The First Time You Knew A Place Was Different

[Peter Pallotta]

Terrific thread, gents - thanks, I'm very much enjoying these defining trips down memory lane.  But, Dan, please -- you have got to give me MORE. You are such a good writer and clear thinker, and Sandhills is itself such a 'defining moment', that I don't really want to let you get away with simply saying "everything". Please un-shackle some of that Minnesota reserve and let fly with some POETRY!

Peter

[Dan Kelly]

Terrific thread, gents - thanks, I'm very much enjoying these defining trips down memory lane.  But, Dan, please -- you have got to give me MORE. You are such a good writer and clear thinker, and Sandhills is itself such a 'defining moment', that I don't really want to let you get away with simply saying "everything". Please un-shackle some of that Minnesota reserve and let fly with some POETRY!

Pater (Peter, that is; Pater: Freudian slip, Latinate Division?) --

My companion (I will not say "buddy" -- ever! Worst golf cliche of our time: "buddy trip") on that trip to Sand Hills, Rick Shefchik, has made me eternally leery of "misguided beard pulling" (which, I tend to think, is almost always redundant). So I will not wax rhapsodic about the cosmic glories of any golf course -- even Sand Hills.

Not to mention, no poet am I! (The only poetry I ever read, nowadays, is the kind that could be -- should be? -- just a fine paragraph of prose. Of course, there is almost no market for poetry -- let alone single fine paragraphs of prose.)

This is the best I can manage, on my self-imposed deadline (five minutes!):

From Ben's Porch: Ribbons
Of green 'mid brown hills, stiff winds.
Promised Land Ahead.

Dan

[Peter Pallotta]

Dan - thank you. I understand and appreciate the fact that, from your perspective, this short (and quickly composed) poem was an act of sheer generosity, one that you would not have undertaken save for my having asked for it. (It is, in my un-tutored opinion, quite lovely.) From my perspective, however: while I'd wish to say that the almost pathological distaste you share with Rick for beard-pulling is at the very least misguided, I have to admit that it is probably posters (and beard-pullers) like me who have done much to engender that aversion. Nonetheless, I think that if you would peruse again the other posts on this thread, you will find dozens of heart-felt paeans from the likes of Michael and Sean and Gib etc that are as far from beard-pulling as a slice is from a hook. I could wish that those posts would be your model instead of (and I'm perhaps assuming too much) any of my past posts that managed to pull the beard right off my face (metaphorically speaking, of course -- which reminds me of a thread I'd like to start about what courses Socrates would've wanted to play before taking hemlock, and what 20th century physicists he would've wanted to round out his foursome). Thank you

Peter

[Dan Kelly]

I think that if you would peruse again the other posts on this thread, you will find dozens of heart-felt paeans from the likes of Michael and Sean and Gib etc that are as far from beard-pulling as a slice is from a hook. I could wish that those posts would be your model instead of (and I'm perhaps assuming too much) any of my past posts that managed to pull the beard right off my face (metaphorically speaking, of course -- which reminds me of a thread I'd like to start about what courses Socrates would've wanted to play before taking hemlock, and what 20th century physicists he would've wanted to round out his foursome). Thank you

Peter

Thanks for the recommendation, Peter. Will read the thread after my actual deadline.

[Michael George]

Easy for me, when I played the courses at Bandon Dunes.  

Up to that point, all of my golf experiences had been "aerial" golf courses.  I had played Arcadia Bluffs and thought that I had played a "links like" course..... but realized after the Bandon Dunes courses that Arcadia is not links golf.  

Bandon Dunes opened my eyes to links golf and the joy of playing golf along the ground.  Since my visit, I have looked at golf differently.  If a design does not use the contours of the ground so that the player has the option of playing through the air or along the ground, I just don't enjoy it as much.   I am not Melvyn and think that only pure links golf is great golf (I loved courses like Pete Dye GC and Pikewood in West Viriginia), but they simply don't stir my golfing soul like great links golf.  I do have one caveat -  I don't subscribe to the theory that links golf must be played on a body of water.  The links golf in the Sand Hills of Nebraska and Colorado is fantastic.  

The best example for me is Whistling Straits.  I loved the golf course and thoroughly enjoyed my round, but I had the feeling after playing that it simply was not as good as it could have been (I played it after Bandon Dunes).   Yes, it was difficult and playability is a problem for some, but that was not my issue.  My reservation was that when I was done playing it and looked back at each hole, I just couldn't think of many shots that provided an option along the ground.  It was full of risk-reward shots through the air, but the ground rarely came into play or dictated where the ball would go.    

[Nick Spears]

The Prairie Club in Nebraska. The width of the fairways and just how much "fun" the course was! Growing up loving parkland style courses like Medinah, I was in a different world. I wouldn't say I hate parkland style courses now but they're definetly not at the top of my list.