MyTurn
by JIM DUCIBELLA
Tidgewell’s Quest For
365 Goes Worldwide
T
40
Rob Tidgewell
achieved his goal of
golfing 365 rounds
in December at
River Creek Club,
but played six more
rounds before the
end of 2018.
D u r i ng one r ou nd at T u r nb er r y,
Tidgewell estimated the wind was blowing
at 30 mph for the first five holes. Then the
wind died down and the rain poured down.
Tidgewell and seven buddies didn’t quit.
“Everybody played, everybody was
soaked,” he said.
The Irish, it is said, invented the three-
day weekend because you can’t cram all
of their lousy weather into just Saturday
and Sunday. But it wasn’t weather that
almost derailed Tidgewell’s quest. Two
weeks before the trip across the pond,
his tour operator went belly-up. Some
members of Tidgewell’s party pulled out
and sought refunds. Tidgewell found
another operator willing to help, but on
such short notice, much of the work at
keeping the itinerary together fell to him.
Uncomfortable? You bet.
However . . .
V I R G I N I A G O L F E R | M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 9
“I never realized how nice people are,”
he said. “Take Royal County Down, one
of the top five golf courses in the world. I
called them, explained what was going on
and they were like, ‘How can we help you?
What can we do? We have you on the tee
sheet, we continue to have you on here.
How do you want to do this?’
Tidgewell and company are headed
back to Ireland again this year.
For a man who admits he isn’t blessed
with an abundance of patience, the 2018
experience was a life lesson.
“Stay on track,” he said. “Don’t get
caught up in what could go wrong. Just
be patient. Things will work out.”
As you’d expect from someone who made
his bones in sales, Tidgewell has a new goal:
Play 1,000 courses in his lifetime.
Unrealistic? Perhaps. But last I knew,
his total stood at 625.
vsga.org
here is no truth to the rumor
that Rob Tidgewell played 365
rounds of golf in 2018.
He played 371.
For the mathematically challenged, he
averaged slightly more than one round
per day.
Others have tried similarly ambitious
undertakings and basked in the acclaim
that often accompanies such extravagance.
Almost exclusively, however, those journeys
are plotted from first swing to final putt.
Tidgewell’s tale didn’t start out that way.
The 63-year-old former sales executive
had only been retired for a couple of months
but had randomly logged about 40 rounds
by the end of February. Friends at River
Creek Club in Leesburg wanted to know his
plans for his first blush of freedom, although
they must have known that for an 8 handi-
cap it would involve fairways and greens.
He told them he might play as many as 300,
maybe 350 rounds. It sounded absurd.
“Three hundred fifty?” one friend
mocked. “Why don’t you play 365? That’s
a much better number.”
“In March that became the target
number,” Tidgewell said.
Tidgewell and some buddies already
had a four-week trip planned for Scotland
and Ireland, where they were supposed
to play 40 rounds in 27 days. He added to
the itinerary. When they returned at the
end of August, he was ahead of schedule.
“Then it became a race to beat the
weather before it got bad,” he said.
But you don’t outrun Mother Nature.
“We’d go out in the rain, the wind and
the snow and we’d grind out the weath-
er,” he said.
He played in Ireland. He played in
Canada and Scotland. He played in Ber-
muda, and not just anywhere: Turnberry,
Troon, St. Andrews, Castle Stuart, Royal
Aberdeen, Royal Dornoch.
“We were doing bucket list courses,”
he said.