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Paul Jones

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OT: Unique Experiences
« on: June 10, 2022, 10:20:50 AM »
Where have you been that was a unique experience? 


This could be a nine hole muni with a box for honor pay system or could be a private tour of the wine cellar at Augusta Natl.


I am scheduled for a trip to Japan later this year and have not been this excited about a golf trip in a long time because of the unique golf experiences in Japan.   


FYI...I have never played a course with honor pay system nor have I been given a tour of the wine cellar at ANGC and I have never been to Japan.
« Last Edit: June 10, 2022, 10:23:19 AM by Paul Jones »
Paul Jones
pauljones@live.com

Steve Salmen

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2022, 10:48:12 AM »

One of the coolest experiences I've had in golf is driving towards St. Andrews. Just past the hotel, the expanse of grass of 1 and 18, the Swilcan Bridge, and the R&A clubhouse comes into view.  The reaction is disbelief, that you're actually at the home of golf.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2022, 12:47:48 PM by Steve Salmen »

Ally Mcintosh

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Ira Fishman

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #3 on: June 10, 2022, 02:39:27 PM »
Steve,


We had a taxi/tour guide drive us from North Berwick to St. Andrews. When we got to St. Andrews, she gave us a quick driving tour, and near the end turns into what looks like a narrow alley, and we emerge driving on the 18th hole. I almost peed in my pants.


Ira

David_Tepper

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2022, 03:26:25 PM »
Hard to beat playing my first round ever round on the Old Course, followed by a tour of the R&A clubhouse and then lunch upstairs in the dining room.

Jim Tang

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #5 on: June 10, 2022, 04:25:42 PM »
My only round at The Old Course was done by waiting in line at the starter's hut.  I woke up at 2:30 am and walked with my clubs down through the town of St. Andrews.  Everything was perfectly quiet and I didn't see another person on my 5 or six block walk.  It was just such a unique experience capped off, of course, by playing The Old Course for the first time later that morning.

Tim Leahy

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2022, 07:03:30 PM »
17 mile drive in Pebble Beach is the most beautiful drive in the world. Starting at the north entrance you drive past The Links at Spanish Bay, Moss Beach, MPCC Dunes and Shore courses, Granite Beach, Bird Rock, Seal Rock and beach, Spyglass Hill course, Cypress Point Club, the Del Monte forrest, the Lone Cypress, Pebble Beach Golf Links and finishing in Carmel by the Sea and Carmel Beach. The best mix of beauty and golf in the world. 8)
I love golf, the fightin irish, and beautiful women depending on the season and availability.

JohnVDB

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #7 on: June 10, 2022, 07:39:52 PM »
Dinner in the R&A clubhouse.  I was there for their Referees school and the class always ends with a dinner at the clubhouse.  So cool to look at all the history in there.


I’ve played at a few courses with honor boxes.  Durness during the pandemic is the one that sticks in my mind the most.


Running the Palmer Cup at Latrobe CC.  This is the version between the club pros and amateurs in Western PA, not the college event.  Arnold played in it every year.  One year Doc Giffen asked us to rearrange the schedule.  We had a shotgun start for the morning matches.  When everyone finished there was a tour bus in the parking lot. We got in and we’re driven across the street to Mr. Palmer’s office. We toured it and talked with him in his office for a while.  Then we went to the other end of the course where there was a large barn with all his stored memorabilia.  The Penzoil tractor was in ther as well as a huge collection of clubs including one that was supposedly the driver he drove the green at Cherry Hills with although I believe they claim to have it there.


We went back for the afternoon matches and as always, Arnold played for the pros and then hung out in the bar with us for an hour or two telling stories.

corey miller

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2022, 08:38:51 AM »



The one I always think of because it is so hard to describe but playing alone, with hardly anyone on the course, at New South Wales.


I was walking and carrying my bag and on the fifth hole which plays over a hill with a long gentlish slope down to a green on the edge of the water I hit a driver into the middle of the fairway.  I am told a good player should carry the hill but I was left with a blind second shot.


I hit a five iron, which at the time was about a 190 yard club.  I thought the shot perfect, over the crest and down the hill in the middle of the fairway.


Of course, I never found the ball and the "unique experience" part of the shot was that I I searched for about twenty minutes .


  There was wind, and very firm conditions and I could not fathom where the ball could have stopped so my search entailed areas up the hill in the rough that must have been two hundred yards from the green, as well as green side bunkers, the rocks and water beyond the green and  a glance in the hole as I walked by.


How neat that the ball could be anywhere?


Adding an architectural element, perhaps this experience was what initially turned me off from the parkland courses in my area, incuding my own which seem to prize high velcro rough. 


I do think it also turns me off a little from all the modern courses that wind through sand both sides that effectively serves as the dreaded "saving bunker". 




jeffwarne

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #9 on: June 11, 2022, 12:59:46 PM »
Where have you been that was a unique experience? 


