For me, I don’t think it was a moment. I think it has (and continues to be) a process. I know I’ve shared parts of this with you, so bear with me if you’ve heard some of this before.
The third time I ever played golf I played East Lake right after the Tour Championship. I knew it was a Top 100 course and highly regarded, but I just didn’t get why it was so respected after I played it. It had no water falls, no beautiful flower beds, nothing like that at all. Literally, it was like playing golf in a big park. But curiously enough, I like it for some reason.
So I began researching golf courses and I started with the Top 100 lists. I started with Golf Digest. And then I noticed that the Top 100 from Golf Digest was different from Golf Magazine which were different from Golfweek. This confused me.
So then I began researching the processes each magazine went about to rate each course and how they then ranked them. Interestingly enough each used different criteria. So I studied the criteria and tried to understand why the magazines used these specific sets of data and I tried to figure out who was right.
Along the way, I played golf at Cuscowilla. Again, like East Lake it wasn’t overly “pretty” and didn’t have waterfalls, crazy flowerbeds, or anything like that. But again I really enjoyed the course and felt wonderful simply being on the course (just like East Lake made me feel).
It was around this time, that I began to take note of who the designers of these courses were and I noticed that the original designer of East Lake was Donald Ross and Coore & Crenshaw did Cuscowilla. So, I began reading about the designers themselves and books they wrote. This is when I discovered the basic principles of quality golf course architecture.
This is about the time I stumbled upon GCA.com. I actually emailed Tom Paul (as his email address is attached to the bottom of all of his posts) to ask him a question about turf grass. He told me to call him, which I did and he tried to help me out as best he could. Frankly, this impressed me. Here I was a total stranger calling him up to talk and he takes my call and is very kind and pleasant and helpful. I don’t think most people would offer this kind of help so readily. Anyway, a few weeks later I became a member of the site and have been pestering the crap out of people with random questions and comments ever since.
But one of the things that I have learned is that there is no cut and dried answer when it comes to golf course architecture. It really comes down to how a course makes you feel. That is why Golf Digest has Augusta National #1 and Pine Valley is rated #1 by others. That is why Kingsley is a Top 100 course according to Golfweek but not by Golf Digest or Golf Magazine. And why Canyata is ranked Top 100 by Golf Digest but yet they don’t rank Ballyneal Top 100.
I suppose realizing that golf course architecture isn’t like mathematics (with its cut and dried answers) was a key moment in my enlightenment.