I’m thinking this should be about golf and not about me, but, of course, I tried and that is impossible. I had a very long courtship with the game before falling in love. This evolution may not be interesting but drifting off in these thoughts seemed to be therapeutic for me, if no one else. It was a page or so. This time through I picked off a few sentences and left the rest, mostly personal history where I was when it happened.
Blue Lakes CC. Located in the rugged Snake River Canyon in south central Idaho. 9-holer in those days, hacked out of rugged rock, blow sand, bubbling springs, rapids, and cold, clear lakes. The course occupies the first homestead in the region, the Blue Lakes Ranch, an oasis in the then barren high desert (late 1880’s). As kids we didn’t play much golf (too many other sports). However, during summer we spent countless days roaming the canyons around the course, often camping there for days at a time, living off the land. Apparently our parents were comfortable dropping us off, knowing that if we got hurt, in trouble, or too hungry that we could just make our way back to the clubhouse, get a hamburger, get help, or bum a ride home. So, it was a Huck Finn like adventure that evolved for a dozen summers under the protection of this benign entity, a golf course. I guess we learned how to smack a golf ball at some point, but that was so far down the list of why we wanted to be there, it escapes memory. First and foremost, golf indirectly nurtured a life-long love of nature and wild places.
Canyon Springs GC. About the time I was in High School my father started buying up the land on the other side of the river directly across from BLCC. He did this piece by piece, no doubt helping the owners of the old homestead transition from operating a shabby, run down fruit orchard to a new life (father and son became greenkeepers.) This greatly expanded our free range territory and diversified our food sources beyond hunting and fishing. Yet, by then we could drive, were busy with girls, school, those other sports, and the mysteries of adolescence. The canyon was still an important escape. We just had less time for it.
Off to college and inventing careers. In my mid-twenties, my father announced he was building a golf course. My wife and I were heading to grad school in LA. However, we had a little more than a year with nothing better to do, so I said I would help. Sold our house in Oregon and moved back to a farm house in the canyon that I loved and helped build a golf course. Still didn’t play golf, yet had to learn quite a lot about how to construct the playing fields.
So, off to life in the city for the next 18+ years. I’d play semi-annual rounds of golf on visits home to see how the course was evolving. Maybe every year or so, I’d play with someone visiting SoCal wishing to escape winter somewhere. Wasn’t a golfer. Had some sticks, could knock it around, badly, that’s it.
Moved back to the mountains of Idaho to raise some kids and help run some family businesses because my folks were retired and snowbirds for half the year. This included the golf course. I think I oversaw its operation for something like six years before it occurred to me to play. Only then, after 40 years around golf and golf courses, was I infected with the disease. Should have known better, but love is blind. In a slight twist in how most found their way here, I helped build and design golf holes before really learning how to play (not recommended). Getting interested in architecture was both an occupational necessity and the product of a life-long emotional and visual love for the landscape of golf. Oh, and I liked to read about golf and GCA.
Starting so late in life, I was never much of a player. I am grateful that I reached the peak of my modest competency as a golfer and that coincided with trips to GB&I and being introduced to great links courses. Now, as my skills decline, I’m back where it all started. It all makes sense to me and I wouldn’t change much if I could about how I got here. The exception would be that I could just while my remaining time away helping golfers to enjoy the golf for whatever reasons they fell in love with the game. The business of golf makes this difficult and turns such fantasies toward the cynical. That’s a shame given the great things I’ve learned from friends I’ve shared it all with along the way.
I think I just made the original piece longer. Best to stop here. Golf is a passion, an obsession that makes no sense to the uninfected, and above all, a path to connect to people in a meaningful way that we might never appreciate elsewhere. A small wonder, hardly unique, perhaps boring or mundane, yet it has a soul that may be as transcendent as witchcraft.
Go ahead and tell me I’m full of shit.
Dave