From the man, the myth, the legend...
When I saw this old thread today my first thought was to wonder both how and why you even found it. My next thought in noticing how old it is and that it was never responded to----was to think it has to hold the all time GOLFCLUBATLAS.com record of elapsed time between initial post and first response---an amazing twelve and a half years!
And then I noticed that in the first nine responses today, three of them are architects and three I know and admire greatly---Cowley, Doak and Nagle (to that list I would add Jeff Warne who responded a bit later and beat me to the elapsed time thing but who I also feel basically has all the requisites to be a damn fine golf architect, and I mean right now and today, if he wanted to be-----(why I feel this way is a story for another time).
Then I started thinking about this thread---particularly when it was first posted and I realized it truly was a pretty mysterious time---a mere six weeks after perhaps one of the greatest "mental marker dates" of the last century-----9/11/2001.
I got grounded past our departure day in the 9/11 world-wide airline shutdown for 4-5 days in Northern Ireland when I was over there with a team of eight guys from my club playing some matches against some Northern Ireland clubs (including Royal Port Rush and Royal County Down). None of us had been through anything like that in our lives (Americans all) and so we sort of moped around in a constant mental and emotional fog until the most optimistic of our group announced to all of us----"WTF, we're probably going to be grounded over here for days so instead of moping around in a fog why don't we just keep playing golf?" Most of us did and it was an amazing mental and emotional salve for most of us, I think; but it sure was for me. In other words, it felt sort of like golf itself came riding back in to the rescue. As we trod quietly around that glorious Royal County Down hitting our shots sometimes lost in other thoughts, it seemed like the place was just folding me into its arms somehow. And I believe when I climbed up to the 9th tee and saw those Mountains of Mourn in all their majesty in the background, I probably even started to cry a little. I felt like I could almost hear the spirits murmuring, and it occurred to me that there they stood proud and strong and everlastingly enduring no matter what the day or time held otherwise------a constant observer through all the ups and downs and sideways ages. So I guess an inordinate amount of "mystery" or mysteriousness was on my mind during that remarkable time anyway.
And, as we all remember, it did not go away any time soon, that's for sure. Actually, the thing that gave me some closure or first peace of mind was a seemingly completely unrelated event that happened maybe in the beginning of November 2001. I was watching the Mark Twain Awards that is the annual event where most of the world's best comedians honor one of their own. At this one it was Whoopi Goldberg. They all came up on stage, one after another, and roasted her as she sat peering down from her Queen Box. It was just hilarious. And then the time came for her to depart her Queen Box and come down on the stage to accept her award. She walked to the microphone as the entire theater stood and cheered. Finally they sat down and she just stood there without saying a thing. She might have stood there looking at them in the silence for thirty seconds, but it seemed like an eternity.
And finally she spoke-----"When I heard I got this award I decided I would not come because it just seemed so trite with what is going on in the world now. But then I remembered a quotation from Mark Twain---"Nothing in the world can WITHSTAND the ONSLAUGHT----of-----HUMOR." So here I am and thank you very much."
Also, it was around that same time that NGLA hit me like a ton of bricks with its mysteries but I think the real reason for it is it was the first time I had played in the NGLA Singles Tournament and they had the course playing screaming firm! In those days in America, even with all the tournament golf I had played all over the place for about twenty five years, I was simply not used to seeing an American course play that fast---and that "possible." It was that very thing that gave me that "Blue Thunder Moment" at Exit 7a on the NJ Turnpike as I was driving home from NGLA that lead to my formulation and development of what I came to call the "Maintenance Meld" or the "Ideal Maintenance Meld" (IMM). It is very safe and true to say that kind of maintenance preparation turned the lights up full bore on all kinds of NGLA's architectural nuances and mysteries. What it meant was that all the available options and choices (strategies) that NGLA's ground potentially held or had to offer were all working on all twelve cylinders. The thing is (and I was only out there practicing that first evening), I could try some stuff that had previously seemed unimaginable, and if I pulled it off in tune with my imagination it actually worked. I was alone out there that day and I just wanted to scream with joy!! (maybe I did).
Also, after that I kept going back to NGLA all the time and that is where I really got to know George Bahto. I'm thinking of you George and those good times together on the little slice of Heaven that has to be your personal favorite of all time.
So there you are for now, but being the long-winded story teller I've always been there will probably be more to follow.