Oh, I still drive myself to the office......
Seriously, like Forrest, I was always a doodler. Back in the days when dry cleaned shirts came folded with cardboard backs, my father saved them so that I could draw. I would draw cities, countries, houses, airports, ports and railroad yards. You name it, I drew it.
When I played golf for the first time, that passsion just got channeled. Oddly enough, "driving" was one thing that pushed me to gca. I had actually taken bus fare, expecting to need a ride home or at least back to the clubhouse (I was 12 at the time) and not realizing that a course could be routed back to the clubhouse, not just once, but twice! When I climbed the ninth tee, (hungry as a young man usually is after expending about 60 shots in 8 holes on my first round) and saw the clubhouse behind the the green, and smelled the hamburgers cooking, I said to myself, "The guy who designed this is a genius" and I knew right then I wanted to be a golf course architect....(true story)
There are DISC personality tests you can get on line. I took a few of them over the years and I always register right in the classic designer profile. I suspect that most, but not all designers are about the same story.
Actually, I think every architecture school ought to administer these to freshman to give them a better chance to assess their future in design. By the end of freshman year, you could tell who were the hotshot designers. Everyone in that category both finished school and eventually opened up their own shops. Those who finished despite not being real designy types are now park directors, or other related fields, or out of the business completely.
BTW, as a boss, I can almost tell from the graphic work on resumes who is and isn't a designer. If not immediately, it becomes obvious in a few months in the office.
To any aspiring golf designer out there, I think you should find an online version of the DISC test and figure out if you really are the design type, as talent must match desire. Be aware that the real design job is about 10% creativity and 90% other stuff necessary to make a project happen.
One other test is to see how easy it is for people to talk you out of your dream. If you can be talked out of it, (and believe me, everyone from your teachers to your mother will try) even for a second of self doubt, you probably won't make it as a gca.