Can you ever go home again? Returning to an old favorite

[ForkaB]

A brief exchange with Darren Kilfara on the Spanish Bay thread made me think about how the golf courses we play in our youths often achieve iconic status in our own minds.

What happens when we play these courses again, after years or even decades of our last playing them?  In the last ten years I have played over 10 courses that I knew in another time.  In most cases, the courses didn't completely live up to memory.  In a very few, they exceeded my recollections and expectations.

The courses I have returned to in the past decade (that I can remember) include:

Exceeded Expectations:

Winchester
Carnoustie

Different but Satsifying New Reality:

The Old Course
Woods Hole
Royal Cinque Ports

Lived up to Expectations:

Candlewood (Ipswich, Mass)
Sea Ranch
Gullane
Crail

Did not live up to Expectations:

Stanford
Nairn
Bonar Bridge
Turnberry
Half Moon Bay

Anybody else have some thoughts on this?

[Sean_A]

Rich

You are terribly sentimental this morn.  Anything to do with mid-life crisis?  Ditch the rice burner and get a two seater.  You'll feel like a new man and fit in better with the literary world.  Still, I think you raise a good point.

Courses that exceeded expectations:  

Deal
Hoylake
Musselburgh Old

Courses that did live up to expectations:

Addington
Grosse Ile
U of M
North Berwick

Courses that did not live up to expectations:

Conwy
Muirfield
Swinley Forest
Wyandotte Shores

I will get the opportunity to relive St. Enodoc this weekend and I hope to see Notts again this year if I can get Mark Rowlinson on board.

Ciao

Sean

[ForkaB]

Sean

I've had more than my share of two-seaters (MGB--1966, Alfa Spider--1976, Porsche 944--1982) and it probably is about time that I ditched the sprogmobiles.  Any suggestions?

PS--your list seems to be of 1st time visits, mine was of repeats separated by a decade or more.  Since I haven't played Hoylake since 1981, I won't put it on my list until after Buda IV.

[Sean_A]

Rich

The new Aston Martin is a smart car!  But I think if I was going for pure driving enjoyment on a reasonable budget I would opt for a 3-5 year old Lotus.  If I had to show some care and consideration for golf/family matters I would buy a
Jag XK - probably a 6-8 year old one as these babies tend to retain their value and are expensive.  I have been looking into buying one for my wife.  A decent lowish mileage '98ish is still around £15,000.

No, all my courses are return visits within the last year or so.  I must be older than I look!  Gosh I hadn't played Hoylake, Swinley, Deal, Musselburgh Old or Addington for probably close on 15 years until recently.

Ciao

Sean

[Jim Nugent]

Sean

I've had more than my share of two-seaters (MGB--1966, Alfa Spider--1976, Porsche 944--1982) and it probably is about time that I ditched the sprogmobiles.  Any suggestions?

The new Z06 Vette.  As fast as exotics that cost 4 times as much and handles as well too.  Or so I hear.  

[Sean_A]

Jim

I test drove the new Vette at a Vauxhall dealership.  It does have a ,load of go, but the handling is suspect IMO.  The suspension was too soft.  Mind you, being wrong side drive didn't help much either.  I didn't get a price because the car wasn't for sale.  What do these cars cost?

Ciao

Sean

[Ted Kramer]

Just as Jay Gatsby had trouble recapturing his relationship with Ms. Daisy Buchannen after his time in the army, any relationship from our youth is often difficult to maintain through the years.

-Ted

[Darren_Kilfara]

Funnily enough, the most recent course for which this thread applies for me is North Berwick - the first time I played it (after a break of 7-8 years), I'd have labelled it among "courses that did not live up to expectations, but I've played it a few times since and now it's in the "different but satsifying new reality" list. Which, I suppose, only goes to show how untrustworthy single visits to some golf courses can be!

What I'm still dying to do some day is go back to the home course of my youth (Atlanta Country Club), which I haven't played in 12 or 13 years, and view it afresh through more refined lenses. I'm back in Atlanta for Christmas this year again, so maybe I'll get a chance then, although I'm certainly not expecting any "It's a Wonderful Life"-like epiphanies...

Cheers,
Darren

[TEPaul]

Rich:

A course that I've played on and off over the last few decades is Oakmont. We played it the other day and it far exceeded my expectations. The over-all look of it was even something of a shock, probably the single biggest change in "look" of any golf course I've ever known. You walk past the pro shop to the brow of the hill behind the clubhouse and BOOM---there is the entire golf course on the clubhouse side of the road stretching out before you. For golf courses that were once PURPOSEFULLY treeless, and have been restored in that vein, there can't be any greater poster child for that kind of thing than Oakmont.

