Oakmont, Merion East, Pine Valley and HVGC. Those four basically scared the shit outta me when I first began to play them which with all four was essentially in tournament competition.
Others that grew on me over time which I did not begin on in tournament competition were Seminole (with which a common knock seems to be most just don't get it when they first play it) and also Shinnecock and Maidstone. I think I might have to throw The Creek Club in there too and maybe my own first course, Piping Rock.
In this vein, I'm so sorry the old Links Club is gone now-----man would I love to go back there again at this point----but as the old saw goes----sometimes you just can't go home again!
Just going back to the old place I grew up in on Long Island is so sad to me now----it's so different than it once was, or at least most of it is.
But here's a funny story in that regard. I haven't lived on Long Island in thirty eight years but I was driving up from Philly to The Creek Club a year or so ago and coming out of Queens on the L.I.E. I started to have to take a leak, but Long Island is just so crowded these days I basically couldn't find a place and so I just held it for about a half hour until I got to this place right along side my old place that my grandmother actually dedicated as a nature preserve about 60-70 years ago. We used to go over there with picnic baskets in the old days; it was part of our old place that was called Valentine Farm. The lane into that preserve is no different than it was 60 years ago and that was the FIRST place I could find to jump out of the car and take a leak. What a relief that was but what an odd sensation too with the old memories of it. My grandmother used to call that preserve "Fairy Land."
