[Mike Hendren]

Last night I dreamed I was back in rural West Tennessee at the modest 9-holer I grew up on.  I was hosting friends and trying to explain to them what the course meant to me.  I choked up and began to cry.   This is not the first time I've had this dream.  Another dream is that during my annual visit I discover they've taken down all of the pine trees that were planted 40  years ago and returned the course to the wide open cotton field it previously was.  It's hollowed ground and after 50 years it somehow survives and even thrives under the management of my high school English teacher.   


The little course means the world to me.  Can you relate?


Mike

[Mark Pritchett]

Yes, most of us can relate. 

This site is becoming too "Top 100" driven.

[Jim Tang]

There is a course that is about five minutes from my childhood home.  It was a very modest public golf course that my brother and I played just about every single day in the summers while growing up.  The course offers little in terms of architectural value but it has great personal value to me.  Without question that course is a mile marker in my childhood.

[Joe Bausch]

I think I understand this pretty well, Bogey.

I'm thrilled that I get to play a whole bunch of awesome Doak 7 or higher courses.  I think my enjoyment of those great courses is enhanced by regularly seeing Doak 2 or less courses. 

P.S.  There may be only one person in the world that has played more Doak 1 courses than me (Mike Cirba!), and we always find something fun at these places, too.

[Steve Lang]

   Bogey,


Ottawa Park, Toledo, muni quarter mile from childhood home, down dead end street, past Wright's Greenhouse and across some RR tracks...  met all my high school buds there in grade school from neighborhoods N, S, E & W of the park as Pro let kids play for 50 cents before 10 am during week... get dropped off early morning, play 18, walk home with another handful on walk home, then go play baseball or go swimming.   We have annual memorial toonamint there every summer...  more important ritual to me than playing Inverness, full of memories for sure, but never dream about it!

[Mark_Fine]

Michael,
If you have read some of my recent threads, I would love to see much more discussion on non Top 100 golf courses.  That other Hallowed Ground thread was just to point out that many of the greatest golf courses in the world have all gone through change over time and not by the original architect.  It is the circle of GCA. 


One of my favorite Hallowed Ground courses is a course by the name of Fox Hollow in Quakertown.  It is daily fee $25 a round track were I learned the game.  It still brings up goose bumps when I go to play it which I do every once in awhile.  So many memories 

[Sean_A]

I dig Bogey.  My hallowed grounds include Kington, North Berwick and maybe a fairly recent new comer for me...Alnmouth Village. Maybe one day I might even include Cleeve Cloud....we'll see what happens later in the year. I admire and have a lot of time for many others, but I don't know them well enough to proclaim them hallowed ground.

Happy Hockey

[Tommy Williamsen]

My hallowed grounds are NLE. I really learned the game at Ft. Meade, MD. They had two decent courses, of course I thought they were world class. When I was old enough I worked on the grounds crew. I'd get there at 5am and play til my Dad would join me at 4:00 and we'd play nine. My pros were Carl Rasnic, with whom I stayed in touch til he died, Lou Graham, the 75 US Open winner at Medinah, and Bill Sporre, whom I kept in touch with til he retired.


One day a half dozen cars showed up escorting a limo with five stars on the bumper. Generals came and went all the time, but not like this. It was Ike.



I knew every blade of grass and every green. I made a double eagle on the ninth hole of the Applewood Course and still have the ball. It is a Stylist. I don't think they made many of them.


It's hard to think they no longer exist.

[Peter Pallotta]

I envy you gents: I imagine that when it comes to golf, there is no hallowed ground like that of childhood -- those early fields of play when our capacity for play was at its greatest and our enjoyment of that play was pure and as yet untrammelled. Alas, I didn't take up the game as a child, nor as a teen or a young adult, so have no memories to savour and no such hallowed grounds. It's probably one of the reasons I read & post here, ie to get that experience second hand, as it were, and to think/talk about golf courses that might, even today, played for the first time, provide me with my very own hallowed ground. So far with the courses I've played I'm batting 0 for 150 -- but there's hope still. That transcendent experience is out there somewhere. 

[Thomas Dai]

Hallowed round courses, maybe even better when played with equipment of the era when you first recall playing them (or when they were built).
Atb

[Peter Sayegh]

Michael H,Only six days in but this will remain the best topic of the year for me.I can relate. Thanks for reminding me why I love this game.

