“The course that my soul loves best”

[Tommy Williamsen]

The full Bernard Darwin quote is, “There are several very excellent courses in Wales, but I am quite determined to put Aberdovey first-not that I make for it any claim that it is the best, not even of the strength of its alphabetical pre-eminence, but because it is the course that my soul loves best of all the courses in the world. Every golfer has a course for which he feels some such blind and unreasoning affection. When he is going to his golfing home, he packs up his clubs with a peculiar delight and care; he anxiously counts the diminishing number of {train} stations that divide him from it, and finally steps out on the platform, as excited as a schoolboy for the holidays. A golfer can only have one course which he feels quite in this way, and my one is Aberdovey.”

Most of us have read at least portions of this quote. When I read it again my thoughts first turned to Four Streams, a Smyers club outside DC. It is strictly a golf club. I would get there two or three times a week for the sixteen years I was a member. When I retired and moved to western Virginia, I reluctantly gave up my membership. It had only 250 individual members but fell on hard times after 2008, as it was everyone’s second club. The members were in love with the golf and the club. It had some of the best food of any area club. I was friends with the person that sold the land and the developer, Joe Meyerhof, that built it. He had his own plane, and we flew to bunches of courses. Smyers modeled our bunkers after San Francisco GC. I brough him there to see it in person. My best friend was a member. Every Saturday we would play 36 holes. We would throw our clubs over our shoulders and walk 18. For the second 18 we would take our regular caddie, who knew our games well. We would have lunch and dinner in the small cozy clubhouse and chew the fat with other members.

As quickly as I thought of Four Streams, I thought of Musgrove Mill, for twenty-five years my away club. It was an eight-hour drive for me but two or three times a year, three or seven friends would make the trip, park our car for three, four, or five days and never leave the property. It had a regular Friday match we were invited to play in. It is, for my way of thinking, Palmer’s best course by a mile. Even Ran agrees with that assessment. The course weaves its way around wetlands and the Enoree River. The head pro for my entire time was Jeff Tallman, who is still there. He is a pro’s pro. An old-time pro that made every friend feel like an honored guest. The GM for most of that time was Barbara Love. She hugged every guest like a mother welcoming her children home. The cook for was, Deborah who would check the guest list and order food that she knew they loved. One of my friends loved country ham. Without him even asking for it she would just bring out his breakfast of fried eggs, potatoes, and the country ham.

Sometimes I would go alone. Very often I would leave church on the morning after Easter and go alone. I never had trouble finding a game. One of my regular partners, and in whose home I would periodically stay, was Doug Mahan. He had memberships at New South Wales, where he spent the winters, and Diamond Creek, but his first love was Musgrove Mill. Every year there would be a competition comprised of MM members and his friends from Australia, who would make the trip for the contest. The course has Bermuda fairways and some of the best bent greens in the south. It has had only one Superintendent since the club opened. Alas Doug died and we fired off his ashes from the top of the fifth tee. Unfortunately, the wind was against us and a little bit of Doug left with us.

There are indeed places that stir our hearts like no other and we thank God that we found them. Their memories warm our hearts and make us smile when we think of them as we fall asleep at night.

[Ronald Montesano]

I find that the course that my soul loves best, has little to do with the course. Instead, it has to do with courses that I played when I was young. My parents, who were not golfers, would find a way to get me on courses when we took on-the-cheap trips to New England in the summer. We would always go to coast, but they would stop along the way if something was available.


Two that I didn't get to play, as the clubs would not let me out, were Woods Hole and Cape Arundel. I'd like to play them some day.


Two that I did get to play were Taconic and Webhannet. I've been back to Taconic, and my older soul ceded path to my younger one. I suspect that it would be the same with Webhannet, if I ever return.

[Jim Hoak]

I can’t think of a better question for GolfClubAtlas.  I want to think more about my answer.
But I do agree with Ronald that the answer is probably related to memories of a time of our life of deeper meaning—trips with family, friends, loved ones.  Maybe related to learning the game we love.  Or finding meaning in our life through the game of golf.  Golf means so much more to me than a game.  And courses I love, like songs, usually relate to memories.  “Every melody is a memory.”

[John Emerson]

This answer is extremely easy for me.  The answer is Kilspindie.  It did something to me that the other golf courses I’ve come across in my life have never done.  It made me feel like I was in a dream.  Like magic.  I have played some really amazing places, but none of them made me feel the way I feel when I am there.  When I walked up from the car to the clubhouse it felt like I was always supposed to be there.  Like I never left, even though it was my first time.  It spoke to me and it felt like the course was telling me “welcome home old friend”.

[Adam Lawrence]

For me it is Askernish, and it has been since March 2006, when I was lucky enough to be a part of the group that started to recreate the course. Part of my soul is always in South Uist

[Thomas Dai]

The 9-hole St Olaf course at Cruden Bay.
Played it a zillion times and could happily play it a zillion more.

atb

[Dave McCollum]

For me also an easy answer:  the Snake River Canyon, Twin Falls, Idaho, my hometown.  I wasn't much of a golfer as a kid, but my parents had a membership at the Blue Lakes CC, a scruffy and quirky 9 holer built in a rocky 500 foot deep canyon where massive pristine springs feed lakes and streams and tumble down to the river.  While our parents played golf we explored this wild place.  We eventually built a secret "fort" where camped out living off the land.  Nobody knew were it was except a hand full of kids sworn to secrecy.  To us it was our Eden and we were Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. 


