I feel like I answered something like this pretty early on, in a different topic. But I looked back and didn't see much, so I'll just write something fresh here.
I came to golf a bit late - I grew up playing soccer. My cousin took me to a camp in the summer of 1992 when I was 14 (March birthday). I played varsity soccer that fall, bought a 7-iron, and read just about every golf book I could get my hands on. I combined my Christmas and birthday money to buy my first set of clubs and a heavy cart bag (no legs). MacGregor/Jack Nicklaus VIP Tourney blades and a 1, 3, and a 5-wood, persimmon. I learned to play at the local public course before realizing the local private club was only $25 a year more ($175) for juniors, so I played there before my junior and senior years.
Scores went from about 92 to 82 to 72 over the next three years (ages 15, 16, 17), and I won the EDGA Junior Stroke Play as a senior-to-be at 17, and went to states from our high school district qualifier and placed well there, too.
I went to college at Ohio Northern University where the golf coach said "we have one spot open" because he kept everyone from the previous team who returned, regardless of how many good freshman or new players tried out, and when offered the spot, I declined it. I spent five years in school earning degrees in French, Computer Science, and Medicinal Chemistry. I moved to Delray Beach, FL for three and a half years where I did computer stuff, played a few of the courses down that way (including Emerald Dunes before it went private - $25 for all-you-can play in a cart after 2pm!, now it's a few hundred grand initiation).
Moved back to Erie, PA as my high school sweetie got in touch with me again in FL, and still lived in my birth town. Been here ever since (October 2004). Got down to a 1.4 index on my own in 2009 before finally taking lessons with a guy, Dave Wedzik, who opened my eyes to the idea that golf instruction is not all bullshit, but actually has logic, science, geometry, cause-and-effect, etc. behind it, contrary to everything I'd witnessed thus far. Became a PGA apprentice in 2010 and a PGA member in 2018 (hey, very little incentive to rush through the program, given how little it has to do with instruction).
As a kid (albeit 14 and onward), I was like many here, sketching golf holes on the covers of notebooks or scraps of paper. Despite hitting a draw then, I favored doglegs right with an angled mound that kicked the ball further down the hole and around the dogleg, but which required a longer tee shot if you went left than if you went right. I'd imagine every one of my "courses" back then had one of those holes.
I've always been interested in the challenges that golf course architecture provides, mostly from the playing perspective. I tend to play holes that have a clear challenge or strategy well - I don't mind being forced into making a decision. It's holes that are bland or just repeatedly ask the same simple questions over and over that tend to bore me. Unless I have another reason to focus, I tend to play better on the more engaging courses, even if they're more difficult, when the problems I have to solve vary throughout the round.
I've been to Scotland, played North Berwick, Turnberry pre-Trump, the New, Jubilee, Castle, and Old, and a few others and I've played probably about 250 courses in the U.S., though my list of the courses I remember playing (I only spent an hour or two writing the list down, with a few updates since then) tops out at about 170 right now.
My daughter plays golf, so I've also gotten to see (but not play) a number of good courses that she's played, like Indiana CC, Allegheny CC, and I coach a college team for the last four years, and so I've seen some of the great courses THEY have played, or played them myself on spring break trips, etc. That included, for example, RTJ's first course - Midvale CC (they also played Mendon), Avalon Lakes, and a bunch of others. As a PGA member I've also attended or played many events at Augusta National, Muirfield Village, Oak Tree, Monroe, Locust Hill, Crag Burn, Kiawah Island, Camargo, Oakmont (and almost all the Pittsburgh area private clubs). I also volunteer as a course rating captain (in my 14th year) of courses for West Penn Golf Association, which has also gotten me to see and/or play courses like Laurel Valley, Nemacolin, and many others.
My entire life has, since golf was introduced, really been about an obsession with golf, save for a bit of time when I was more focused on school in college. I spend maybe 80+ hours per week thinking about golf, whether it's teaching, volunteering, driving or helping my daughter, or reading (mostly) and posting (when I feel I have something to contribute, which is often NOT on the architectural heavy discussions) here.
My daughter wants to go, now, so I'll cut this off here. Hope that all helps.