I remember similar feelings of discovery when I uncovered Washington Golf Monthly during a visit to a course in Pennsylvania. I loved that magazine for its reviews of something then-unknown to western New York: the UPGC (upscale public golf course.) We had muni after muni after muni in the Buffalo area, with one former private club-turned daily fee. Our explosion came ten years after the middle atlantic region's coming-out. Things always seem to come later to western New York. What I can't comprehend is how our multitude of private clubs stay in business, let alone private. My guess is we have three tiers to the private sector: old money, nouveau riche and no money. It's the bottom tier that shouldn't be in business but is.
In one of those early Washington Golf Monthly editions, I remember reading about Beechtree and a number of other beltway courses and being completely intrigued by not just the number of courses, but the also the evident skill of the designers. I will regret having not played Beechtree (Goose Creek and Raspberry Falls are my only two beltway notches), but that joke about the golf balls and the money in the Golf Magazine article...lame. Hope the starter didn't tell it that often.