This could be a nine hole muni with a box for honor pay system or could be a private tour of the wine cellar at Augusta Natl.





In the last month I have been fortunate enough to do both.(not really an honor box but a volunteer in a kiosk at a unique busy 9 hole "muni")
While the wine tour was "unique" to me, you probably can't guess which experience I can't wait to repeat.
Actually, you probably can.... ;) ;D
Not a complaint, but rather an embarrassment of good fortune.
« Last Edit: June 11, 2022, 05:09:23 PM by jeffwarne »
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Peter Pallotta

Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #10 on: June 11, 2022, 01:26:47 PM »
 :)
Jeff W - and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving fellow, this unique experience that is the very epitome of unique experiences!
Now, to 'pay for' this abundance of good fortune, please share with us: what did you shoot?

Joe_Tucholski

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #11 on: June 11, 2022, 05:06:28 PM »
My time in the US military has afforded some unique playing experiences. 

Being in the national capital region when president Obama, secretary Rice and I shared a home course (weird having snipers off the fairway and seeing a black SUV instead of a golf cart). 

I learned to play at a course where a bad shot could hit a submarine. 

I've played with anti-aircraft and active machine gun turrets off tees. 

Recently played a round in Greenland on a course that wasn't much of a course despite the incredibly picturesque setting. 

I also got to play a lot of golf in Asia and at first I didn't appreciate the customs. I left loving the shower, hot tub and cold tub at the end of the round, so Paul don't skip out on the locker room baths (it was definitely weird at first sitting naked in tubs with 10 other guys but it quickly became normal, although it never felt normal when one would ask me to scrub their back with a luffa). 

My favorite was playing at USAFA the day before graduation.  The fact that I was graduating was  important but also the Thunderbirds practicing for the show the next day above the course.  It felt like a wedge would bounce off the canopy as they flew by.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2022, 05:24:31 PM by Joe_Tucholski »

jeffwarne

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #12 on: June 11, 2022, 05:10:00 PM »
:)
Jeff W - and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving fellow, this unique experience that is the very epitome of unique experiences!
Now, to 'pay for' this abundance of good fortune, please share with us: what did you shoot?


37...
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

archie_struthers

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #13 on: June 11, 2022, 07:59:29 PM »
 :D ;)


My time at Pine Valley stands out in my golf experiences. Meeting so many greats of the game from GCA to tour players was a rare experience and treasured to this day. As to all the members and guests from all walks of life who I worked for , thank you. Many remain friends to this day . For those who have passed the memories are still vivid.



But my special pleasure was to walk the course alone every night after work and try to hit shots and putt those fabulous greens from all angles before the drive home to the shore.  On  many an evening I would drop a bunch of balls around the greens and try to get up and down in two. There were so many interesting shots to try and again those greens. For many years no shot around the green scared me ...not necessarily the case now   ;D


An aside to this is when it gets dark at PVGC it's really pitch black. Scary dark ! You can imagine the Jersey Devil showing up to work on his favorite bunker  :o   though he might be scared of then super Dick Bator too.....lol
« Last Edit: June 13, 2022, 08:53:03 AM by archie_struthers »

Tommy Williamsen

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #14 on: June 11, 2022, 09:32:45 PM »
In 1964 I was a senior in high school. My father was stationed at Ft. Meade in Maryland where I played golf every day in the summer and after school three nights a week. One day during that summer, six black cars pulled into the golf course parking lot. One of the cars had plates that had five stars on it. No state name, just five gold stars. Most of us were hustled away, when a bald old man got out of the car with the five stars. It was Ike who came to play. He hit five shots on the practice tee then headed for the first tee with three other guys. I “liked Ike” after that a lot.
Where there is no love, put love; there you will find love.
St. John of the Cross

"Deep within your soul-space is a magnificent cathedral where you are sweet beyond telling." Rumi

Rob Marshall

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #15 on: June 11, 2022, 10:47:38 PM »
17 mile drive in Pebble Beach is the most beautiful drive in the world. Starting at the north entrance you drive past The Links at Spanish Bay, Moss Beach, MPCC Dunes and Shore courses, Granite Beach, Bird Rock, Seal Rock and beach, Spyglass Hill course, Cypress Point Club, the Del Monte forrest, the Lone Cypress, Pebble Beach Golf Links and finishing in Carmel by the Sea and Carmel Beach. The best mix of beauty and golf in the world. 8)


Tim, again we agree. What is going on? I played Pebble and the next day Spyglass. All I wanted to do was call my dad and tell him how incredible it was but he had passed about a year before. Heading into Carmel for lunch with my wife before driving to San Fran  I could hardly speak. My son is getting into golf and I will at some point take him out there. It’s magical.
« Last Edit: June 11, 2022, 10:59:51 PM by Rob Marshall »
If life gives you limes, make margaritas.” Jimmy Buffett

Sam Kestin

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2022, 12:59:08 PM »
I had the opportunity to experience The Sheep Ranch about a decade before it became the actual golf course it is today. Back then, they just had (I think) a total of thirteen greens and fairways running every which way. A buddy of mine had a friend who had the key to the property, so for a good bottle of whiskey and a few bucks we got to go out there and spend a day picking our own holes ("okay from this tee here to that green there") and basically playing "Choose Your Own Adventure" golf.