To get to that point took a number of years and an amazing amount of contention but now that it's there the fact seems to be that very few to none disagree with the way it is now---which is the way it was when Fownes, who worked on it for decades, left it when he passed on around 1950.

Oakmont is enough different (its architecture and otherwise) from any other course in the US of which I'm aware to make it pretty unique in American golf and architecture, in my opinion.  I think it certainly is in a single handful of America's greatest gems.

And then the course is maintained day in and day out to about as close to the Ideal Maintenance Meld as one can find which of course makes it just sing in play.

[Noel Freeman]

Sean-

Very happy you put my beloved Deal in your top category..  But I wonder if this is you or some golfing doppelganger  who put Swinley down on the failed to exceed list.. Swinley is cute and endearing, what's not to love. Col. Pearce would be upset.. I can list the tenets of the course but honestly every hole is fun to play.. Many find the first mundane but I find the green location and movement exceptional as due Monsieurs Turner and Talley.  The 18th was a bit of a let down but I think the added eyebrow centerline bunker adds some panache...

[Darren_Kilfara]

Tom - I think the Oakmont sensation you describe is somewhat different to the question Rich is asking, which is to see how one's perceptions of a golf course remaining fundamentally the same can change over time. We'll all react to changes - for better or worse - on a golf course with which we're familiar, but it's quite interesting how our opinions to the same raw material as our personalities develop, our tastes change, our knowledge increases, etc.

Cheers,
Darren

[TEPaul]

"We'll all react to changes - for better or worse - on a golf course with which we're familiar, but it's quite interesting how our opinions to the same raw material as our personalities develop, our tastes change, our knowledge increases, etc."

Darren:

Good point. I know what you mean. I can't think of a representative course right now to give as an example to answer Rich's question but if I could it would probably be something along the lines of the sensation I have when I return to America after being in Europe or GB for a time. My initial sensation is always how much bigger everything seems to be over here after being away for a time.

[Mike_Sweeney]

Last summer with a rain out during US Amateur preparation at Merion, we went over to The West to play. While I have played a couple of Thansgiving morning scrambles on The West, I have not played a traditional round of golf there since probably high school.

It was very fun for me to play there again and it was very fun to "shoot 80 at Merion"!

[Tom Huckaby]

Great question, Rich.  And heck, things like this are normal for a man of your advanced age.  Don't listen to Sean.  

Here's some that might resonate... or perhaps not... the SoCals might get a kick out of some... all of these I went at least a decade between playings...

Exceeded Expectations:
LACC North
Cypress Point
Studio City Golf & Tennis
Hansen Dam
Encino GC
Roosevelt

Remained the same from memory:
Lakeside
Woodland Hills CC
Van Nuys par three and exec course

Different, but satisfying new reality:
Balboa GC
Both courses at Griffith Park

Did not live up to expectations:
Calabassas Park CC

Most of the greats in the USA outside CA, and in the UK, I don't have the decade plus separation between plays.

TH

 

[Tom Huckaby]

BTW Rich - I am not at all surprised by your listings of HMB (I assume you mean the Old course there) and Stanford... each of those likely do pale considerably from when you played them regularly.  I've been around HMB enough to know the changes there have not been for the good... and Stanford too I've watched enough to agree with that.

Curious re Sea Ranch though.  Did you play it way back as a 9-holer only, then go back and play the full 18?  Or is that based on just a long separation playing the 9-hole only long ago and then going back?

I kinda dig the new back nine... In fact I have a great fondness for the course - spent a week there a few years ago right after that nine opened, played it a dozen times, really got to like it....

Just curious about your thoughts on this course.

TH

[ForkaB]

Tom

I liked Sea Ranch as a 9-holer in the late 70's and I liked it as an 18-holer in the early Noughties.  That's partly what I mean by expectations = reality.  With a little more TLC and money on the maintenance side it could be a very good golf course.

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom

I liked Sea Ranch as a 9-holer in the late 70's and I liked it as an 18-holer in the early Noughties.  That's partly what I mean by expectations = reality.  With a little more TLC and money on the maintenance side it could be a very good golf course.

Was it really early 90s it went to 18 holes?  Man time flies... I thought it was later than that.

In any case I concur 100%.  For me I'd say though that the 18-hole version exceed expectations... but then I REALLY loved it as a 9-holer only, so my expectations were low for what the new nine would bring... That is, I expected all the feel and charm of the place to be gone.  Fact is, it wasn't.  It's all still there.  I love the place.

