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Bill Brightly

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #25 on: February 01, 2015, 03:39:46 PM »
NGLA two or three years after it opened. I'd love to know if the turf was relly that much better than other courses. So I'd have to play Shinnecock and Myopia then, too.

Ryan Coles

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #26 on: February 01, 2015, 03:50:43 PM »
Augusta National.

Tomorrow morning.

Smart.



Hardly biblical, I'll take it.

Love your practicality though. Can you get me extra leg room for my flight this evening?

David Stamm

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #27 on: February 01, 2015, 04:02:29 PM »
I can't pick just one.

Ranch Santa Fe, Bel Air, Ojai, Royal Palms, La Cumbre, and Lakeside when they first opened.

The Old Course in the 2nd half of the 19th century.
"The object of golf architecture is to give an intelligent purpose to the striking of a golf ball."- Max Behr

V. Kmetz

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #28 on: February 01, 2015, 05:14:28 PM »
There's a lot of tough calls here...

If it's got to be one then probably Siwanoy in 1914, when it opened. I'd like to visit the year before and see what Ross built, and how much, if any Winton amended/appended other elements. I'd like to see the original 5th green and first iterations of the 16th hole, which was like 270 (now 380-400) with a wicked, wicked green that could only be countenanced in that era.

If Siwanoy is not available, I want to see the 9-hole goat track I grew up playing, Sunset Hill in Brookfield, CT... when Gene Sarazen first laid it out as a practice course for his time spent there in (then)-dairy country. This would have been circa 1937-38. As far as I know it was only Sarazen's concern until 1946, then it started to be run as a public course by the rightful owner of the property, who changed and/or failed to maintain elements of the first course as Sarzen laid it out.

cheers

vk
"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Greg Ohlendorf

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #29 on: February 01, 2015, 05:17:12 PM »
Great question!

But one is just impossible to pick. I want to play my home course, Flossmoor (then Homewood) with Alex Smith who played in the opening match. The Lido any day it was open. ANGC when the greens ran 7-8 (or really any day at all).

Greg

James Brown

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #30 on: February 01, 2015, 05:53:49 PM »
Gotta be TOC around 1870.  But...

Would also love to play my home course of East Potomac Park in Washington, DC in its hey day in the late 1920s.    It's basically NLE, as its contours have been  eroded over 90 years of settling of the fill land it was built on and through several generations of renovations of the National Mall.   Designed by Walter Travis, it hosted the second US Public Links.  Any of the architecture experts here ever heard of it?  It is a 2 on the Doak scale now at best, but looked pretty darn good in its prime.  

At student at Univ of Georgia did his thesis on it.  https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/mccartin_michael_a_200805_mla.pdf

Peter Pallotta

Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #31 on: February 01, 2015, 05:55:59 PM »
Augusta on April 13, 1986.  This means I'd have some semblance of a decent game, I'd be playing in the Masters, I'd  be there for arguably the greatest moment in sports history, and I'd make a few million betting on Nicklaus in the morning before anybody teed off...

Shivas = smart.  PeterP, not so much.

Keith OHalloran

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #32 on: February 01, 2015, 05:56:05 PM »
Sand Hills Golf Club the day it opened. I would love to know if I could see what Tom Doak saw before it opened, what most people have seen since, and what I have witnessed 15 years later.

Scott Warren

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #33 on: February 01, 2015, 06:12:31 PM »
Pine Valley the day of the Shell's WWOG event. Would love to be able to compare it now to how it was then.

Sean_A

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #34 on: February 01, 2015, 06:15:32 PM »
This is a very tough call, but I think I would want to be in on the ground floor for the heathlands revolution.  Of those early courses I would probably pick Woking circa 1906.  

In the States, I would have to choose an early version of Augusta.  I would love to know what the bunkering scheme was about and how the revisions of TOC and the heathand revolution came full circle for a practically modern course.

Ciao
« Last Edit: February 01, 2015, 06:21:48 PM by Sean_A »
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

David Stamm

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #35 on: February 01, 2015, 06:15:44 PM »
Augusta on April 13, 1986.  This means I'd have some semblance of a decent game, I'd be playing in the Masters, I'd  be there for arguably the greatest moment in sports history, and I'd make a few million betting on Nicklaus in the morning before anybody teed off...

Shivas = smart.  PeterP, not so much.


Don't sell yourself short, Peter. You're a tremendous slouch. 8)
"The object of golf architecture is to give an intelligent purpose to the striking of a golf ball."- Max Behr

Peter Pallotta

Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #36 on: February 01, 2015, 06:30:32 PM »
 :)
Sadly, when it comes to my making the savvy move, you are 100% correct about that!

