Going Home

[Mike Hendren]

Tomorrow morning I'm going home - 3 hours each way, to play a round at the 9 holes Rolling Hills Country Club in West Tennessee where I learned the game and to visit my parents' graves.  The little club might be my favorite place on earth and it's been 25 years or more since I teed it up there.  Dues were $15 monthly when we joined when I was in the 6th grade.  I won the men's championship in 1974 and 1976, finishing 2nd in 1975 to former Chicago Cub Jim Hickman.  The most recent newsletter says they have 170 members and dues are $90 monthly.  You do the math.

I'm so excited.

What course will always be "home" to you?  Have you been back lately?

Mike

[Brad Tufts]

Tedesco is home to me, and I am lucky that I now live about a quarter-mile from it.

It's been home to my parents' wedding, countless town school functions, graduation parties, charity events, and kids holiday parties.  My little ones at 5 and 1.5 already love it, which is just perfect!

It's just a great group of people, and as a fourth-generation member, I can say there are over 1000 people from the club alone who have known or played with a Symmes or Tufts over the years!

At 6450 par 70, the course is challenging while not overly so, underrated, and sits in a comfy spot in the state's golf history, with almost no national recognition, but plenty of it on a state level.  We have very nice practice facilities.  Add in some very intriguing golf course history over the years to make the GCA nerd in me happy, and the place is just a home run!

[Jason Topp]

Have fun Mike!

My home course was a small town 18 hole course called Westwood in Newton Iowa.  The original 9 holes were all dead straight, generally ran back and forth across a valley with a small creek at the bottom.  The 2nd nine was built much later and worked around a larger creek that served as my source of golf balls each season.

I paid $40 for a yearly Junior pass to play there.  Kids were enthusiastically welcomed by the head pro and the adult customers.  We played daily.  Not surprisingly, the town generally had very good high school golf teams. 

My course was a perfect incubator to grow interest in the game.  As a kid I felt welcomed.  The cost was low (my parents did not let me bowl because it was too expensive but golf was fine).  I got to play with adults quite a bit as they invited me to join their groups.  Dress code was not an issue.  In lower middle class Iowa, jeans and no shirt was perfectly normal attire on a hot day. 

Without any formal program, I learned the rudiments of the game and all of its unwritten rules. 

[Bruce Wellmon]

Cowan's Ford CC, on Lake Norman, near Charlotte, NC. My parents were charter members. I remember walking the course with my dad during construction and picking up rocks from the yet to be seeded "fairways." Was where I learned to play the game. Used to play all day during the summers, with hot dog money in my pocket for lunch. I haven't been back, since right after my dad passed away. The course has changed now. New starting point. Sold a hole or two on the lakefront for real estate dollars. Changed several others for lots. Built some new holes inland.
 
I stood on 18 tee my last round and said I am going to birdie this hole for my dad. A great drive and a disappointing approach later, I drained a 50 footer for birdie. I am certain my dad helped guide that one in.     

[JLahrman]

Mine would be Sharon Woods Golf Course right outside of Cincinnati. It's a Hamilton County muni, hilly but walkable and with quite a few decent holes. When I was growing up in the area in the 1980s they had a daily $2.25 rate for juniors (under 18) for the Hamilton County Park System courses. My brother and I used to take advantage of that quite a bit. The course is for the most part unchanged since then. I haven't played there in a good ten years; I'd love a round there though.

[Greg Hohman]

Powerful topic, Michael H.

Mt. Lebanon Muni outside Pittsburgh PA will always be my home course. I was raised in "Lebo," but did not play the course as a boy. I have made up for that (twice) as an adult. Its nine holes are my home course for different reasons. The story can be found in the story "Crystal Drive" at my website. I am a member in absentia of the senior men's club in order to have a tie to my home course and by extension to my hometown.

Despite being a San Diego CA resident for nearly 30 years, I have never managed to make it my "home." One of the places where I feel closest to belonging is Balboa Park Muni (18 and 9). I live on the west side of the park and could, and really should one day, walk "home."

[Kalen Braley]

A Doak 2-3 muni in Liberty Lake, WA called Meadowwood


Low key, relaxed, used to hang out there alot after work, putt with my buddy, and have a few beers.


Its in a nice scenic spot though, lots of pine trees, usually quiet.....

[Bill Seitz]

There are a few contenders.  I worked at Eaton Canyon and Altadena GCs for a number of years while in college and briefly after.  Victoria Club in Riverside was my home course for the year I played a lot on our club team in college.  I've played the vast majority of my golf at Kingsley for the six years.  But my true home course is probably Santa Anita Golf Course in Arcadia, CA.  It was my home course in high school, and for a lot of the other public schools in the area, including three of the schools in our league and that we played out of league every year, so we played it A LOT.  I was also born right across the street.

