Go ahead - Tell us how you were enlightened!

[Chris Flamion]

MY light bulb moment was being giving Anatomy of a Golf Course as a gift.  From that point forward I always have had to look at every hole a little different.

A specific example is a 420 dogleg right at my home course.  It has nearly limitless room off to the left but water and a catch bunker right.  The entire fairway slants down toward the water except for about a 8 yard wide area right before the hazards.  The first time that I realized the only way to get an even stance was to flirt with the water I forever changed my view of that hole and most courses.

[Steve Lang]

  ... it was summer of 67, after a swim meet at Inverness, going through the clubhouse, walking out on the course and touring a few holes before being interupted by a marshall..  it just all seemed so coordinated, so well put together.. neat

[Carl Rogers]

May 2004 ... Slow Play at Riverfront on a Sunday PM on the 5th hole, when I accidently drove too close to the fairway bunker at the outside edge of that dogleg and then realized how differently the hole played from that spot than from the middle of the fairway.

If not for the slow play, I would not have taken the time to look that hard at the design.  Being in a related design field, (architect of buildings) and a life long golfer, I had had a sneaking suspision that better golf courses were better for unknowable (for me) reasons.  That day changed me.  I looked up who designed the course (did not know at the time).  

In the fall of 2005, I entered Golf Magazines Armchair Architect Contest and lucky enough to win and spend 3 days with TD and group at the Bay of Dreams.  I discovered this web site at the same time when a number of people were 'commenting' on my design.  I have met Scott Weersing through this site and we have become golfing buddies.  We will go out to Bandon next February.  We played Beechtree about 5 weeks before it closed.

[Jobst von Steinsdorff]

I guess I really got interested when I got to play a course named "Lomas Golf Gardens" in Novo Sancti Petri, Spain. This course designed by Manuel Pinero is extremely short and right next to the more popular Novo Sancti Petri courses (crowded by German designed by Severiano Ballesteros. While the latter fully comply with what is considered to be championship standard these days, the former actually became much more fun to play. I hated it while playing the first time, because you really have to know where you want to go (and they had no yardage book available), but was more and more enthusiastic as I got to play it again. Probably a similar experience like many people have on the Old Course?

However it took me about one more year before I bought Geoff Shackelford's Grounds for Golf (nice introduction, bit by now I would rather recommend Anatomy of a Golf Course as a first) as my first book on GCA and from then on I was hooked.

[Terry Lavin]

Going through the restoration of Beverly CC was an eye-opener for me, as was the process of serving as grounds chair on the board when we had the US Open at Olympia.  Then I hosted Ran and Mike Keiser and Rick Holland at Olympia back in 2002 and started lurking here and then started posting in 2003.  I'm still not qualified to render opinions, but at least I am qualified to interpret the opinions of those qualified to render them.  So, I'm still seeking enlightenment.

[Jud_T]

I'm still not qualified to render opinions, but at least I am qualified to interpret the opinions of those qualified to render them. 

Well said, and probably describes most (but not all!) of us non-industry types here.  More than can be said for the vast wasteland of the general golfing public...