Not sure I want more TLC there though... the scruffiness is really part of the fun.  We have PLENTY of perfectly manicured courses, as you know.  What's cool about Sea Ranch is the scruffiness and perhaps lack of water means it plays firm and fast damn near year-round, with an added "randomness" due to the scruffiness that makes it play like a links!  Of course it's not an actual links, but the conditions and feel and the like make it reminiscent of such...

More TLC and a lot of that would be gone, no?

TH

[SteveC]

Exceeded expectations: Macrihanish

Played it eight years ago, played it agian last weekend. I knew what I was getting into, but it was still better than I remembered.

Fun side note - there was an air show going on the next day at the old airstrip next to the course. One of the feaured attractions was a USAF B-1 bomber, which was "practicing" and made about 10 deafening, high-speed, low passes over the course and the strip. We were thinking a well-struck pitching wedge might be "in play," the guy was so low. An awesome sight on an awesome golf course.

[ForkaB]

Tom

The "noughties" is the decade we are in now.

[TEPaul]

"Last summer with a rain out during US Amateur preparation at Merion, we went over to The West to play. While I have played a couple of Thansgiving morning scrambles on The West, I have not played a traditional round of golf there since probably high school.
It was very fun for me to play there again and it was very fun to "shoot 80 at Merion"!"

Mike:

Within the last few weeks while out playing my own golf course with a GOLFLCUBATLASER, Buddy Marucci's long time caddie, Bill Fazio (at the 1995 Newport US Amateur where he lost on the last hole in the finals to Tiger, as well as recently in the US Senior Open at Prarie Dunes) said he couldn't remember that I had ever failed to qualify for match play in something like the Philadelphia Amateur.

I said I was sure I had failed to qualify for something like the Philadelphia Amateur but I just couldn't remember when or where, and so I started thinking about that and it occured to me that maybe the only time I failed to qualify for match play was one year when qualifying was very unlikely at Merion West.

This is ironic as I was pretty short off the tee compared to everyone else I played against and so short courses were definitely my forte. Merion West is not even 6,000 yards and that was probably the only course on which I ever failed to qualify for the Philadelphia Am.

Amazing, and obviously an amazing little golf course that even Bill Kittleman has said has more "architecture" than the far more famous East course.  

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom

The "noughties" is the decade we are in now.

Audible yuks.  Man you need to speak American with me.  I seriously thought that was some cool Scottish way to say "Nineties."

 

In any case I looked it up and you're wrong either way... the new nine opened in 1997.

I remain very interested in your thoughts re TLC, though.  I do prefer it the way it is (or was when I was last there, which I believe was in the early noughties).  Why is such necessary?

[Bob_Huntley]

Jim

I test drove the new Vette at a Vauxhall dealership.  It does have a ,load of go, but the handling is suspect IMO.  The suspension was too soft.  Mind you, being wrong side drive didn't help much either.  I didn't get a price because the car wasn't for sale.  What do these cars cost?

Ciao

I have spent much too much money on exotic cars and consider myself an enthusiast but I feel you misjudge the Corvette. At around $64,000.00 it knocks the spots off of cars costing three or four times as much.

See:

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/FullTests/articleId=107906

Bob

[Dan Kelly]

The "noughties" is the decade we are in now.

I'm all for "naught" -- so I prefer the "naughties."

But enow about me.

[Jim Nugent]

Jim

I test drove the new Vette at a Vauxhall dealership.  It does have a ,load of go, but the handling is suspect IMO.  The suspension was too soft.  Mind you, being wrong side drive didn't help much either.  I didn't get a price because the car wasn't for sale.  What do these cars cost?

Ciao

I have spent much too much money on exotic cars and consider myself an enthusiast but I feel you misjudge the Corvette. At around $64,000.00 it knocks the spots off of cars costing three or four times as much.

See:

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/FullTests/articleId=107906

Bob

I've also heard you can do some after production modifications to the Z06, that make it a real super car that blows all other production cars, at any price, off the road.  

[ForkaB]

Tom

The "noughties" is the decade we are in now.

Audible yuks.  Man you need to speak American with me.  I seriously thought that was some cool Scottish way to say "Nineties."

 

In any case I looked it up and you're wrong either way... the new nine opened in 1997.

I remain very interested in your thoughts re TLC, though.  I do prefer it the way it is (or was when I was last there, which I believe was in the early noughties).  Why is such necessary?

Tommy, Tommy, Tommy

All I said was that I played the expanded course in the Noughties.  I didn't and don't care when it was expanded.  I do hope I don't get you next time I'm on the Yahoo search engine!

Dan

Naughties is better, but the Brits would like it as much as they love the letter "zee."

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