Mission Accomplished: 1000 Golf Courses

[Cory Lewis]

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED- 1000 GOLF COURSES
As many of you know, I have been approaching 1,000 golf courses played.  I decided to make it part of my signature on this site and used my twitter page to update my progress as well (@corylewispga).  I am proud to say that on Wednesday, July 25th I accomplished my goal!  Below is a collection of my thoughts on reaching 1,000 along with some fun stats about my journey.  Enjoy!

A BRIEF HISTORY
In 2001, when I set the goal to play 1,000 golf courses, I was 20 years old, and I had already played around 120.  At that time, I thought that a realistic goal would be to play 1,000 golf courses before I turned 50 years old.  I am currently 31 years old, so obviously I achieved my goal much faster than I envisioned. 

HOW’D I DO IT SO QUICKLY?
I have gotten this question a lot over the last couple months when I have talked to people about my journey.  The reason can be broken down into a few key points:
1.   I played a lot of courses alone.  I love playing new courses and don’t mind playing them by myself.
2.   I played multiple courses in one day.  I often played three courses in one day (59 times), and I  played two in one day much more than that.
3.   I played VERY quickly.  This helps with time, which is the biggest enemy of trying to play multiple courses in one day.  When I am alone with nobody in front of me, I can play almost any course in 1½ hours riding or two hours walking.

GOLF COURSE #1000
I had never really thought about trying to play a specific course for #1000 until people started asking me if I had anything planned.  I’ve been very fortunate in my life to play many of the top courses in the country but there was one that immediately came to mind, Pine Valley.  Through the efforts of several people, some of whom are on GCA, I was able to realize this dream.  To those who made this happen, I can’t begin to thank you enough or tell you how much this meant to me.  Here is a picture of me on the 18th at PV completing my journey.

pvme by camel03, on Flickr
BEST & WORST
Favorite Course:  Royal Dornoch      Least Favorite Course:  Cobb’s Creek(Olde)
Best Course:  Cypress Point      Worst Course:  The Summit(WV)
Favorite Architect: Donald Ross      Least Favorite Architect: Arthur Hills
Most Overrated:  Oak Hill (East)      Most Underrated: The Meadow Club

Favorite Par 3: 16th hole at Cypress Point
Favorite Par 4: 5th hole at Pinehurst #2
Favorite Par 5: 8th hole at Ballyneal

GOLF CLUB ATLAS

GCA’ers played with: 74
GCA’ers met but not played golf with:  88 - approximately, probably more
GCA’ers caddied for at Dormie:  12
Ex-GCA’ers, current ML’ers played with: 5

TOP 10 COURSES PLAYED BY ARCHITECT

Ross-70
Fazio-50
Nicklaus-38
RTJ-34
Jones, Rees-28
Dye-26
Ault, Ed-24
Palmer-23
Hills-22
Raynor-19
Flynn-19
Gordon-19

FUN STATS

States: 39
Countries: 4
Significant Milestone courses:  250-NGLA, 400-San Francisco, 800-Wade Hampton
When I met my wife she had only played nine golf courses in three states. She has now played 91 courses in 23 states!

Quickest time period to play 50 courses: 110 days
Number of days I have played 2 new courses in the same day:   201
Number of days I have played 3 new courses in the same day:   59
Number of days I have played 4 new courses in the same day:   3

Best 3 course day is a tie between:
The Creek, Engineers, Deepdale
&
Wannamoisett, Essex County, Winchester
WHAT’S IN A NAME

A fun breakdown of golf course names that I have played:

Water: Bay, Brook, Creek, Lake, Ocean, Run, Spring, Sound
Colors: Black, Blue, Green, Grey, Gold, Orange, Red, White
Animals: Bear, Cardinal, Cat, Deer, Eagle, Elk, Fox, Frog, Goose, Hawk, Heron, Horse, Jackrabbit, Leopard, Lion, Osprey, Quail, Raven, Sheep, Snake, Sparrow, Swan, Wildcat, Wolf
Landforms: Bluff, Canyon, Cliff, Desert, Dune, Farm, Field, Forest, Garden, Hill, Island, Meadow, Mound, Mountain, Orchard, Park, Pointe, Quarry, Ranch, Ridge, Rock, Valley
Trees: Beech, Chestnut, Dogwood, Elm, Hickory, Magnolia, Maple, Oak, Peach, Pine, Walnut, Willow
People-Ed Oliver, Jimmie Austin, Lonnie Poole
Numbers-2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 1757

Alphabet-I have played golf courses that start with every letter of the alphabet except X.  If I could find a course that started with X, I would be willing to drive a significant distance just to say I played golf courses that start with every letter of the alphabet.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I wanted to do this thread because I have been fortunate to share my journey with so many of you.  GolfClubAtlas has the best collection of golf architecture enthusiasts and just plain good people in the world IMO.  Many thanks to Ran & Ben for creating and maintaining a website that fosters a wonderful community of people.



 

[Joe Bausch]

I still like you Corey. 

[Bart Bradley]

Cory, it was my pleasure to be one of the 74 and to have one of my clubs be in the 1000.  Congratulations.  Sorry if I moved while you were putting... I was just taking my ball out of the hole  .

Best wishes,

Bart

[David Davis]

That's impressive, 31 and you are ready to take up a new sport or play them once more in reverse order. I say onto the next 1000.

