There's one in every crowd... 
Standard questions:
What brought you to golf?
Golf course architecture?
This website?
Bonus question:
Apologies if you have already discussed this, but have there been any beneficiaries of your Pay It Forward Amazon experiment?
George,
Thanks for including me. I apologize in advance for bringing down the average of interesting GTK's you've had so far.
What brought you to golf? I was introduced to the game through my grandparents, who were both avid golfers. My grandpa was somebody I looked up to immensely, so I got drawn in through him. My earliest memory with the game is being about 4-5 years old and my family were heading to a parade of some sort, and for some reason we stopped by the golf course (Potawatomie, a 9-holer in St. Charles, IL) to see my grandparents who were about to tee off. I took one look at the course and said "screw the parade. I want to check THIS out." (that's not what I said, but you get my drift). Thankfully my folks and Nana and Grandpa agreed to let me tag along while the rest of the gang went to the parade.
Baseball was still my main focus growing up, but eventually I made the transition back to golf around 6th grade or so. My neighbor, older brother and I went to a nearby soccer field/forest preserve and whacked balls around. I didn't have any lefty clubs at the time, so made due by hitting with the backside of my dad's right-handed mallet putter. Eventually, my mom caved and bought me some lefty clubs and a giant shag bag of balls from a pawn shop and we had at it. I feel bad about it now because we delineated the outline of the "greens" on the soccer fields by carving divots around in a big circle. From there, I was officially hooked. We played whenever, wherever. I played on the team in high school and roomed in college at the University of Illinois with a fellow golf addict named Jeff Tang. We grew up in neighboring, rival towns but crossed paths when we both got summer jobs in high school at a mini-golf course. The rest is history.
Golf course architecture? I always doodle golf holes in my notebooks during school. In college, I'd fool around with the course designer program for Jack Nicklaus golf or whatever it was called, and later the Arnold Palmer designer for Links golf. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was fun nonetheless. Most of the golf courses I had played growing up were probably Doak 1's and 2's, but in 1993, as a freshman in college, my grandparents invited us down to their place in Florida for spring break. The highlight of the trip was this course called World Woods that had just opened about 10 minutes from my grandparents house. That blew away anything I had ever played previously, and for awhile, I'd go down there at least once a year with my buddies and/or then girlfriend (now wife) and golf our brains out.
After graduating college in '96 and entering the real world, we started branching out our circle of courses further and further, basically playing anywhere that would take us. Golf Digest's Places to Play was our only real guide. Late in '96, Jefe and I made the trip up to Kohler to play 36 at Blackwolf Run's two courses. It was my first introduction to Pete Dye and for a long time the River Course was at the top of my list, as much as Tim Bert likes to give me grief about it today. If you saw my armchair entry last year, it's not hard to tell how much Petey has influenced my initial thoughts on golf-course architecture.
This website?I probably stumbled on the site looking at the course profiles of Pine Valley or Sand Hills. I think I joined in 2003, probably like most newbies really intimidated and reluctant to offer much of anything. I still feel that way today, but I love the game and hope it shows.
Apologies if you have already discussed this, but have there been any beneficiaries of your Pay It Forward Amazon experiment?
I hope to bring somebody out this year. I posted this on that thread recently...the direct GCA link has been relatively modest, about $75 total. I wish I had started it earlier in the holiday season. But I offered to contribute all of my golf-related revenue to the kitty, which brings the total up to around $600. One person anonymously offered to donate the cost of a round. So that gets me close to getting somebody this season. Hopefully we can expand it in the future.