Biscotti 

Recipe by Sal Baldino of Brook Valley Country Club provided as a tribute to his wife as they are celebrating fifty years of marriage.
    

Ingredients:

1 cup Butter                                                    

1 ¾ cup Sugar                                               

6 Eggs                                                              

2 teaspoon Vanilla                                                    

1 teaspoon Anise flavor                                          

1 teaspoon Anise Seed                                            

6 cups Flour                                                    

3 teaspoons Baking Powder

Pinch of Salt                                      

½ cup Chopped Nuts    

Directions:

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Add all wet ingredients and mix well. Add dry ingredients. 

Form dough into a long log; bake until golden brown at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Allow to cool, then slice. 

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The facts are daunting. Of the 78 million metric tons of plastic packaging produced globally each year, a mere 14 percent is recycled. Our efforts to keep plastic out of landfills are simply falling short. But, among the first private clubs to step up to the challenge, McConnell Golf has committed to pitch in and has already made significant gains in reducing the impact of what gets pitched out. 

Corporate Director of Culinary Operations, Howard Murphy and Corporate Executive Chef, James Patterson had long been discussing environmental factors regarding plastic waste and concluded that it was time to jump in with two feet.

As they quickly learned, this was not an easy nor cost-effective task. “We wanted one company capable of servicing all of our properties and finding a quality product took many trials,” says Patterson.

In selecting Greenware®, the mission finally became a reality and all McConnell Golf properties now offer compostable to-go cups for cold and hot beverages including lids and straws.

While the network of clubs has buying power, the more eco-friendly products cost a whopping 30% more than mainstream plastic. Yet at a decomposition rate of three to six months versus 200 to 1000 years, it’s a commitment that the company feels imperative. 

“A couple of years ago, bamboo products were very expensive, as science has continued to develop with biopolymer materials it has now made them attainable,” said Murphy, “We expect that trend to continue.”

Jumping into anything requires quick learning. As Murphy reports, “We've actually switched from paper straws to plant-based in reaction to member feedback.” 

With these changes, McConnell Golf as a company will keep over two million pieces of plastic out of landfills by using biodegradable alternatives. It’s an effort and cost the company is willing to bear to make the world a better place.

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Ginger Snap Cookies

By Kenric Hunt, Executive Chef, Brook Valley Country Club

As Chefs, we are often asked what our favorites are… for me, there’s too many to count. This cookie has no special meaning to it, I’m just a sucker for a great ginger snap!

Ingredients

1 cup Packed Brown Sugar

¾ cup Vegetable Oil

¼ cup Molasses

1 Egg

2 cups All-Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons Baking Soda

¼ teaspoon Salt

½ teaspoon Ground Cloves

1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

3 teaspoons Fresh Ginger

1/3 cup White Sugar for Decoration

Directions

Preheat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, oil, molasses and egg. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cloves, cinnamon and ginger; stir into the molasses mixture. Roll dough into 1 ¼ inch balls. Roll each ball in white sugar before placing 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in preheated oven, or until center is firm. Cool on wire racks.

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White Chocolate and Cranberry Shortbread Cookies

By Chef Iris & Monica, The Reserve Golf Club

Chef Iris loves cranberries and Monica, our long-time Server loves white chocolate. So, when asked to come up with a cookie, they immediately agreed it should combine their favorites. After several tries, this is the cookie they settled on, containing both sweet and tart notes perfect for fall and winter seasons.

Ingredients

1 cup Fresh Cranberries

¾ cup White Chocolate Chips

2 cups Unsalted Butter, softened

½ cup Light Brown Sugar

½ cup Granulated Sugar

1 Egg

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

½ teaspoon Salt

½ teaspoon Baking Powder

3 ¾ cups All-Purpose Flour

Directions

Add cranberries to a food processor with 2 Tablespoon of flour; pulse to a coarse chop. Cream butter, and both sugars in mixer until light and creamy. Add vanilla extract and egg and mix well. Combine remaining flour, salt and baking powder; add to mixer 1 cup at a time until well blended. Fold in chopped cranberries and white chocolate and mix well. Using a small scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets, pressing each cookie down slightly. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden.

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Akshay Bhatia prepares to take his game to the next level

McConnell Golf Scholar Akshay Bhatia’s storybook reign as junior golf’s dominant superstar is nearing an end. But those following the career of the lanky 17-year-old from Wake Forest sporting square-frame glasses, precocious calm under pressure and prodigious length know that for Bhatia, the end of one era undoubtedly signifies the start of another.

With a champion’s supreme confidence, Bhatia announced on the first day of recruiting that he plans to forgo college and turn professional when he turns 18 — adding that his goal is to be the world’s No. 1 player by 2030. This summer, Bhatia said he plans to continue entering Monday qualifying at a handful of PGA Tour and Web.com Tour events.

