I am thrilled to be here and have been following GCA for the last 18 months or so. Here's a bit of my background:
I live in the western Detroit suburbs, grew up in this area and graduated from Michigan State University many moons ago with a degree in marketing. I golfed often in high school but didn't start to play with any frequency until after I graduated and have played pretty regularly ever since. That means 25+ years of mostly public golf. For many years we had a regular foursome every Saturday AM teeing off at about 7am at Hilltop Golf Course in Plymouth, MI. This course is a bit maddening as it's on a nice rolling piece of land and it well laid out with many tees and greens on plateaus with some of the wildest greens in the area. Unfortunately it started as a 9 hole course and later another 9 was squeezed into the property. To alleviate the danger of getting beaned, they overplanted which has made the course claustrophobic. About 10 years ago we moved to the Farmington Hills Golf Club which is a nice muni with the front 9 holes on reclaimed land, the back 9 across the street with the 2 nines connected by an underground tunnel. It's a good local track that is a bit wetlands challenged on the reclaimed front nine.
My number of rounds have drastically declined in the last few years following the birth of my now 2 year old son but this has not dampened my enthusiasm for the game or certainly in course architecture. This site has really opened my eyes in terms of the trend back to natural courses.
As I have relatives in the SF Bay Area I've been able to play many of the nicer public tracks in the area. Perhaps the best course I've played is Pasatiempo, pre-Doak restoration. I also had my first eagle on it's ninth hole, holing a wedge. I also played Bethpage Black in the dark days, probably about 1996, before it was restored. It was a mess but still among the best courses I've ever played.
A bit more about myself, I am in sales and travel often to Southern California to visit customers. I hope to play Rustic Canyon one of these days and have a customer in Oxnard a bit SW of there. Other interests include family, music (I am a serious amateur musician and played in the Marching and other bands while at MSU) and cars.
I look forward to learning more from GCA and would like to thank Ran for his gracious invitation.