[MCirba]

Great idea for a thread, Michael H!


I will give it some thought.

[George Pazin]

I wrote a My Home Course piece based on this theory. It's about my home course, North Park GC, a little muni in the northern reaches of Allegheny County in the Burgh. I was never really happy with the piece, so I never submitted it.


But I will say, nothing feels more like golf to me than teeing it up at NPGC. 6500 yards of wide open goodness, a wonderful walk in the park. It's like a hug from a long lost friend. I can't play there without smiling a lot.

[Rick Lane]

Ridgewood CC in Danbury CT.    Little known Deveroux Emmett course with crazy sloping greens.   
Took lessons as a young kid from a Pro named Bob Cloughan ..... then Benny Jacobellis.  Goal was always to break 60 for 9 holes!  Did see my friend Tommy Mclaughlin get a hole in one though, on the 8th hole there, when we were about 10.  The 8th green was also where we would take our high school dates late at night but that's another story... 
I go back there once every couple of years, also stop at my parents graves.  My dad taught me how to play a Nassau....we used to play for 5c.   And when I got 2 down to him, he told me I was pressing, and I would whine that I didn't want to. 
 To which he would reply, "Then don't be two down!"
Remember it like yesterday. 

[Dave McCollum]

Didn't really start golf until I was 46.  Oh, I had some clubs and played once a year or so, but you all know how that is.  I suppose I'm at my home course because I helped build it when a young man. 

[MCirba]

I wrote a My Home Course piece based on this theory. It's about my home course, North Park GC, a little muni in the northern reaches of Allegheny County in the Burgh. I was never really happy with the piece, so I never submitted it.


But I will say, nothing feels more like golf to me than teeing it up at NPGC. 6500 yards of wide open goodness, a wonderful walk in the park. It's like a hug from a long lost friend. I can't play there without smiling a lot.

George,

I'm a muni rat.

I'd love to see a copy of your IMO piece.

I'm also going to make a point of playing North Hills next time I'm out there which I hope is next spring/summer.   I came across some really good old articles online about its creation some time back.

[George Pazin]

I wrote a My Home Course piece based on this theory. It's about my home course, North Park GC, a little muni in the northern reaches of Allegheny County in the Burgh. I was never really happy with the piece, so I never submitted it.


But I will say, nothing feels more like golf to me than teeing it up at NPGC. 6500 yards of wide open goodness, a wonderful walk in the park. It's like a hug from a long lost friend. I can't play there without smiling a lot.

George,

I'm a muni rat.

I'd love to see a copy of your IMO piece.

I'm also going to make a point of playing North Hills next time I'm out there which I hope is next spring/summer.   I came across some really good old articles online about its creation some time back.

I will try to find my piece. And if you come out here and don't contact me, I will be HUGELY offended and take action accordingly.

[Mike Sweeney]

Walnut Lane GC was my first course. I guess I was destined for this site


http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/walnut-lane/


I follow it on Facebook and I do need to get there one day on a Thanksgiving trip to Philly...

[Matthew Rose]

Riverside in Janesville, WI, an old Robert Bruce Harris design with 9 holes built in the 20s and expanded to 18 in the 40s. There's an old GCA thread about it somewhere.

An old mature parkland layout built on a shelf overlooking the Rock River... to this day it still has some of the coolest holes I've ever played, though most here would bemoan how trees have overtaken the playing corridors. Several holes return to the clubhouse and it is very easy to bounce from one nine to the other; I know the routing has changed multiple times and it was always fun to play holes in the original order in the evening after leagues where I'd go out in a cart and play until I couldn't see the ball anymore.

I began playing here late in the summer of 1985 as an 8 year-old, and played hundreds of rounds there for the better part of the next 13 years, up through age 21. It was also where I had my first job, as a cart boy at age 19.

I haven't played it since 1998, which is nearly half my life ago and kind of unthinkable considering I spent nearly every day there for roughly five months of the year for several years.

There hasn't been much opportunity for me to go back to Wisconsin lately, but I occasionally find myself wishing I could go play it one more time, for nostalgic reasons, but also because I'm far and away a much better player than I ever was at age 21; I'd love to go around there with the game that I have now.

[Joe Zucker]

These are all fantastic anecdotes.  I really enjoy reading them.


Home for me will always be Big Met Golf Course on the west side of Cleveland.  I've seen Stanley Thompson as the designer of record, but I have no idea if that is true and the current course does not have the qualities you would look for in a classic course.  Big Met is an average muni in every way with one tough hole on the back 9, a 450 dog leg right par 4.  A local a few years older then me went on to play at Ohio State and he got a chance to meet Jack Nicklaus.  Rumor has it that Jack asked where he played his golf and the kid said Big Met, Jack replied "That 14th hole is a real b****".  Supposedly he played a junior event there in the 50s and remembered it 50 years later.


