recently I had the all-world thrill of my first trip to Sand Hills
as my trip approached, i wondered if it was as good as the pictures I had seen, since I never saw a bad picture of the place!...
what a jolt to the senses as one gets closer to it, in contrast to the mind-numbing flatness one ussually associates with Nebraska
got to play several rounds of two days there, including the back 9 by myself as the sun began setting the first day...and I do mean by myself, because there was NO ONE else around..how phenomenal that was...talk about QUIET...there only sounds were the birds and the wind ...
then there's Ben's Porch, which has to be one of the greatest vistas in all of golf...to sit up there and enjoy one of their cheesburgers and/or one's favorite beverage...well, things truly don't get much better than that...I think my other favorite spot on the course was back of #2 green, the endless valley below.....that one took my breath away....
and then there's the golf course! God what fun, which is what golf is supposed to be..the wild greens, the absolutely beautiful bunkers, the up- and downhill shots....esp those greens....2 green with that great false front and huge knob in it...after one sees it, one thinks that surely must be the best green out there...but then the very next hole might be ever better!
so many great holes out there, so I shall just cite a few:
1, which tumbles down then back up...2 and 3 as stated already, 8 with the unbelievable green setting, 13, the uphill par 3 with the huge falloff if one is short and right, 17, which ate my lunch most of the time..
and I mustn't forget the staff there, all of which were great
SH made me think of Herb Wind's account of Hogan's 53 Open win at Carnoustie:
"SInce he had never entered a British Open before and since it was probable that he would never do so again, what had happened - his arrival in a strange land, the perfect completion of the task he had set himself, his succinct departure - seemed to be sealed off from all other events, suspended as it were, in a separate and somehow unreal land of its own, so that if it were not known for a fact that there had been a 1953 British Open on that remote stretch of duneland in Angus, you might have thought tha the whole story was the concotion of a garret-bound author of inspiration books for children who had dreamed up a golfing hero and a golfing tale that he hoped might catch on as had the exploits of Frank Merriwell in the days before golf was considered the proper vehicle for the dreams of the red-blooded American boy."
Sand Hills is like that for me. It seems like it is sealed off from the rest of the world, "suspended as it were, in a separate and somehow unreal land of its own."