LOVE AT FIRST SITE

[Anthony Gray]

  What course/courses did you fall in love with the first time you played it or saw it? The Bobby Jones comment about TOC comes to mind . THe more he played it the more he appreciated it. But what course did you know was speciel the first time you played/saw it?

  Discuss

 

[Ronald Montesano]

Every single one...I'm no help...It's freaking golf...I love it!

[Anthony Gray]

Every single one...I'm no help...It's freaking golf...I love it!

  Great answer Ronald...a true gentelman golfer!
 

  Anthony

 

[Mac Plumart]

I'm not as gentlemanly as Ronald, I suppose...nevertheless;

Kiawah Ocean!!!

I often load up my pictures of 13 and stare at them.  Beautiful!  But the course is much more than simply beautiful.

[Anthony Gray]

I'm not as gentlemanly as Ronald, I suppose...nevertheless;

Kiawah Ocean!!!

I often load up my pictures of 13 and stare at them.  Beautiful!  But the course is much more than simply beautiful.

  Mac,

  Good answer. The secound hole got me at hello.

  Anthony

[Jim Thornton]

Fishers Island Club.

[Anthony Gray]

Fishers Island Club.

  Peter Luger steak house.

   AG



 

[Eric Smith]

Spyglass.

[Anthony Gray]

Spyglass.

  The first fiive are great.

 Anthony

[Steve Salmen]

I experienced my first (golf) love when I was 19, the first links course I ever played.  She remains the fairest of them all.  Muirfield.

[Anthony Gray]

I experienced my first (golf) love when I was 19, the first links course I ever played.  She remains the fairest of them all.  Muirfield.

  Steve,


  Others?

  Anthony

[Steve Wilson]

I loved Royal Dornoch  before I ever saw it. The drawings in the World Atlas of Golf hooked me. Nothing about it disappointed me, I only disappointed myself in the way I sometimes played it.    

[Ben Sims]

I will forever be a slave to open vistas, fescue, creativity, wind, Seargrams and 7up because of 6 magical hours at...

The Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch.  Thank you Mr. Phil Freidman.

[RJ_Daley]

I first just dropped in from the road at Sand Hills in 1995 or 6, the first spring after the Golf Course Management magazine article.  I was hooked on the Sand Hills.  I only got to tour it that time with the super, Cory.

I first drove into the driveway at Wild Horse after dropping my daughter off in August 1999 for her Freshman year at Creighton.  I went to WH just to see what the two gents who were on the construction team at Sand Hills would do with their own community owned project in a little western edge of the sand hills town.  I was blown away.  That next spring went right to the guy in charge of selling lots that were surrounding the course, and asked if I could buy one.  I got the last one in the bunch.  I just wanted to be somehow 'involved' in that project the minute I saw it.  And, I found that they almost carbon copied a project I didn't get off the ground here in WI. in the early 90s, nearly word for word in the prospectus for the intra state share offering they used to raise $$, along with a totally similar R.E. lot sale surrounding the course. 

WH is everything I think a golf course project should be.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Merion East....and Merion West. 

Peter Luger's too.

[Dale Jackson]

An interesting question ...

When I first played my club, Royal Colwood, I remember thinking as I played #6 if I ever joined a private club it would be there.

First links I ever played was Royal Cinque Ports.  I walked the course with a friend the day before we played for the first time and we were literally giggling in anticipation of playing it.  A few others:

Royal Dornoch
Royal County Down
TOC - it doesn't live up to some players' expectations, it exceeded mine and has continued to do so every time I played it.
Macrahanish - still the most FUN ever playing a course
Bandon Dunes - heard about this real links course in North America and played there the year it opened,
Pacific Dunes - another course at Bandon and as good and as unique as the first
Jasper
Riviera - greatly anticipated, not disappointed.  And even though I had admired and studied #10 from afar, the real hole was sublime, better than I thought.

[Brian_Ewen]

Cruden Bay

[Sean_A]

There are many, but the ones I loved at first blush and continued to grow on me are the course that goes without saying, North Berwick, Brora and Huntercombe.

Ciao

[Gary Slatter]

Love at first sight:
The Old Course   the first sight was great, now I have seen it in many different modes, and different conditions, still loverly
Banff Springs       although the first tee is gone it was still love at first site
Capilano             hard to beat the first or the last time
St George's        have to work here was my first thought, did get the chance 3 years later
RC Down            fell in love with a picture and then found the real thing was even better
Royal Aberdeen   one of the surprises during my life in Scotland

and the view from the clubhouse at Fairmont was so good that I had to come back, similar to my first view of St George's.  On a nice day it is hard to beat!

[Anthony Gray]

 When you walk out on the patio at Sherwood CC and see the 9th and 18th you know it is a special place.

  Anthony

[TEPaul]

"What course/courses did you fall in love with the first time you played it or saw it?"


Misquamicutt.

With most other courses I fall in love with it takes a day or two for the impact to hit me but with that one it hit me as soon as I stepped out of the clubhouse right onto the first tee and looked at that remarkable washboard first fairway. The love did not slow down all day. At the end I was so blown away by all that melded fairway and short grass from the 18th green into the practice putting green on to the clubhouse I recommended something like it at my club and they ended up doing it.


And I guess I would have to say I fell in love with Maidstone the first time I saw it about thirty years ago even if I did say when I stepped to the first tee; "Where is the first hole?"

[Patrick_Mucci]

Maidstone

[TEPaul]

Anthony:

Actually, for first timers at Maidstone the first hole really is so totally amorphous from the first tee I suggest the members play a trick on first timers something like the members of Pine Valley do when first timers step on the fifteenth tee (they tell them to hit it across the lake to the 16th green). With Maidstone, if a first timer on the first tee asks where the first hole is as I did about thirty years ago I think the members should tell them that it's right there behind you (which happens to be the 18th green). From the first tee to the middle of the 18th green would be about a 40-50 yard shot.  

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

It has to be Rosapenna (Old) for me.

A close second and third are Ballybunion & Lahinch.

Dónal.

[Kalen Braley]

Pacific Dunes for me....it was like a revealation...and I didn't even have a chance to play it, I was just driving thru at the time.  When I saw the 1st tee, that bunker to the right of 18 green, the practice putting green, and the 7th green it was a big Wow moment for me.