JimB,
As you know...it was an epic show.. Opening with a Hell in A Bucket into a rippin' Franklin's Tower before getting down NMB, Loser, Bird Song then onto Iko Iko, LLR, Deal, Gimme Some Loving, Watchtower, Wheel Wharf Rat, etc.... All under a beautiful starry night!
It was also the first day I had ever stepped foot on SFGC (or any AWT west of the Rockies). What an eye-opener*
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Having played all else around the Bay Area and raised playing all over Westchester, NY, I thought I'd gotten into McFly's DeLorean and landed in some distant and exotic arboretum-like nirvana, broken up only by a number (more than were members!) of perfectly-shaped sandy pits. I was mesmerized and enchanted. Most definitely one of those magical epiphanies about golf architecture that lasted for a lifetime. And all of this before the natural mind-alterations to follow that day.
Later, sitting in the stands at Olympic and doing golf's version of "Fear and Loathing," I started blathering about the strategic values at SFGC to all within earshot. It was a mere miracle I wasn't hauled out and given the pre-Birdman heave-ho. In hindsight, it's pure luck that not once did the thought of course rankings ever cross my mind....or my mug would be on a most-wanted poster etched into some irrigation pump box behind an outhouse out there!
All in all, a most glorious and seminal day in the continuing education of golf course architecture junkie--pre-moron---Dead Head
*Eventual Iris Dilator