When I was in high school, my father started buying up the old orchard land across the river and eventually built his own 9 holer he called Canyon Springs while I was off to college and see the world.  I came back some 25 years later.  While I was gone both courses expanded to 18 holes.  I few years later, after my kids were mostly grown, I learned how to play golf and become properly addicted.


And here I am today, still fooling around with a golf course, and living where it all started.               

[Jeff_Brauer]

The courses I recall most fondly are Royal Melbourne, Seminole, and SFGC, at about equal levels.  Great courses, no doubt.  They have an ambiance matched by very few.  They have their own soul as well, whereas most courses wouldn't have a soul even if Aretha Franklin was singing when you teed off on no. 1.


I think circumstances helped a bit, i.e., being in the Australian Sand Belt, playing Seminole (3 times, but once with Pete Dye) and making my second hole in one at the famous duel hole at SF.


As to which of my own designs I connect with most......well, that would be like picking one of my three kids as a favorite.  I might have one, but of course, I can never say that kind of thing out loud.

[Tim Martin]

It will always be Yale for me. I remember being awestruck the first time my father brought me to play in 1984. Hundreds of rounds have ensued since then with him, my brother, and an assortment of family members and friends with every one being special. Unfortunately my father is no longer able to play but there are enough memories to last a lifetime and I continue to make my own going forward.

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Tommy,


As a now 26 year member at Musgrove Mill GC, I could not have said it better.  Many of the same thoughts and memories. 


26 years later and I will still gladly answer to the name "New Boy" that Doug bestowed on me without so much as a thought when he hollered from 40 yards away as they were headed to the first tee to ask this new young member if I wanted to get in their regular game.

[MLevesque]

It will always be Yale for me. I remember being awestruck the first time my father brought me to play in 1984. Hundreds of rounds have ensued since then with him, my brother, and an assortment of family members and friends with every one being special. Unfortunately my father is no longer able to play but there are enough memories to last a lifetime and I continue to make my own going forward.

Tim, I’m with you;  Yale speaks to my golfing soul.  I’m blessed to live close by and be a member. It doesn’t matter if I shot a 75 or 87 (which I did both this week) the experience, alone, with old or new friends is soulful.

[David Ober]

What a great question.


Was going to write a long-winded, personal story, but figured brevity should win out: Lakeside Golf Club in Burbank for me, no question.


Just so many great memories there.

[Tommy Williamsen]

What a great question.


Was going to write a long-winded, personal story, but figured brevity should win out: Lakeside Golf Club in Burbank for me, no question.


Just so many great memories there.

Go ahead and be long winded.

[David Ober]

What a great question.


Was going to write a long-winded, personal story, but figured brevity should win out: Lakeside Golf Club in Burbank for me, no question.


Just so many great memories there.

Go ahead and be long winded.

I shall, Tommy. Thank you....









Forgive the long, narcissistic response, but I'm really struggling to play decent golf now due to spinal stenosis, and it will feel good to write this. Skip if you don’t like reading about someone’s (not all that glorious) glory days.


For me, the course is most definitely Lakeside in Burbank, California. Just holds so many fond memories for me -- and I love the course, to boot.


I was not a golfer growing up, I was a baseball player. Fell in love with the game when a shoulder injury my sophomore year in college ended what would have certainly been a non-descript minor-league career had I been drafted out of college my junior year, which I was on-track to being.


Took up golf, fell in love with the game, got down to scratch quickly, but was certainly no good as a "new" scratch golfer -- especially in competition. The years went by and I played mostly club golf and inter-club "team play," but didn't play much serious amateur golf. I simply didn't understand the world of golf at that time. I was/am from Riverside. I knew nothing of the L.A. clubs or the NorCal clubs yet.


Started to dip my toes in local and regional stuff in the late 90's, and by the early 2000's, I got down to +3 or better for a stretch and was competing against local pros and top ams in skins games and money matches and holding my own -- albeit with a spastic mind and twitchy putter under pressure.


In 2004, at 37 years old, I entered my very first SCGA event and qualified for the SCGA Am at Hillcrest, playing against D1 college boys and top mid-ams and a few elite seniors. I made the cut, finishing 33rd. I also made the cut at the Mid-Am that year at Pauma Valley. I remember my friends being amazed, while all I could think about was how horribly I had played and how many stupid mistakes I had made!


2005, I qualified for the SCGA Mid-Am at North Ranch and finished 3rd, winning my first SCGA "plate" for a runner-up finish. I was on cloud nine. The best thing about it, though, was the friends I was making: guys from other clubs and guys who had won SCGA (and even USGA) championships. A whole new world was opening up to me.


