WHENEVER I CROSS THE BORDER INTO Maine, I relax. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s one of the state’s nicknames—Vacationland. Maybe it’s the cool salty air: Maine has 4,000 islands and 3,500 miles of coastline. Maybe it comes from imagining the almost 20-million forested acres, moose-, mountain lion-, and wolf-inhabited and largely unpeopled, spreading northwest toward the Canadian border. Or maybe it’s the golf, especially the courses along the state’s middle and southern coast, particularly in the off-season, when the summer crowds are gone.
In early November, my wife, Amanda, and I drove up I-95 and spent a night in Bangor, with a hastily arranged golf itinerary awaiting us. A perfect dinner of scallops and pear salad at 11 Central in downtown, an old-school breakfast at Judy’s bar (where other…