“I just want to be out there on tour and I know I have the game to do it,” he said. “If I get out there and perform, it’ll take care of itself.”

The 6-foot, 125-pound Bhatia took online classes during high school under the tutelage of his parents, Sunil and Renu. At the same time, he compiled one of the most impressive junior golf resumes in recent memory.

The first-ever back-to-back Boys Junior PGA Champion and highest-ranked member of the 2018 Boys U.S. Junior Ryder Cup team, Bhatia won the prestigious Junior Invitational at Sage Valley and the AJGA Polo Golf Junior Classic, while also representing his country in the Youth Olympics.

Last year’s AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year, Bhatia advanced to match play at the 2017 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball with partner and CC Wakefield Plantation member Grayson Wotnosky. He was also a member of the inaugural U.S. Presidents Cup team.

But there remains one final, amateur box left to check. In August, Bhatia will almost assuredly be selected as the first junior to make the U.S. Walker Cup team since 2011, when Jordan Spieth and Patrick Rodgers both made the squad before beginning their college careers.

A biennial competition pitting 12-man teams from the U.S. against Great Britain and Ireland — and arguably amateur golf’s most significant event — this year’s Walker Cup will be contested Sept. 7-8 at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England.

In December, Bhatia was one of 16 prospective team members invited by U.S. Team Captain Nathaniel Crosby to attend the Walker Cup practice session. Bhatia was the first junior golfer to be invited since Jim Liu in 2012.

If he makes the team, Bhatia will be the youngest U.S. Walker Cup player ever. “To represent your country amps you up,” he said. “If I can be one of those guys to contribute to this team and win it for Captain Crosby, it would mean the world to me. It’s the biggest event as an amateur.”

In March, Bhatia made his PGA Tour debut at the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla. He was invited to play on a sponsor exemption, but missed the cut by three strokes.

After frequenting Monday qualifiers last year, Bhatia got through one for the first time in April to earn his debut Web.com Tour start at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail Championship in Prattville, Ala. Bhatia made the most of his opportunity by making the cut at the rain-delayed event.

“Anytime I can step up and play against pros, guys who have been on the tour, it’s great,” Bhatia said. “I get a little taste of it before I actually turn pro. It’s cool.”

A first-round 73 left Bhatia outside the top 100, but he bounced back in round two with a two-under 70, moving into a tie for 40th and good enough to advance to Saturday play. Bhatia had the benefit of playing with Davis Riley, a former Alabama All-American now in his first year as a pro.“I asked him about college. ‘How was it? ’The decision to turn pro now versus after you graduate,” Bhatia said. “It was fun because he’s in my age division, sort of. He kind of understands my language.”

As he prepares for the future, Bhatia said he would never forget his junior golf experience, and the impact he has made on the game and those around him.

“It’s been great,” he said. “A lot of people look up to me and that’s something I do not take for granted. It’s self-belief, I don’t care if I’m ranked 20th or first or whatever, I’m still going to believe I’m number one. That’s the mindset my coach and I have tried to work on.”

Bhatia’s coach, Chase Duncan, said there is something different about his star pupil.

“The best way I can describe it, you hear a lot of positive self-talk, a lot of clichés, a lot of saying the right things; but he’s been so focused, so tunnel-visioned about what he’s doing, and he’s winning these tournaments by some big margins,”Duncan said. “I realize how ridiculously bold and outlandish this is, but I would absolutely bet on him. I think he’ll end up being the No. 1 player in the world.”

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Now two-time Wyndham Champion Brandt Snedeker wasted no time earning his ninth career win

Brandt Snedeker walks fast talks fast and plays fast. And at last year’s Wyndham Championship, he harnessed all that speed into the ultimate quick start, shooting 59 in the first round at Sedgefield Country Club on his way to a rapid finish on Sunday and his ninth PGA Tour victory.

Only 10 sub-60 rounds have been recorded on the PGA Tour since Al Geiberger posted the first 59 in 1977 at the Memphis Classic. Along with Geiberger, only David Duval (1999 CareerBuilder Challenge), Stuart Appleby (2010 A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier) and Justin Thomas (2017 Sony Open in Hawaii) were previously able to shoot 59s and goon to win that week.

“It’s been a really emotional and stressful week, to say the least, to start the way I did at a tournament that means so much to me,” said Snedeker, who has been a brand ambassador fo Wyndham since he won the Wyndham in 2007. “To have your first Tour win, you ask anybody out here on Tour, it’s always special to him.

“It just means the world tome that I was able to do it here in Greensboro with Wyndham Worldwide being the sponsor.”