[Paul Jones]

Mike,


My story does not have a happy ending... I grew up on a little 9 hole course that my grandfather help build.  I spent almost ever day of the summer playing golf, swimming and some tennis.  I remember every hole, bunker, ditch, pond, etc...


Now it is a gated subdivision behind my parents house.

[Garland Bayley]

Anthony Gray goes back to White Day

https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,43810.msg950657.html#msg950657

[Garland Bayley]

Garland Bayley revisits Jawbone Creek

https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,62391.msg1483985.html#msg1483985

[Bill Seitz]

Arcadia (CA) Par Three.  The first course I ever played, and the last course I ever played with my dad.  Sure, it's a par 54, but it's probably the first place I ever broke 90, 80, 70, 60, and eventually 50.  The second to last round I ever played with my dad, I shot a seven under 47.  No place to write home about, but for my dad, it was a great place to teach his kids to swing, chip, putt, and most importantly etiquette and how to carry yourself on a golf course.

[Nigel Islam]

New Salisbury Golf Course in New Salisbury, IN. First place I played and sat adjacent to my father’s office for the 34 years he was there. Sadly neither he nor the course are still around, but this nine hole course had some of the slickest, smallest greens you will ever see.


Honorable mention goes to Jasper Country Club in Jasper, IN. This was also a quirky nine hole course with terrific greens that no longer exists.

[Ryan Hillenbrand]

Chesterfield Golf Course was it for me. It was in the Missouri river bottoms, flat as a pancake. It was fast and firm before anyone (outside of this forum) thought that was cool. I hit 2 iron constantly and it just rolled forever. The guy who owned it also designed it. His name was Ken Samples.


Some friends and I would play it 2-3 times/week in the summer, teeing off about 4pm when it felt like it was 110 degrees most days. It was a par 68, 34 on each 9.


One day I made the turn in 31 - still the best 9 hole round I've shot in my life. We get off 9 and my buddy mentions to the guy in golf shop I was 3 under. He says the course record is 63 held by Ken (which was hard to believe considering how easy this place was) and asks if I'm going to make a run at it. My buddies look at me and I just say "I'm going home"

I'd like to say it was a Nicklaus-esque moment where I walked off to the preserve the record of the head pro, but I instantly felt a sense of panic of high expectations and I knew I'd fold like a cheap suit on the back 9.  So walked off into the sunset, like George Constanza leaving the board room after a good joke. Better to preserve the legend.

Years later the Corp of Engineers bought it to rebuild a levee and make way for a giant shopping center

[Terry Lavin]

  Bogey,


Ottawa Park, Toledo, muni quarter mile from childhood home, down dead end street, past Wright's Greenhouse and across some RR tracks...  met all my high school buds there in grade school from neighborhoods N, S, E & W of the park as Pro let kids play for 50 cents before 10 am during week... get dropped off early morning, play 18, walk home with another handful on walk home, then go play baseball or go swimming.   We have annual memorial toonamint there every summer...  more important ritual to me than playing Inverness, full of memories for sure, but never dream about it!

I played there as a child with my cousin who also lived only blocks away. Still does.

[Ira Fishman]

Edgebrook, Billy Caldwell, and Chick Evans. Three Cook County Park District courses and all three still going strong as far as I know. We started playing as a lark as a break from sandlot baseball and fell in love almost 50 years ago.


Ira

[Steve Lang]

  Bogey,


Ottawa Park, Toledo, muni quarter mile from childhood home, down dead end street, past Wright's Greenhouse and across some RR tracks...  met all my high school buds there in grade school from neighborhoods N, S, E & W of the park as Pro let kids play for 50 cents before 10 am during week... get dropped off early morning, play 18, walk home with another handful on walk home, then go play baseball or go swimming.   We have annual memorial toonamint there every summer...  more important ritual to me than playing Inverness, full of memories for sure, but never dream about it!

I played there as a child with my cousin who also lived only blocks away. Still does.

Terry Lavin, I lived on west side on Cheltenham, in Old Orchard, started playing there in 1961... do you remember which side of OP or the street where your cousin lived?

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