Your First Favorite Golf Course

[Coral Ridge (Guest)]

I'm sure everyone here, most probably early in life, had a golf course which made a big impression on you in some way.  Whether you played it, walked it, or just saw it.  It could have been a public course or a private club, as a member or guest.  You might have played this course while on vacation.  Maybe you were a spectator or a caddy.

For me when I was 10 or 11 years old, I played golf occasionally at an executive golf course in Ft. Lauderdale called American Golf Club.  Right next to it, in fact bordering American was Coral Ridge CC.  Designed by Robert Trent Jones in 1954, I was amazed at the appearance of this golf course.  Its meticulous tee boxes and beautiful conditioning was a sight for me.  Picking up a scorecard and noticing that Lew Worsham was the golf pro made me dream of playing the course that much more.  I never did play Coral Ridge but it made a distinct impression on me.

[Paul Richards]

Coral:

This one is sooooooo easy!

Growing up as a caddie at Beverly CC, it was my "first
favorite."  

And in many ways, it still is.

[Richard Chamberlain]

Mine is Kooralbyn Valley, about an hours drive west of Brisbane, on the east coast of Oz.

It really was the first of the "resort" courses to pop up here in South East Queensland designed by Desmond Muirhead. Some of you guys might be able to advise as I think it may be the only DM design in Oz.

Its set amongst some spectacular Aussie bush with dramatic valleys slicing thru the layout. The more I go back there, the more design flaws I see in the place but the quietness of the area and the dramatic nature of the holes still makes it a pleasure to play.

They hold a famous "Copperhead" competition there every Thursday whereby anyone breaking their handicap gets a dozen pills. They heve some amazing stats of someting like 20 or 30,000 competitors have played and only a couple of hundred have bettered their handicap.

[Bob_Huntley]

The Nchanga Golf Club, Chingola, Northern Rhodesia now Zambia. Peter Dobereiner had it down at one time as his 14th best in the world outside of the U.S. The club had a goodly number of scratch players and three of the four members of the Northern Rhodesia team played in the World Amateur at Merion in 1960. Everyone came back in awe of a young beefy American by the name of Jack Nicklaus.

Reminiscing of African golf forty or fifty years ago, I remember a nine holer down south where a foursome would take off with ten caddies, one for each bag, another to carry the drinks and two to go on as forecaddies. I think the fee was all of fifty cents.

[Travis_Hood]

I would have to say Highland CC in Fayetteville, NC.  It was the first course to really open my eyes to Donald Ross and Golden Age architecture.

From that point on, I never took for granted the fact that I lived 35 minutes from Pinehurst.

[Jimbo (Guest)]

Wow, Coral ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Its definitely my favorite too!

The Ridge had an effect on me, too.  I grew up across the street.  While growing up, we illegally played football on it with the neighborhood kids, snuck out with 2 clubs and played a loop from #5-6-7-13-3-4 (pretending we were walking over to American) used to skimboard on the greens after a 2" rainfall, at night used to actually call the club and complain about trespassers on the course (us) just so we could get chased, got drunk with pals in lightning shelter behind #5 green at age 14 (our big brothers bought us the beer it can now be told), made it to 3rd base for the first time on #13 green.  I used to have these weird dreams of flying over it when I was a kid.

Anyway, grew out of that (sort of) and bussed tables at the Ridge in high school, and worked on the maintenance crew summers at college while I got a Geology degree. Graduated, went to work for an engineering company for 4 years.  We started getting preliminary soil study, groundwater study, and cut and fill estimate projects for potential golf course sites all over Palm Beach and Martin Counties.  Decided the golf course was such a cool place I went back to school, got agronomy degree and became a superintendent.

I was fortunate to meet Mr. Jones on a number of occasions and whatever anyone thinks of his archtectural style,(which I love, especially those "runway" tees!) those in all parts of the industry have alot to thank him for.

Thanks for bringing back memories I hadn't had for a while.

Email me at my address and I will set you up a foursome at the Ridge at your convenience. ;D

[Bill_McBride]

I was so fortunate.  I learned to play golf at a pretty doggy track in Novato, California, Indian Valley GC, 30 miles north of San Francisco.  My dad was a real golfer, loved the game, loved the old courses.  When I was about 15 (1957?), he took my family down to  Santa Cruz and we rented a cottage up by the pro shop / restaurant, at Pasatiempo.  Funny, there were some similarities to IVGC -- lots of sidehill, uphill, downhill lies, 18 tees, 18 greens.  But I early got an appreciation of what a great golf course is.  Then I got to play quite a bit at Harding Park in San Francisco.  Never well conditioned but always a great layout, especially those holes on the back nine along Lake Merced.  From 13-16 you can gaze with envy across the lake at the sloping fairways of the Olympic Club Lakeside Course.  Then the next year, I discovered Pebble Beach where, in 1958, you could carry your bag for $16 green fee.  What a bargain!  Bay Area (extended) golf was great in those days.