The 38-year-old Snedeker has put together a well-regarded career on Tour. He turned pro in 2004 after finishing 41st at the Masters as an amateur. His invitation to Augusta National came as the result of his victory at the 2003 U.S. Amateur Public Links, a tournament that doesn’t exist any longer.

Snedeker played three years on the Web.com Tour, graduating to the big Tour in 2007 after finishing ninth on the Web.com Tour money list with two victories and a runner-up. He was named PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in 2007 after winning the Wyndham and earning a trip to the Tour Championship.

Since then, Snedeker has risen steadily in the professional ranks. In 2008, he finished tied for third in his first Masters since turning pro. He was tied for the lead on Sunday after an eagle on the par-5 3rd hole but wound up shooting 77.

His second Tour win came at the 2011 Heritage at Harbour Town on Hilton Head Island. The following year was his best on Tour. Snedeker beat Kyle Stanley on the second playoff hole to win the Farmers Insurance Open. Later that summer, he finished tied for third at the Open Championship.

At season’s end, he won the Tour Championship at East Lake by three shots over Justin Rose and in the process, won the $10 million prize for capturing the season-long points race for the FedEx Cup. He won his fifth Tour title in 2013 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and won it again in 2015. He won his second Farmers Insurance Open title in 2016.

Prior to his 2018 Wyndham victory, Snedeker had spent much of the previous two seasons with injuries.

“To be injured, to be away from the game for five and a half months, to not know what the recovery was going to look like, to not know if you’re going to be 100 percent again and still dealing with it to this day,” Snedeker said in Greensboro last August.

“I guess it’s a fact of life as you get older out here, you’re going to have to deal with certain nagging injuries all the time. It’s always in the back of my mind. It’s been a tough year, year and a half, two years for me, to be honest with you. When you don’t have your health out here and you’re trying to fight through it,it’s really tough because you know what you’re capable of and your body’s not letting you do what you think you should be able to do.”

The 2018 Wyndham started with the milestone 59 that ended with a 20-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole at Sedgefield, which was his last hole of the day. Snedeker’s previous low score on Tour was a 61 at the Buick Invitational in his rookie year.

Winning the 2018 Wyndham was the culmination of enough physical healing combined with the difficult work of coming back from serious injury. But in the end, winning with his children in the gallery – Lily, who was 7 at the time, and 6-year-old Austin – made the victory even more special.

“It’s great to have my kids being here when they are old enough to understand what it means, what Daddy does for a living,” he said. “They’ve been telling me for two years they want to see a trophy, they want to hold a trophy and I’ve been failing them for two years.

“It’s a great teaching lesson for them. They’ve seen how hard I’ve worked. They’ve seen the amount of time I’ve spent away from them trying to get to this point, so it’s good for them to see, hey, it works, pays off. If you keep your head on straight and do stuff the right way and keep working your tail off, you do get rewarded.”

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Catching up with the Major winner and North Carolina native

Webb Simpson is an expert on the highways of North Carolina. He was born and raised in Raleigh, had a standout college career in Winston Salem at Wake Forest and now resides at Quail Hollow in Charlotte. I met a 12-year-old Simpson at Landfall in Wilmington and knew right away that I was meeting a quality young man who shook hands with adults and looked them in the eye. I wish I could tell you that I knew then that he would one day win the Wyndham Championship, the US Open and the Players.

Simpson has been on the PGA Tour for a decade now. He has played on two Presidents Cup teams and three Ryder Cup teams. Another decade like the first and he will eventually be enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Most importantly is the fact that Simpson and his wife balance his career and their five young children. Here is a brief conversation with Webb.

JM: The PGA Tour calendar took on a new look this year, there is now a two million dollar bonus for the player that wins the regular season, and the top ten will get paid. How do you think this will affect the Wyndham Championship?

WS: First, it was really nice for Steve Holmes and Wyndham to step up and provide the bonus pool. Secondly, I think this will strengthen their field. The course is great and Bobby Long and Mark Brazil do a great job. I hope we as players recognize that Wyndham stepped up and support their efforts.

JM: Your life has changed quite a bit since your first victory here in 2011... what do you remember about that week.

WS: Lots of memories on several levels. It was my first win and that is always special.

JM: Most players on Tour don’t get a single home week... does it feel like you get two?

WS: Yes, I am fortunate that Charlotte and Greensboro are both home for me.

JM: How do you balance a big, young family and all that comes with being a star on the PGA Tour?

WS: It is fun. My wife and I both come from big families so we don’t know any different. We would not change a thing. We are having fun.

JM: As the Tour continues to get younger and younger are you okay with being the wily veteran?

WS: I am working hard to stay fit and keep up with the young guys coming out. I have lots of good golf left.

John Maginnes is a former PGA player and hosts the popular Katrek & Maginnes on Tap broadcast on the PGA Tour Satellite Radio Network.

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