Where you began and your future views on GCA

[Jeff Doerr]

I grew up an Air Force kid and my first course was the 9 holer at George AFB in CA. I lived 400 yards from the course and began playing the summer between 5th and 6th grade. I could play 9 for 25 cents! My mom used to give me a buck - I'd play 27 and have a quarter left for a soda.

What I remember most was trying to recover from everywhere. The holes had a defined route, but the desert allowed for most youthful shots to be played back in. OB and hazards that cannot be played out of have always seemed wrong to me.

[cary lichtenstein]

I grew up in Chicago playing muni courses til my dad joined Tam O' Shanter (No loner in existance).

 My first inkling about golf course architecture was when I was playing with my dad and asking him to skip 12, 13 and 14 and going directly to 15.

He asked me why and I said those 3 holes are the same, par 4's, and boring. They were just back and forth parallel straight holes.

I loved the topography (hills I called it back then) of 15 thru 18 and the quirkiness (certainly not a word I used then)  of alot of the front nine.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I first started playing at Fort Devens in Massachusetts fifty years ago. I double as a parade field and training ground for the troops.  I love it just because I love to hit a golf ball.  It would be hard to go back to it today and I believe that the course has been replaced by another.  

[Brad Tufts]

I grew up playing at Salem Municipal in Salem, MA before my father joined Tedesco CC in Marblehead, where both sets of grandparents belonged.

I later learned that Salem is a Wayne Stiles 9-holer built about 1935, and Tedesco had an even longer history connected with both Stiles and Skip Wogan, the founder of the NEPGA, and pro at Essex County Club after Donald Ross.  

My interest in architecture began with the realization of the connectivity of the design histories of the courses I knew to the history of design in Massachusetts and the Eastern US.

It doesn't hurt that we have so many classic courses in New England, and I have been lucky to see a good portion of them.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Jeff,
When you were a kid, was it easier to play #9 down #1 fairway?  Looks like the trees are getting big around the 9th tee presently.
Cheers

[Jeff Doerr]

Mike,

I'm sure I played it that way a lot as I was truly a free swinger as a youth. I had quite a few balls in my bag that were sun bleached. I would always find many a long lost ball in the desert scrub as I went looking for mine.

[Dave Bourgeois]

Brad,

Its funny you mention Salem Muni, as I am not allowed to enjoy its delights at all!  The course hasn't banned me, but my family has.

Both my Grandfather and Great Uncle died of heart attacks on the same hole (roughly 10 years apart).  The Bourgeois family has rightfully decided that we should not play there.  

On my last trip to Beverly, MA I almost went, but opted to play Blackstone in Sutton on my way home instead.  I have a young son, and figured I better do the responsible thing.  

[Matthew Hunt]

I wanted to a GCA since I got my first golf book at 6 (At this stage I had only played the local pitch and putt.

[Guy Nicholson]

I started playing on the sand greens and bush-lined fairways at Ojibway Golf and Curling club in Sioux Lookout, Ont.

I learned that regardless of how many times my playing partner said "no guts, no glory," it paid to lay up when missing the fairway meant losing a ball in the muskeg.