HOWEY-IN-THE-HILLS, Fla. — To be honest, I’ve never felt so out of place at a golf tournament as I did walking through the parking lot at Mission Inn Resort & Club on Tuesday morning. I was underdressed, under-equipped and unprepared.
It all rolled into a sense of apprehension as I approached my 8 a.m. first-round tee time in the 2022 U.S. Hickory Open. I had never played a round of hickory golf. I didn’t own hickory clubs. I wasn’t decked out in knickers or other golf attire that might have felt at home in the 1910s but looked entirely novel in the early-morning Florida humidity.
