Fore please, Andy Reistetter now driving… Those are the words I would like to hear one day on the first tee of Augusta National. Not during the Masters of course but any other day would be fine with me. In the meantime I am living “the dream” of a lot of golfers but more importantly I am living “my dream life.”
After a successful management career I wanted to pursue my passion which is golf, travel and writing. I put all my belongings in a 10X10 storage unit, moved to Ponte Vedra Beach in early February 2008 and volunteered for the Florida Swing tournaments. I had no contacts, some transferable skills and a great desire to learn from the bottom up.
I was fortunate to transition from volunteering to assisting in golf broadcasts to writing about all aspects of golf, including golf travel destinations. I still do all three. After three years of literally following the tour I bought a home in Ponte Vedra Beach and enjoy volunteering for THE PLAYERS and the World Golf Hall of Fame in nearby St. Augustine in addition to following the tour.
This website is designed to share my love of the game and showcase four areas- golf travel (including domestic and extended journeys around the world, inspirational people in golf that I meet along the way, amateur and professional golf coverage, and hickory golf representing my love for the history and traditions of the game. Here are more details of each area with links to that section of Andy’s Golf & Travel Diary. I hope you enjoy the site and as we say in the business that I “see you down the road.”
Featured Golf Travel
Andy Reistetter’s foray into golf travel writing began in late 2009 at the Nationwide Tour Championship.
Andy wanted to experience “firm & fast” professional conditions and to measure his game against the pros. He played the Ralston Creek Course at the Daniel Island Club in Charleston, South Carolina the “Monday After” Matt Every won with a record-breaking 21-under par total. Needless to say he “kept his day job” and focused on being a golf writer and broadcast assistant.
Daniel Island was the start of his “Play-Write” series that now numbers nearly 50 articles.
Reistetter’s first official golf travel writing assignment came soon after in Puerto Rico at Royal Isabela, a private links style club on cliffs overlooking the ocean.
Additional assignments keep coming at wonderful places like Reynolds Plantation, Golden Horseshoe Golf Club in Colonial Williamsburg, La Costa, CordeValle, PGA Village, Mississippi Gulf Coast, French Lick, Myrtle Beach, Pebble Beach, Maui, Innisbrook, and Bay Hill Lodge & Club.
CLICK here for the Featured Golf Travel section of Andy’s Golf & Travel Diary.
CLICK here for the 100-day Journey to Olympic Golf.
CLICK here for the Golf Journey to Australia.
CLICK here for the Golf Journey to New Zealand.
CLICK here for the upcoming Golf Journey to South Africa.
An “Inspiration Seeker,” look for Reistetter to find more inspiring places to play golf and write about his experience in the years ahead.
Featured People in Golf
Now in his eighth season “on tour” and traveling to a variety of golf resorts around the world it was just a matter of time before Andy Reistetter started meeting and interviewing interesting people associated with the game of golf. However appropriate, these meetings and interviews were captured in notes, audio and video recordings and their inspirational messages translated into articles.
CLICK here for the Featured People In Golf Section of Andy’s Golf & Travel Diary.
Some of these inspiring experiences were originally translated into one of three exclusive series: “Meet People the ‘Write Way’, Learn How to Golf the ‘Write Way’, and Corporate Leadership Inspired by the Game of Golf.” Along with the “Play-‘Write’ series of articles on golf courses played, they represent my ‘Write Way’ ticket into golf. I experience golf and write about it!
The first series called “Meet People the ‘Write’ Way” started with an interview with Annika Sorenstam early in 2011 at the PGA Show in Orlando.
A second series “addresses” something we all want to do and that is improve our golf game. Appropriately, at least for me it is called “Learn How to Golf the Write Way.”
The third series is entitled “Corporate Leadership Inspired by the Game of Golf” and captures natural leadership styles that can be utilized in Corporate America to guarantee our future success in the world marketplace.
Surely there is more insightful inspiration to be capture in the days ahead wherever the game takes me.
Mr. Hickory Golf
Golf became a lifestyle for Andy Reistetter when at an early age his older brother ‘L.P.’ gave him the Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons book inscribed as follows:
“Golf is a lot like life, the more you learn and understand about it, the easier it is to meet its challenges.”
In 1998, “L.P.’ introduced Andy to Dick Donovan, the renowned golf book collector and bibliographer. The ‘book guy’ introduced Andy to life ‘across the pond’ in Scotland and to the Golf Collectors’ Society (GCS).
At his first GCS event in Madison, Wisconsin Andy met Joe DeWulf and Harry Horton. Horton who as a kid saw a dehydrated Ken Venturi win the U.S. Open at Congressional CC was an expert at repairing and restoring hickory golf clubs.
With Horton’s professionally renewed hickories in his hands, Reistetter caught the ‘play hickory golf’ bug and played several seasons exclusively with hickories while wearing knickers.
At last count Reistetter’s playable hickory club collection stands at 40 sets and he is ready to enhance your corporate or charitable event with a unique, inspiring and fun experience.
Professional & Amateur Golf
Join Andy Reistetter, a.k.a. GolfWriter59, as he covers a wide range of professional and amateur golfing competitions. Now in his sixth season as a golf writer, Reistetter has covered more than 100 events ranging from local Ponte Vedra High School golf matches to the 2009 Open at Turnberry where Tom Watson nearly won at age 59. He has attended 15 majors as well as the Ryder Cup and the President’s Cup.
Inspired by the game of golf at an early age, here are words he has written from the fairways of high school, AJGA/ WJGS (junior), collegiate, LPGA, Nationwide, Champions and PGA TOUR events.
Reistetter’s complete collection of nearly 300 golf articles can be found on Bleacher Report via this link:
