The First Time You Knew A Place Was Different

[Sam Morrow]

I think we all had that moment on a course where we saw things unlike other courses and it piqued our interested in architecture. What was the course and what was the feature that caught your eye?

[Bill_McBride]

Pebble Beach.   The ocean. 

[RJ_Daley]

Lawsonia, 12 years old.

Sand Hills, grow-in.

[Rich Goodale]

Turnberry April 1978, first hole.  First time on a links course.  Standing on the tee there seemed to be no features at all until you looked closely and they were there.

[Jason Way]

Piping Rock.

First course on my first trip to play golf on Long Island.  Walking out to the practice area (where the polo field used to be) and seeing most of the front nine laid out in the wide open space was pure magic. 

[Jim Tang]

Pacific Dunes.  The sandy turf, dunes, cliffs, ocean.  The course that changed my way of thinking about golf courses.  Pure magic.

Royal County Down.  My first round in either Ireland or Scotland.  What a walk in an extraordinary setting.  The bunkering.

Royal Dornoch.  The remoteness of the site and town.  The wonderful greens.  Just a joy to strike a golf ball in that environment.

Ballyneal.  My first sand hills course.  The width of the course, the endless playing options, the idea of hitting a ball away from the hole in order for the ball to get close.

Kingsley Club.  Music on the range.  Perfect turf.  The fine line between a great shot and a poor one.

[David Stamm]

Easy. Pasatiempo. The place had me obsessing about it for weeks.

[jeffwarne]

Learned the game at Augusta CC so I had it great from the start, despite their best efforts to bastardize the place in my youth.

First place really different? In order

"The Patch", a muni by the airport in Augusta across the street from my high school  where I learned to play links golf.(and forget math)
The fact that you had to hit shots to hold the rock hard canted fairways and tiny greens, and cope with wind off the wide open airport space definitely helped my imagination and short game. Most hated it and played their conventional aerial game, which was my edge.

TPC Sawgrass-my intro to target golf-hated it-still do. Little did I know most of the Florida golf (and modern golf) in my future would be far worse.

Got a job in college at Athens CC which reaffirmed my love of classic old courses.

Long Cove-grew to love it-the charming side of Pete Dye

Spent a month at Waterville and surrounds which opened my eyes to the challenges and joys of links golf.

Sleepy Hollow-accepted a job there and knew I could work and play no other place in the summer besides the classic courses of the northeast.
Jim McLean sent me out to Dave Alvarez at Maidstone to do jr. golf "research" and ended up playing 36 at Shinny and Maidstone. and I realized there were incredible nonparkland courses on Long island as well.(not sure I did any other research )

Most recently?
Goat Hill
No irrigation, angles, tilt,course knowledge
I guess I've come full circle back to the Hampton's "patch"

[Chuck Glowacki]

Jeff's book will be titled: "From the Patch to Goat Hill, with a lot of great golf in between".

[jeffwarne]

Jeff's book will be titled: "From the Patch to Goat Hill, with a lot of great golf in between".

I believe that's

"From The Patch to Goat Hill-where the players, not the fairways, are irrigated"

[Chris_Hufnagel]

No doubt about it for me – High Pointe. 

It was so different, so much more fun, so interesting – a wonderful and enjoyable journey across the landscape.

High Pointe really blew me away and was the start of a life-long obsession with golf and golf architecture.

I have been extremely fortunate to visit and play some very special places since then, but no doubt High Pointe was the first special course I ever had the privilege of playing..

http://www.renaissancegolf.com/high_pointe_golf_club/high_pointe_gallery/

[Benjamin Litman]

Yale. I didn't start playing golf until relatively late, after my days of playing organized team sports were over. During a class sophomore year, before I began playing, we went on a field trip to the golf course in the dead of winter, and I felt an enormous peace come over me. The next year, my best friend handed me down his set of clubs, and I knew where to go. I played the course almost every day. It was my refuge and, in many ways, still is 14 years later.

[Mac Plumart]

Dismal River

Everything. Views, fairway contours, tee to green challenges, greens. Totally different than anything I'd seen before.

[Chuck Glowacki]

"From the Patch to Goat Hill: where the fairways are not irrigated and the players are inebriated"
Spent many any afternoon during Brother Luke's religion class staring across the street at the
Patch daydreaming and wishing I was there instead of sitting in class.