I have a couple questions:

I've got the best and worst. Could you please elaborate on the 253rd and the 675th courses in terms of rating these 1000 courses? I'm also curious about the 3rd, 7th and 15th holes on these?

Kidding of course, but curious how well you can remember specific holes. I know a gentleman that's played some 2300 courses and somehow is able to remember holes on courses he's played years ago. I've played courses and after i'm finished can't remember anything. How's that been for you?

I guess now you are broke and have to get a job...(that's rhetorical!)

How many of those 1000 courses were in continental Europe?

Great accomplishment!

[Bob_Huntley]

What, you didn't play Nchanga?

Congratulations on a journey well taken.

Bob

[Wayne_Kozun]

Wow - impressive feat!  You also have done a great job documenting the entire mission - well done.

[Michael Dugger]

If you could drive to China, I bet there is a course there starting with X 

[Bruce Wellmon]

Cory,
       Congratulations. I'm proud to be one of the 12. We have been to a "Thaw Out" and 5th Major, but I don't think we have ever teed it up. We need to remedy that.
                                                     Bruce

[Tim Martin]

Cory-Congrats. Here's to a 1000 more!

[Wayne_Kozun]

There appears to be a Mt Xavier golf course in Australie - does that count for an X?

[Michael Goldstein]

This is epic.  Kudos.

Despite best efforts I'm not one of the 74.  We'll rectify this next time I'm in Pinehurst - I suspect it'd be an entertaining round (and fast!).

[Tyler Kearns]

Cory,

Congratulations, quite a feat. Happy to be one of the 74 GCA'ers to have enjoyed a round of golf with you.

TK

[Mark Bourgeois]

Did anyone talk during your backswing today?

[Mark Smolens]

Did anyone talk during your backswing today?

Hard to imagine anyone not talking in Corey's backswing. . . the fastest man on the planet who's not running to his ball. Congrats Corey on a really cool accomplishment.

[Cory Lewis]

Thank you all for the kind words and congratulations.  It has been one heck of a ride that I would not trade for anything.  

I still like you Corey.  

Sorry Joe.  Most of my memories of Cobb’s are from the first time I played it with the Astroturf dogleg left 120 yard par 3, the crackpipe, the horrible conditions and what I consider the worst hole of all time, the par 4 on the front with the creek running through the middle of it

Kidding of course, but curious how well you can remember specific holes. I know a gentleman that's played some 2300 courses and somehow is able to remember holes on courses he's played years ago. I've played courses and after i'm finished can't remember anything. How's that been for you?

How many of those 1000 courses were in continental Europe?

I can remember holes from about 2/3rds of the courses.  No courses in contiental Europe. Besides USA, countries were Scotland, Ireland, and Northern Ireland.  Does Northern Ireland count as a country?  

There appears to be a Mt Xavier golf course in Australie - does that count for an X?

Great idea Wayne but it has to start with X.  

Did anyone talk during your backswing today?

No, nobody talked in my backswing today.  I tried to play as slow as possible, of course that meant it took me 3 seconds to hit the ball instead of 2!

[RJ_Daley]

One think I'm surprised about is your age.  I thought you were much older than that.... and I mean that in a nice way!   

[Cory Lewis]

One think I'm surprised about is your age.  I thought you were much older than that.... and I mean that in a nice way!   

No offense taken Dick.  I think it's the hair, or lack of hair, that makes people think I'm older than I am.  Being randomly paired with you and Adam at Lawsonia is one of my all time favorite GCA moments.  What a great day!

[Chris DeNigris]

Cory- Congratulations...How many rounds under par?

Coincidentally I'm at 998 and I'm going to be in South Jersey end of the week.....any chance....

[RJ_Daley]

some kind of serendipity...  

[Jason Topp]

Congratulations Cory.  What did you fire at Pine Valley?  Did you play it in two hours?

[Jeff Shelman]

Cory,

Congratulations on this accomplishment. It's fantastic. It has been fun watching you get closer to the goal on Twitter.

And I will admit that I sent this thread to the lady friend as an example of how my level of golf interest/dedication is really pretty tame.

[John McCarthy]

What a thing!  Nobody can take this away from you. 

Hardest short hole?

[Sam Morrow]

Congrats once again amigo. As I said in the text this morning, you lucky fuck! Glad to see you wore a dark shirt, I got real close to buying you a pink shirt the other day. I hope you didn't try to bribe the guy at the gate, like I said, they don't think it's funny As for anyone who knows Cory it is very easy to understand why he plays so many rounds alone. I do have a few questions for you though,

1. What course was the most pleasant surprise?
2. What course was the biggest disappointment?
3. What GCA'er has the worst alleged snoring problem?
4. Have you ever had a more entertaining night with GCA'ers than that night at The Palace in Biloxi with Topp and I? The Aristocrats!

[Eric Smith]

Nice guys do in fact finish first! Well done my friend!!

[Brad Tufts]

Well done Cory...as a stat guy, I appreciate the summary.

We will have to change me from the 88 to the 74 list sometime soon..can't wait to talk in your backswing...

I (will) have you beat in only one category...states and countries.  I will be playing golf on Saturday in state #40 for me, Virginia...still have Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Tennessee to go.  I also have played in 6 countries other than the US...Barbados, Canada, Curacao, Germany, Ireland, Scotland.  I have only played one round in three of those.

I'm sure you will fly past these in the next 20 minutes...!