Your First Love - Impact of your GC Architecture Tastes?

[Kevin Lynch]

A few years ago, I wrote an article about the first course I ever played (at the late age of 16).  The theme of the article was about the long term impact your first course would have on your game.  I started out on a brand new 9 Hole Course with no irrigation, and plenty of drivable par 4’s (with decent risks, but little water).  Also, when I started, I watched some players on the golf team (seeming gods to me at the time) bend a Driver 40 yards right to follow a dogleg, so I forced myself to learn how to do that (unfortunately, no one told me my prior "natural draw" was a good thing).  I realized that much of my current golf game came from that first exposure, including:

A)  I have always faded the ball
B)  I love to run the ball along the ground (out of necessity while the new course matured)
C)  I rarely lay-up when given the opportunity (from years of playing drivable par 4s / reachable 5s)
D) I love making recovery shots, just let me find it (again, out of necessity from the combination of heroic holes, youthful bravado, and a swing that was a work in progress)

I wondered there may be a similar connection between your “architectural tastes” and your first course.  If you stop and think about the first course you played regularly, has it placed a long term “bias” or “preference” in your mind towards GC Architecture?  Or if you are an architect, can you trace any of your tendencies to your “first love?”

For me, I am a sucker for Heroic half-par holes that encourage you to take a chance.  And I have a disdain for hazards which eliminate any chance of recovery (water / OB / Unplayable Rough), hence my recent impassioned defense of Pete Dye’s use of sand.  My first course also had some quirky / sporty holes, so I have more patience for those when I see them now.

So how about everyone else?  When certain holes “fit your eye” better than others, is that residual from your first exposure?  I’d be curious to see how long-lasting the effect of your first course has been, even if only on a subconscious level.

If not your first course, can you tell me which course had the most long-lasting impact on your GCA Tastes?

[jim_lewis]

I first played Pinehurst #2 in the early sixties when I was in college. It was there that I learned that sometimes the best strategy is not to try to hit the green, but to be sure and miss in the right spot. I still believe that the object of the game is to make the best score, not greens in regulation. #2 was also the first course I played where I learned to appreciate the concept of recoverabilty. Courses I had played before often punished a miss hit severely. At #2 you can always go find it and hit it. If you are lucky, bold and talented, you might even advance it to the green. I love and value that feature to this day.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Kevin,
The first course I ever played was the CC of Torrington, CT (O.E.Smith). I'm pushing 59 now and at that time it was 36 years older than I was, and it was one of the 'newest' courses in the county. It consisted of roller coaster fairways w/few hazards, but well bunkered and fast (for the time) greens.

To this day I love courses that use the terrain as smartly as Mr. Smith. This same feeling from my youth was rekindled when I first played CC of Southern Pines in 1980, Hotchkiss School GC in 1982, and it reallly hit home again at Yale in 1985.

[Adam Clayman]

Not my first course, but, certainly the first course that opened my eyes to aspects and features that were distinctly different from the rote rota courses I was playing in Chicago. Lawsonia!

To this day I am a fan of large scale features, and, bold, strategic and heroic cross carries.

Ahhhh Lawsonia.