Bandon fans out there (we’re members, too), but there’s just something about Chambers that puts it on its own plane of fun and fascination. Whether you’re licking your chops for that opening tee shot into a stiff, chilly breeze off Puget Sound — as we did during one spring visit — or find yourself under the sunny, early summer Pacific Northwest skies we encountered during our second visit to University Place, Wash., just outside Tacoma — the Chambers spell is just as immediate, just as captivating and just as unforgettable 18 holes later.

What was once a flat, barren 930-acre gravel pit that, when it opened in June 2007 after two years of massive earth-moving and inspired sculpting, immediately captured the golf public’s imagination as a modern links masterpiece. Fay and his USGA cohorts certainly concurred, bestowing on Ladenburg and Chambers Bay an unheard-of coup from an organization that has long preferred classic (and private), tree-lined East Coast tracks.

It’s the same feeling that blindsided Trent Jones field designer Jay Blasi the first time he and Charlton laid eyes on the scarred, sandy landscape that that would become Chambers Bay. “They made us wait up on the hill, above the site, and when we got down there it was like turning a bunch of kids loose. We just started running around the dunes and I’d yell, ‘Hey Bruce, I see a par 4 right over here!”

They knew instantly what promise lay buried in this plot of forsaken earth. In their minds’ eyes, they saw a marvel in the making, something radically different from anything else in heavily wooded western Washington State.

They beat out 55 competitors for the contract. Over the next three years Blasi and Charlton worked closely with officials to sculpt perhaps the best muni built in the U.S. in the last 30 years.

Why? The Trent Jones team’s genius for making something new look centuries-old, for one thing. But mostly, Chambers Bay creates a brand of goosebump-inducing emotion you just can’t find anywhere, including some other Open venues.

Creativity is a running theme at Chambers Bay, getting into your head from the very first tee shot (which you can hook badly into the No. 18 fairway and still make par) and carrying you through every perfectly rendered hole. And since you’re not spoiling the rhythm with a cart, there’s plenty of time to weigh your options while traipsing between dunes or just standing on yet another exposed bluff of tee or green, taking an eye-swallow of Sound and mountain.

It’s simply sublime golf, and a fitting end to an unforgettable journey. FG

KIAWAH ISLAND OCEAN COURSE
www.kiawahresort.com| 800.576.1570
Rates $245 | Yardage 5,327-7,356 | Rating 72.0/134

FRENCH LICK RESORT
www.frenchlick.com| 888.936.9360
Room rates $189-$229 | Golf rates (Dye) $350 (Ross) $90-$120
Yardage (Dye) 5,151-8,102 (Ross) 5,050-7,030
Resort tee rating (Dye) 70.6/130 (Ross) 69.5/131

THE GREENBRIER
www.greenbrier.com| 800.453.4858
Golf rates (Greenbrier) $135-$195 (Old) $165-$260
Yardage (Greenbrier) 5,095-6,675 (Old) 5,034-6,826
Resort tee rating (Greenbrier) 69.0/121 (Old White) 69.3/139