[Tim_Weiman]

I think we all had that moment on a course where we saw things unlike other courses and it piqued our interested in architecture. What was the course and what was the feature that caught your eye?

Sam,

I can't really say it was one course, but it may have been one book, my first golf architecture book, Sports Illustrated's Best 18 Golf Holes in America. Published in 1966. Author was Dan Jenkins. His description of Pine Valley sealed the deal for me wanting to see the world's best golf courses.

[jeffwarne]

"From the Patch to Goat Hill: where the fairways are not irrigated and the players are inebriated"
Spent many any afternoon during Brother Luke's religion class staring across the street at the
Patch daydreaming and wishing I was there instead of sitting in class.

I was staring across the street too Chuck-the other way.
Used to play backwards down 12 from 11 green to avoid being in sight of Brother John's class.
Ironically, he never commented about my absence  and we often played together on Sundays in the Irish mafia game.
I remember the basketball coach frantically coming out and driving around The Patch to find me to get to school by noon because we were kept alive in the B-ball playoffs  by our previous night's victor's use of an ineligible player.
I wasn't playing at The Patch that day(ACC) but I got the word in time.

[Chuck Glowacki]

The first tee at Bethpage Black        -WARNING-
                                           The Black Course is an
                                            Extremely Difficult Course
                                            Which We Recommend Only
                                            For Highly Skilled Golfers

Sets the tone right from jump street.

[Bill Brightly]

I think we all had that moment on a course where we saw things unlike other courses and it piqued our interested in architecture. What was the course and what was the feature that caught your eye?

Sam,

I can't really say it was one course, but it may have been one book, my first golf architecture book, Sports Illustrated's Best 18 Golf Holes in America. Published in 1966. Author was Dan Jenkins. His description of Pine Valley sealed the deal for me wanting to see the world's best golf courses.

Man, I loved that book!
Front nine
No. 1: Merion, par 4
No. 2: Scioto, par 4
No. 3: Olympic, par 3
No. 4: Baltusrol, par 3
No. 5: Colonial, par 4
No. 6: Seminole, par 4
No. 7: Pine Valley, par 5
No. 8: Prairie Dunes, par 4
No. 9: Champions, par 5
Front-nine par: 36

Back nine
No. 10: Winged Foot, par 3
No. 11: Merion, par 4
No. 12: Augusta National, par 3
No. 13: The Dunes, par 5
No. 14: Cherry Hills, par 4
No. 15: Oakmont, par 4
No. 16: Oakland Hills, par 4
No. 17: Quail Creek, par 4
No. 18: Pebble Beach, par 5
Back-nine par: 36 Total par: 72

[V. Kmetz]

Hello,

Yale about 20 years ago.

I had been blithely ignorant in playing and caddying many noted golf courses in Westchester-Fairfield growing up, but I was rapacious to play then and the subtleties eluded me in the concentration of playing.

My first glimpse of Yale changed that permanently, like LSD.

I got progressively more spaced-out on what I was seeing, started to think I was coming down a bit on #6 & 7, then saw "tangerine trees and marmalade skies" in beholding 8 and 9..."look in her eyes and she's gone..."

Later that same year I saw Stanwich for the first time and I was impressed greatly, but it was not like Yale and I'm pretty sure it was taking in Yale first that made me sensitive to what was possible in GCA.

cheers

vk

[Sam Morrow]

Is 17 at Quail Creek the Quail Creek in Oklahoma City?

[Bradley Anderson]

For me it was Shoreacres in 1981.

I was an assistant superintendent at a public course in Highland Park and I drove up to take a walk around Shoreacres. This was before Tim Davis was the superintendent there and it was not in very good shape. But the architecture inspired me. After that I took a keen interest in learning everything I could about the golden age architects and at the end of that year I moved to the assistants position at Old Elm where I actually got to work on a master piece of architecture. Those are still some of my best memories and experiences.

[JReese]

CGC - #3 Biarritz and the many squared-off greens.....truthfully everything about the place was unlike anything I had ever seen.  Hoping they host another event in my lifetime. 

[Ed Brzezowski]

TOC.    Having your name called on the tee , and with my last name that's a heroic task. Getting a wave from a R and A member was a plus.

[Bill Brightly]

Is 17 at Quail Creek the Quail Creek in Oklahoma City?

Yes

[cary lichtenstein]

#7 and 8 at Pebble Beach