And that's when I decided to write to Lakeside. I had heard about the Kelly Cup and a buddy said to go ahead and write to the head pro to try to get in the field, so I did. Explained that I had just finished 3rd in the SCGA Mid-am, finishing ahead of many of SoCal’s very best players (which I proudly trumpeted), and gave him a few other local finishes from previous years, and waited. A while later he wrote back that I was in. I was both excited and nervous and couldn’t wait for the tournament to come.


From the moment I arrived at the Lakeside for my practice round I was hooked -- the course just spoke to me, and the staff and members couldn’t have been nicer or more accommodating. They treated me like a member from day one and still do to this day.


With a par of 70 and only two par-5’s (one of which is virtually unreachable), the course sets up great for a relatively short-hitting player with a short-iron/wedge game like me. Its combination of short and medium-length par-4’s and quirky par-3’s (“short” 15 – all 78 yards of it -- is one of my favorite holes in golf, and then there’s the par 3.5, 240-yard 9th, a beast!), meant that I could compete with “The Bombers” if I played well. And at the Kelly Cup, it was even more possible for me to compete because the greens were so tiny and the rough was so long and thick, that missing a green could mean double-bogey for those with “problematic” short games, and that’s one problem I don’t have. Lack of length and a spastic mind, yes, but my short game is decent.


It wasn’t uncommon at The Kelly Cup, all the way through 2014 or so, for 4-index golfers to shoot in the 90’s – especially those with weak short games. I know that’s not the kind of course set-up that many here think is ideal, but the young me just loved it. And hell, I didn’t know any better! All I knew was that Lakeside was, by far, the most challenging course/conditions I had ever played in my life – and at only 6600 to 6700 yards! And it didn’t hurt that it was immaculately maintained and that I met Andy Garcia and Joe Pesci and used Kevin Costner’s locker my first time there.


I played well and made the 15-player cut (usually 40-50ish scratch or plus-index golfers in the field) in my first try and I was hooked. The best I’ve ever finished was 5th a few years back, but it’s just one of my all-time favorite places for all those reasons. I also love that the club has a great wagering culture. I love the trophies they give out. I love the history of the club. And I love the people I’ve met there over the years – both members and staff.


And now I love the course even more. With the Board and Robert Hertzing’s amazing leadership and direction, the course has become an absolute gem. Tree removal, green size reclamation, and run-up work (among many others things, I’m sure) has resulted in a much more “playable and fun” Lakeside, but it’s still a course that can challenge the very best when the greens are firm and the pins are tucked. I just can’t get enough of it. I’ll be out there this weekend for The Bob Hope Invitational this weekend, in fact.


Finally, a few years back, I played one of the best rounds of my life in a year when the course was perhaps playing its nastiest. In the opening round, I shot 69, and in so doing, joined a pretty cool group: mid-amateurs/seniors who have broken par in a Kelly Cup round. That score was the only round under par the entire tournament, and I will never forget it. Sadly, sitting at even par on the fourth hole in round two, my back spasms made an appearance. I couldn’t make a real swing at all from then on. I hobbled around on one leg for an 86 – and still made the cut, if you can believe it.


I was not going to WD, so I played day three, also on one leg. I was in the middle of 8 fairway on my way to grinding out another mid-80’s round, when the tournament chairman, Jim Grover, drove up to me and handed me a sterling silver bar for shooting low round of the tournament (the “regular” Kelly Cup is just two rounds). I’ll never forget that moment and how it made me feel. For a baseball player from Riverside who always felt like an outsider as a golfer, I can tell you it made me feel pretty damn good.

[Rob Marshall]

Lakeside is the course you look down on from Universal Studios correct? What makes it so hard? Can’t just be the rough around the greens?

[David Ober]

Lakeside is the course you look down on from Universal Studios correct? What makes it so hard? Can’t just be the rough around the greens?

Until the tree removal and green square footage reclamation, Lakeside had some of the smallest greens of any course in the world. I would be surprised if it was in the top (bottom?) five smallest in all the way until 2014ish?


Course also had lots of trees, which meant it was a very difficult driving course, and you would just have to play the old Kelly Cup to understand how thick the rough was. U.S. Open rough that was just brutal. Greens running 12.5 to 13.5 with virtually every pin tucked such that a short-side miss meant 6-12 feet, at best, to save par.


As I mentioned, guys with mediocre or bad short games just had no chance most years.


One year (2012?) they decided not to get the course in "Kelly Cup shape," and scores were far lower. That year alone, I think they were 10 to 12 rounds in the 60s. That has not happened before or since.

[Jeff Schley]

I was not going to WD, so I played day three, also on one leg. I was in the middle of 8 fairway on my way to grinding out another mid-80’s round, when the tournament chairman, Jim Grover, drove up to me and handed me a sterling silver bar for shooting low round of the tournament (the “regular” Kelly Cup is just two rounds). I’ll never forget that moment and how it made me feel. For a baseball player from Riverside who always felt like an outsider as a golfer, I can tell you it made me feel pretty damn good.

David, wonderful story and really appreciate your insights as feeling like a former baseball player playing golf, while an outsider to exclusive private clubs. Congrats on your accomplishments, I'm sure Jim Grover would love to know (if he already doesn't) how much that moment meant to you. As Frosty Westerling (college fb coach) said in his book, "make the big time where you are".