You can only take Orlando for so long.
It’s a traffic nightmare, millions of tourists thanks to The Mouse and Universal and the rest.
Too far from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s brutally hot there in the summer — no coastal breezes.
After nearly 10 years, Charlie Rymer’s had enough, he’s going home. Charlie made it official early this week on The Golf Channel, the Morning Drive segment has brought him into our living rooms for more than half a decade. Rymer’s one of the talking heads that makes the channel more tolerable. He was more prone to reality than most.
He was a stand-out player as a junior, won the 1985 USGA Junior Amateur.
Rymer was a really solid collegiate golfer at Georgia Tech, was a third-team and honorable mention All-America there and went into their Hall of Fame in 2000.
Charlie learned that the PGA Tour was a tough place. He played on the Nike Tour (one of the front-runners for today’s Web.com) and won the 1994 South Carolina Classic. He made it through the old PGA Tour Q-School in 1995 and went to The Show. His rookie year turned out to be his best — he finished third at the Shell Houston Open and that would prove to be the highlight of his career out there. By year’s end he was 103 on the money list. The following year he finished 145th and batted around between the Nike Tour and smaller PGA Tour events. He played in a couple of U.S. Opens, didn’t make the cut in either and by 1998 realized that a television career could be a possibility after he landed some work with ESPN.
Charlie got his call from The Golf Channel in 2009 and he settled in nicely there.
One of the most impressive things about Rymer is that during the past few years, he worked for and earned a Class A membership from the PGA Of America.
So now Charlie’s on to his next working life’s venture.
He’ll most likely make his home in the Myrtle Beach area. Don’t be surprised if he shows up as some sort of promotional ambassador for golf in the Myrtle Beach strand, which is inundated with golf courses and these days, golf courses need all the help they can get.
Don’t be surprised if Rymer does a lot of work with junior golf and charities. That is something near and dear to him, a perfect fit considering he was one of the country’s best juniors back in the mid-80s.
He’ll also have an occasional gig with The Golf Channel. He’ll probably be Augusta National for the finals of the Drive, Chip and Putt competition.
You could always count on seeing him wandering the aisles at the PGA Merchandise Show every year and something tells me he’ll be there in years to come.
Best thing about Charlie is his laugh and self-deprecating humor. He made a brief appearance on The Champions Tour when he turned 50 this year and it was nothing worth writing home about but Charlie took it all in stride.
He’s a big guy (6-4, 240) with a big personality.
We’ll miss him in the mornings but he’ll be around golf, somehow, someway and South Carolina is a nice place to be.
Beats the heck out of Orlando, that’s for sure.