Peter

archie_struthers

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #37 on: February 01, 2015, 06:36:32 PM »
 :o


Nice thread Mark ,  hard to beat the Monterey Peninsula for sheer beauty . Have to say either Pebble or Cypress when first opened , before any commercialization of same .
« Last Edit: February 03, 2015, 08:40:10 AM by archie_struthers »

Will Lozier

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #38 on: February 01, 2015, 06:43:23 PM »
Sand Hills with only stakes.  I'd prefer to play all 118 (or so) holes C&C found...but would certainly take just the final routing.   ;)

Great question!

John McCarthy

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #39 on: February 02, 2015, 12:17:13 PM »
Mid Ocean Club near it's opening.  It would be the roaring 20s, it would require a steam ship arrival and, heck, it is Bermuda.  I would wear a straw hat.  Plus unchanged course by CBM.
The only way of really finding out a man's true character is to play golf with him. In no other walk of life does the cloven hoof so quickly display itself.
 PG Wodehouse

Craig Disher

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #40 on: February 02, 2015, 01:43:46 PM »
The Lido in the late 1920s. After 10 years of grow-in and before belt-tightening in the 1930s (assuming there was some even at this wealthy club) it must have been as good a links as could be found anywhere.

But still feeling some attachment to the DC area, I might pick Ross's Indian Spring. During its time it was recognized by the best local golfers as the finest course in the area - great property, intimate routing, and a course for which Ross prepared detailed plans and visited during construction.

Mark Pritchett

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #41 on: February 02, 2015, 01:50:32 PM »
Augusta Country Club-Lake Course late twenties or early thirties. 

Mike_Clayton

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #42 on: February 02, 2015, 02:13:17 PM »
Victoria, Yarra Yarra, Commonwealth and Metropolitan would have been fascinating. Victoria was incredible from evidence of the old photos. Metro lost 8 fantastic holes. Yarra Yarra with no trees.

Mark McKeever

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #43 on: February 02, 2015, 04:11:19 PM »
Gibson Island Club when it was 18 holes.   :'(
Best MGA showers - Bayonne

"Dude, he's a total d***"

Gib_Papazian

Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #44 on: February 02, 2015, 04:36:37 PM »
I'm not sure the original query was meant to include golf, a private audience with great historical figures, staterooms on the Queen Mary and tony digs in the Village, but Peter paints quite a picture so we'll give him a bit of dramatic license. The Queen Mary (cruise ship) was launched in 1934, so Braid would have been 65 years old, WWII had not started and Henry Cotton held the Claret Jug aloft at St. George - all that and a Solicitor on retainer. I would have thrown in a brace of tasty English tarts - both pastries and panties, but that is a hallucination for another day.  

As long as we're going to strap in next to H.G. Wells and start turning dials on the "wayback machine," I'm going home - except in 1925. Few, aside from the intelligentsia here on the planet Pendantia, know the Lake Course at Olympic was originally a secondary layout to the fabulous Pacific Links course, routed on the sand dunes and bluffs above the coastline. You'll find a picture of one of the holes, tumbling down to the base of Fort Funston, in the George Thomas tome Golf Architecture in America.

When I was a kid, the older members regaled us with tales of this short-lived, but unbelievably spectacular links course along the water that twisted and turned down the hill, all the way to the water's edge. The old photos are mouth-watering - this mysterious lost treasure, the remnants of which are only visible to the imagination. Tacking my way along the windswept fairway with a flask of scotch and Eddie Lowery (c'mon, he eventually ended up in San Francisco, just a bit later) on the bag would be the first place I'd go.

Time marches on and the last of the members, who remember before the final storm collapsed the dunes and the fairways slid into the sea, have been gone for many years. The only thing I ask is the ability to bring my Canon 5D and a pocketful of cards to resurrect the memory.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2015, 10:05:41 AM by Gib Papazian »

Mark Fedeli

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #45 on: February 02, 2015, 05:09:40 PM »
Great stuff, Gib. Sounds heavenly.
South Jersey to Brooklyn. @marrrkfedeli

Mark Hissey

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #46 on: February 02, 2015, 08:40:42 PM »
It has to be the Lido. Hopefully we will all be able to play it again before too long.

JC Urbina

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #47 on: February 02, 2015, 08:44:53 PM »
Mark,

I thought you were going to say Timber Point!!!

I owe you a phone call.

Garland Bayley

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #48 on: February 02, 2015, 08:51:21 PM »
Cypress Point on opening day.  To be out there with Mackenzie, Hollins, Lapham, and some of the others would be incredible. 

I believe MacKenzie was not there on opening day. If I remember correctly, The Spirit of St. Andrews says he was away and was worried that it would not be well received because of its difficulty. When he read the news of its great acceptance, he concluded that scenery and beauty overcomes many things.
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Chris Mavros

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Re: If you could play any course at any time in history...
« Reply #49 on: February 02, 2015, 09:01:55 PM »
Locally and probably the best example I've come across of a course that I really wish I was able to play in it's heyday is Cobbs Creek Olde.  Such great terrain and from what I've read, looks like the original routing was really fun. 

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