When I was playing there 2-3 times a week from 2000 - 2007, a junior could play for $18.  I always wanted to play there because I could wear a T-shirt.  Even when I was a teenager, it was very apparent how different Big Met was from the country club I caddied at and this only added to my love for it.  Whenever I go home, I always schedule a game there much to the chagrin of my friends and family who are local and want to play anywhere else. 

[MKrohn]

Michael H, enjoy your day, not sure I have the same fondness for my "home" club.


Whilst there are a lot of great courses in Australia, very few are in Sydney and certainly not on the north side of the harbour. My club was a nine holer, par 30, not unusual as there were a lot of these small council/muni courses around.


What set this one apart was the difficulty of three of the Par 3s, back to back, they were all over 250 yards, one was even a dogleg. Having to play them twice in a round added to the difficulty. At age 14, it was a solid Bruce Devlin 2 wood, followed by a Kel Nagle wedge or 9 iron to hit the greens.


I note from their website the par on all has now been altered, suppose after 25 years I should go back for a look.

[Nigel Islam]

New Salisbury Golf Course in Southern Indiana. A nine hole course built in the 70s for the adjacent Cabinet Factory. My Dad had an office right next to the course for 33 years. Sadly it has closed and my father has passed.  Course was realistically probably a Doak 1, but those tiny fast greens taught me to putt and chip. It'll always be a Doak 10 to me.

[Greg Chambers]

I was going to post about this in the disdainful thread about par three and short courses, or whatever that nonsense was.


My home course is a nine hole, mostly par three course with tons of quirk but no real discernible architectural features.  But it was right in my neighborhood.  And the snicker bars were twenty five cents, and the cokes fifty.  We hand picked the range for free golf, and I fell in love with the game there.


The last time me and my buddy went back was a few years ago, and our memories of the place had us feeling like we were on top of the world.

[Joe Bausch]

Walnut Lane GC was my first course. I guess I was destined for this site


http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/walnut-lane/


I follow it on Facebook and I do need to get there one day on a Thanksgiving trip to Philly...

http://www.myphillygolf.com/uploads/bausch/WalnutLane/index.html

[Laz Versalles]

Underneath one of the runways at Minneapolis/St. Paul airport lies a place called Rich Acres when my dad would take me to hit balls and play the Par 3. By 6th grade I crossed the tracks to the other side of town to hit the more luxurious Hyland Greens Par 3 and eventually Dwan Golf Club, which we all jokingly called Dwan National Golf Club.
Rich Acres is gone. Hyland is a multipurpose learning center and Dwan remains one of the country's premier Par 68 municipal courses north of Iowa.

[Jim Hoak]

Wakonda Club in Des Moines, Iowa.
Terrific golf course whose only claim to fame was the US Amateur in the early '60's, won by Deane Beman.
Nice piece of rolling land, terrific Iowa topsoil which produced outstanding turf, well designed, although not by a big name, and nice members accepting of young golfers who were learning the game.
It was my summer camp.  My mother would drop me off early in the morning, and get me late in the day.  Later on, I used its minimal practice tee to get better even in the middle of the Iowa winters.
I couldn't ask for a better place to start my lifetime obsession with this wonderful game.

[James Brown]

University of New Mexico North Course. 9 holes that dates back to at least the 40s.  Learned the game there in the fall of 1993.  Right across from campus.  Great views and much better design than I appreciated at the time.  Arnold Palmer won an NCAA individual title there in 54’ or 55’ when it used to be 18 holes.  A monthly student pass was $30.  Went back and played in 3 years ago and it sure felt like home.

[Jim Sherma]

For me it is Bethlehem Municipal GC, now called Bethlehem Golf Club. 1960's William and David Gordon Course that is long and tough. In the early 80's the whites played at 6500-6600 and the blues were 7000+. There were only three sets of tees and all high school matches played from the whites. Back then it was $185 for a junior membership that gave me unlimited golf from March 1st to October 31. Remember not really getting charged the rest of the year.


Went back to play it earlier this year and played from where the old whites were. They now have black tees where the old blues were and where we played it was around 1-200 yards longer than where they have the blues now, with a set of whites at 6100 or so. There are yellow and red tees in front of them.


The course has clearly aged. The green shrinkage was very significant on many holes and obvious to me. At some point the beautiful flashed bunkers that had sharp cuts at the fringes have been rolled over so that most of the bunkers are now flat bottomed with grass faces. This was done sometime in the 90's or so I believe.


All in all still a good challenge. Pretty much everyone that I know that grew up there all hit the ball hard. You really had no choice if you wanted to be competitive. An interesting topic would be how the course you learned on affected how your game developed.