[John_D._Bernhardt]

I grew up playing our local muni and the local Country Club Bayou Desaird Cc a good Joe Lee course. I loved the strategy of the holes and routing even then. I treasured getting to caddie for and watch men like Al Geiberger and Homero Blancas play noting the things they would teach the kids like me about course management and practice. Yet, the dream of Augusta National in paricular and the other courses the Open was played on as TV and the big 4 and other golf shows of the day allowed for bigger dreams.

[ian andrew (Guest)]

Nobleton Lakes
A tough test, very well kept, and a $5 round on Monday mornings for juniors only! I miss 1981.

I played there again last year and I still enjoy it; it still an enjoyable place to play.

[Evan Fleisher]

I grew up in on a golf course in Miami, and spent many days on it's fairways...and NOT always playing golf.

We lived in the housing development surrounded by the Miami Lakes Country Club (now the Don Shula Golf Club) in Northwest Dade county.  All I had to do was walk through a couple of backyards across the street and I was right in the middle of the 5th fairway, a long/straight par-5 with a push-up green surrounded by bunkers.

I must have played the 5-6-7 hole loop a million times, avoiding the rangers every step of the way, but never getting in the way of the "paying" public.  I sold a million gallons of lemonade out there, as well as a ton of golf balls fished out of the lake fronting the green on the short par-3 7th hole.

The Robert Von Hagge course was nothing that special, but having it in my backyard (so to speak) sparked my interest, love and passion for the game, I have no doubt.

Unfortunately, as a kid, we also did things to that course that I would absolutely KILL kids for doing now...riding our bikes through the sandtraps, playing flag football and skim-boarding on the fairway puddles during rainstorms.  We absolutely TRASHED that 5th hole fairway over and over and over.  In later years, I'd take a shag bag out to the 150 yard mark and hit all of my balls onto the green with a five-iron.  Luckily, there was not too much twilight golf being played out there, so bothering other golfers was never an issue.  Some of the fondest memories of my youth...

[Doug Wright]

Coral Ridge,

Great topic!

Hope you will post often. Like others I suspect, my first favorite course is the first course I played with regularity--Birch Run in Allegany NY, a 9 hole course carved out of a farm field with a real red barn as a hazard between the first and the 9th holes. I'd ride my bike down at 7 am with clubs across the handlebars and play 36 or more all summer. My record was 72 in one day, when I had to call my Dad to pick me up 'cause I was too tired to ride home...Guess you could say I was hooked on golf at age 12.

On the Doak scale, the course is -1, but who cares?  

[David Wigler]

Slam Dunk!  It was Groveport Country Club outside of Columbus Ohio.  I have no idea if it is still there.  If it were, I would love to play it one day.  Every time my family traveled from Michigan to Ohio to stay with my Grandparents, my Grandfather would take me to Groveport with him to watch him and my two great uncles play.  I remember every detail of the course, though I never played a singe shot on it.  It seemed like paradise.

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

Like David Wigler, mine revolves around golf with my grandfather.  Lost Tree in Florida, a course that would not do well in the Doak scale, but was always great fun.   I got to look for balls (half the fun) and play with my grandfather.  Perhaps it is more the memory of my grandfather, but it certainly is a fun place to look back on.

[Patrick Hitt]

I grew up a block from Indian Hill Club, a place where hopping on the course was easy since a road runs around it. My loop after school was 2-6. A flat layout was graced by Ross greens and cross bunkers. We never got booted - we hardly saw anyone. Once we got old enough to drive, we figured out the monday play was to park next to the first tee at Knollwood and tee off. It was much easier than throwing the clubs over the fence at Shoreacres.

[THuckaby2]

Bill McBride - your post brought tears to my eyes.  God was I born too late.  

I've played Indian Valley many times - quirky, fun, cool cable car!  You ought to visit it again one of your trips out here - there have been several changes, all for the better I think.

As for my first favorite golf course, there is no question:  Studio City Golf Center, somewhat near Hollywood, CA.  9 holes, all par 3, longest hole (the brutal #2) 143 yards.  Golf was pure and nothing but fun when I started playing there 30 years ago... I make it a point to go back from time to time, and even very little has changed.

First big course that blew me away and made me really want to study the game was indeed Pebble Beach... played it for the first time in 1975 and I believe it was $50, which seemed like a fortune.  My Dad taking me there & us driving 350 miles to do it was one of the coolest things that ever happened to me...

OK, I'll stop.  No need to get maudlin here!

TH

[Jeff Mingay]

Essex G&CC, Windsor, Ontario, Canada -- where I was fortunate enough to learn golf through my dad on a decently preserved 1929 Donald Ross layout.

