If you could play any course at any time in history...

[Eric Hammerbacher]

I was just looking through Michael Millers "The Art of Golf Design", and some of the courses in the 20's and 30's look amazing with few/small trees. Pine Valley, Bethpage, BCC Five Farms come to mind and would be great choices to play back then.  So I'd have to go along with what others have said - Pine Valley when it first opened.  Although Rye in winter with Bernard Darwin and cronies for the President's Putter sounds tempting.

[Mark Hissey]

Mark,

I thought you were going to say Timber Point!!!

I owe you a phone call.

Well that one is up there Jim. But it isn't Lido.

Have you spoken to Mike?

Call me.

[Ian Andrew]

For Eric,

Shots like this remind me of how massive Pine Valley must have felt, something you really don't feel quite as much now ...




It's interesting how many of the suggestions have a collection of photos that allow you to step back in time.

[Adam_Messix]

I have three courses I would like to have seen in the late 1920s...

1.  Timber Point

2.  Mill Road Farm

3.  Lido Beach

Would also like to have seen Sand Hills when it was just cleared. 

[Kirk Gill]

After all the talk of Merion East, I'd love to go back and play it on opening day, exhaustively documenting each hole for posterity !

That said, I'd also go for playing St. Andrews in, say, 1600. Folks were allowed to play, the rabbits hadn't taken over, and after a few rounds I could head down to London and catch the new play Hamlet at the Globe and perhaps get a glimpse of Elizabeth I.

It's not ALL about golf, after all.

[Scott Wintersteen]

It would have to be in the 1920's.  I think it would be tough to not have The Lido in the top spot here.  It would have been an awesome links golf course to see.  I would go with two other Chicago centric courses, Mill Road Farm and Olympia Fields No. 3 for my other two choices. 

[Mac Plumart]

Dismal Doak
Memorial Day 2015

[Pete_Pittock]

I will defer to the second half, and let Bob Huntley set up a game of wolf at Cypress Point the afternoon of Jan 11, 1956. He should be able to pick up a good four-ball of golfers coming off the course..

[BCowan]

The early years of ANGC

+1 and Inverness in 1920 watching Ted Ray on his way to victory.  Seeing both original  7th holes would have been special. 

[JWL]

Augusta National    Sunday of 1986 Masters
If I was there, that meant I was playing some pretty good golf to be on the course, and I was probably playing with some darn good players.
I would be inside the ropes listening to the loudest roars ever on that course and it would have been before the over the top renovations that followed.
Yep, that would have been a day to remember.

[Patrick Glynn]

Lahinch in 1932 or thereabouts - the true MacKenzie incarnation.

1. Routing updates to the front 9 out in the dunes; in particular the 6th, 7th (out to the ocean) & old par 3 8th
2. Original green contours, in particular 2 & 13
3. Raw, dramatic bunkering

I still hope to find a detailed historic resource of that course, much like Doak had for his restoration of Pasatiempo.

Patrick

[Jason Thurman]

Augusta National Golf Club - New Years Day, 2100, followed by an afternoon round at the oldest nearby public course.

I'd rather be surprised by the future than a tag-along for the past, and I can't imagine a way to learn more about the future than two rounds at diametric opposites in Georgia.

[Mark McKeever]

Mark,

I thought you were going to say Timber Point!!!

I owe you a phone call.

Good call on the original Timber Point!!  The  old aerials show something incredible.

[Mark Pritchett]

Augusta National Golf Club - New Years Day, 2100, followed by an afternoon round at the oldest nearby public course.

I'd rather be surprised by the future than a tag-along for the past, and I can't imagine a way to learn more about the future than two rounds at diametric opposites in Georgia.

The public would be Forest Hills (1926) by Donald Ross. 

[Mike Hendren]

I'm sticking with Augusta April 13, 1986.  You all are vying for 2nd...

Would you be wearing a matching yellow Izod cardigan?

Bogey

[Gib_Papazian]

Hard to imagine such as august group of erudite intellectuals have omitted two such obvious selections:

#1. Pebble Beach - right after Chandler Egan's greenside dunescapes were built. I've only seen a few photos - the most memorable being the 7th hole that most of us have seen. That might have been the best incarnation of the golf course. Yes, they were technically "faux-dunes" - but for sex appeal, tough to beat.

#2. Sharp Park - opening day, wandering the fairways on the bag for Dr. Mac; what a wonderful treasure to have lost. Even the golf course I remember more than 40 years ago was far better than what is there now. Kudos, props and dap' for my friend Bo Links for his tireless efforts to save what is left from the environazis.   

[Alex Miller]

It's hard to imagine because both have been mentioned...

[Gib_Papazian]

Then I retract my post.

Let me add the original Beresford CC (Peninsula Club) - would have loved to see the original Donald Ross course - it remains the only one west of the Rockies.

[William_G]

CPC opening year

[John Kavanaugh]

February 6, 1971. The Moon.

[Tom_Doak]

I will not rank these because I don't know how to rank them, but here goes:

Mentioned already:

Lido
Timber Point
St. Andrews as C.B. Macdonald first saw it
Dornoch in the 1600's  [pretty hard to imagine the 1600's]
Biarritz c. 1905


Not mentioned already:

Royal Blackheath, England - the old 7-hole course as Darwin described it
Dornick Hills, Oklahoma - after Perry Maxwell had finished tinkering with it, and before anyone else started.  I would love to restore it, but this seems like the only way to know what to restore.

[Chris Clouser]

I hate it when Tom Doak steals my answer...  
I would second Dornick Hills circa 1925.

[David Davis]

I have to say at the moment I'd love to be able to play the Noordwijkse, pre World War II before the Germans seized the property. The original course was designed by Harry Colt, so I'm told and was also in perfect links land. I'd love to see how he would of routed it through the dunes. Years after the war it moved to the current location which is really an A location but chose a questionable architect in Pennink in my opinion.

[Dan Moore]

The Old Course in reverse in 1873 with Old Tom, Young Tom and CB Macdonald. 

The Old Course at Chicago Golf Club in 1897 with CBM, HJ Whigham and HJ Tweedie.

Flossmoor CC in 1923 with Francis Ouimet, Chicak Evans and Bobby Jones.

Sand Valley in 2016 with Mike Keiser, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

Sand Valley in 2019 with Young Mike Keiser, Josh Lesnick and Tom Doak.  :-)

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Either Pine Valley or Cypress Point at a time when all the grass had "grown in" then hop on a train and visit Augusta for a nice tranquil round before embarking on a cruise ship to Melbourne where the newly established Royal Melbourne  was beckoning.

I have not checked opening dates here, so my timeline may be unaccurate before anybody junps all over that.
This after all is just a dream...pateints await, back to work