Exposure to Essex molded by life. I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but I think it's true!

I'll never forget the following excerpt from Bernard Darwin's "The Golf Courses of the British Isles" (1910), because it applies to how I think about Essex:

"There are several very excellent courses in Wales but I am quite determined to put Aberdovey first -- not that I make claim that it is the best, not even on the strength of its alphabetical pre-eminence, but because it is a course that my soul loves best of all the courses in the world."

[Lou Duran]

While I played some semblence of golf during my last couple of years of high school, my interest in and love of the game was nurtured at Ohio State's Scarlet course.  Having played 250+ courses over some 30 years, Mr. Darwin's quote regarding Aberdovey in Jeff's post captures my feelings for the Scarlet course.  I've played a number of the "Top 100" courses over the years and have often come away disappointed that they did not compare favorably to Scarlet in most aspects other than conditioning.  Olympic-Lake has been the only other course to stir my soul as much.

David Wigler-  I played Groveport GC in 1978 and had a great time.  My recollection is that it was a relatively short course with a quirky nature.  There were several holes that required  an iron or a feathered fairway wood of the tee, and some of the greens were small with good roll to them.  My most vivid memory is of a par-3 with a cape type green where my opponent hit his tee shot with a short iron to some 10' from the hole.  I proceeded to hit his ball on the fly with my tee shot, knocking his into the water while mine remained on the fringe within birdie range.  Not being rules experts, we haggled for awhile, finallly settling on allowing him to replace his ball with no penalty.        

[RJ_Daley]

I had and uncle-godfather who was one of the owners of a family restaurant that only closed Thursdays.  It was difficult for him to find golf buddies that day because most of them worked.  He loved Lawsonia, which was about an hour and a half drive.  When I was between 12-14 or so, he would take me there a time or two each year and I'd play with his wife's clubs.  That was where I first saw amazing golf design and was able to see the distinction from bland design around home.  Having lived next to a 9 hole Bendelow modest track - see that childhood memories thread for the rest of the story...

[Stan Dodd]

We would sneak on to Shorcliffs country Club in San Clemente California.  Dog track with wonderful greens.  Move your ball to the nearest grass until you reached the green.  We would sneak through a backyard and on to to the 10th tee until one day we were walking down the hill and saw a "old guy with a funky swing and 3 Secret Service men standing guard.  Correct, Richard Nixon over from the Western White House.  We ducked and hid in the bushes and allowed the President a two hole head start.  What a hoot!!

[David Wigler]

Lou,

Your recollections of Groveport are very correct.  This thread got me to thinking and I checked an internet phone book.  It does not appear that Groveport is around anymore.  

[Bill McBride]

Tom H, you have seen Indian Valley when the cable car broke down!   The climb directly up the side of the mountain alongside the tracks is one of the great cardiovascular workouts of the world!   The climb up to the 14th and 15th greens which immediately follow are pretty good too!  I do have great memories of that place, but my favorite North Bay course was and remains Sonoma GC.  Needless to say I was extremely disappointed when we were rained out there in November.  Then Neal Meagher tells me they are building condos on the golf course!  Jeez.......

[THuckaby2]

Bill - most of the times I've walked the course, and thanked heaven that cable car was working.  I did make the climb "unaided" once and that was indeed a workout!  This all makes me want to go back there and soon - that place is pure fun.

Sonoma is/was a better course, sure.  But that could be said about just about any public course anywhere near... 'Tis sad indeed we got rained out, and sadder that is going private/resort/condo.  Oh well.

TH

[david h. carroll]

Pulled up this old thread....as a 6yr old, my grandparents lived on #4 of Salisbury CC in Salisbury NC..."hawked" balls all over the place there and played nearly every late afternoon while visiting and living there for a year...I'll never forget skipping holes 8-10 to avoid the clubhouse b/c my g-parents didn't want to pay my fees even though they were members and I bet in 1976, fees for a 6yr old were non-existent...I know originally it was a Ross but I gotta believe some changes have been made over the years

[JLahrman]

Lou, I don't know if you've been to the Scarlet recently.  I played it two weeks ago for the first time in maybe four years.  They built a new back tee on #11 and on #15.  11 actually doesn't play any different because I was having to lay up short of the bottleneck anyway.  15 really isn't any different either, the new tee probably only added about 15 yards.  The greens were rolling nice and quick although the course wasn't playing as fast as it usually does this time of year due to the mild summer.

[cary lichtenstein]

Tam O'Shanter in Chicago where Lou Worshom made eagle 2 on the final hole in George S. May $50,000 first prize  :(tournment.

Bunch of wonderful holes:
2,3,4,7,8,16,17,18 if I remember correctly.

Now it's an industrial park.