While I've played courses before and since that were "better" golf courses, I'm not sure I've ever had a better golf experience. We played something like 54 holes and never replicated a single "hole" while having the time of our lives. At the greensite located at the end of what I think is Five Mile Point, with nobody else on the golf course, we just sat down and grabbed the sandwiches we brought along and ate lunch at the foot of the Pacific Ocean.


It's a shame that this concept is so difficult (probably near impossible) to replicate as it was absolutely joyous.


Curious if anyone on the thread here can imagine how one might replicate this concept elsewhere.


I think The Match course at PGA National has a choose your own tee element, but I'm not sure I know of any full blown golf course that replicates this concept. The Loop is somewhat similar in that you play the same greens from different directions, but it's not quite the same idea. I think there is also something called the Horse Course at the Prairie Club in Nebraska that has some component to it where you are picking the tees, but I'm not sure you have any flexibility on which greens you play to from those tees.


I understand how difficult it would be both in terms of how to handle traffic as well as how to create a viable business model for this idea, but we've got some of the best design (and golf business) minds in the world around here. If there is a way this could actually be workable, I bet someone on here has the idea for how you'd have to do it.

Mark Chaplin

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2022, 03:55:17 PM »
Managing to organise 8 aside matches at Olympia Fields, Flossmoor, Chicago GC, Inverness, Oakland Hills and The Country Club on the same trip will go down as my most unique achievement.
Cave Nil Vino

Ira Fishman

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #18 on: June 12, 2022, 04:26:02 PM »
17 mile drive in Pebble Beach is the most beautiful drive in the world. Starting at the north entrance you drive past The Links at Spanish Bay, Moss Beach, MPCC Dunes and Shore courses, Granite Beach, Bird Rock, Seal Rock and beach, Spyglass Hill course, Cypress Point Club, the Del Monte forrest, the Lone Cypress, Pebble Beach Golf Links and finishing in Carmel by the Sea and Carmel Beach. The best mix of beauty and golf in the world. 8)


Tim, again we agree. What is going on? I played Pebble and the next day Spyglass. All I wanted to do was call my dad and tell him how incredible it was but he had passed about a year before. Heading into Carmel for lunch with my wife before driving to San Fran  I could hardly speak. My son is getting into golf and I will at some point take him out there. It’s magical.


My most personal and meaningful moment on a golf course came a few weeks after my Dad passed away several years ago. He loved the game dearly. After his funeral, I grabbed a few of his balls. On the 16th tee at CPC, I grabbed one, turned toward the Pacific, and drove his ball into the ocean. I am pretty sure I have recounted this story on here before. Evidence of how deeply the moment resonates with me.


Ira

archie_struthers

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #19 on: June 12, 2022, 06:04:32 PM »
 ;D


Ira that was beautiful....thanks for sharing

Tim Leahy

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #20 on: June 12, 2022, 07:40:52 PM »
17 mile drive in Pebble Beach is the most beautiful drive in the world. Starting at the north entrance you drive past The Links at Spanish Bay, Moss Beach, MPCC Dunes and Shore courses, Granite Beach, Bird Rock, Seal Rock and beach, Spyglass Hill course, Cypress Point Club, the Del Monte forrest, the Lone Cypress, Pebble Beach Golf Links and finishing in Carmel by the Sea and Carmel Beach. The best mix of beauty and golf in the world. 8)


Tim, again we agree. What is going on? I played Pebble and the next day Spyglass. All I wanted to do was call my dad and tell him how incredible it was but he had passed about a year before. Heading into Carmel for lunch with my wife before driving to San Fran  I could hardly speak. My son is getting into golf and I will at some point take him out there. It’s magical.
Rob, if you start that drive a little farther north you can include Pacific Grove Golf Links, Lovers Point and Sunset Beach that your wife and son will love.
My folks passed away several years ago but we would go to Monterey at least twice a year on vacation and my mom who didn't play golf would wait for my dad and I at the 17th tee at Pacific Grove overlooking the crashing waves at Lovers Point. Great area and great memories. ;D
I love golf, the fightin irish, and beautiful women depending on the season and availability.

Jon Heise

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #21 on: June 12, 2022, 07:53:15 PM »
My only round at The Old Course was done by waiting in line at the starter's hut.  I woke up at 2:30 am and walked with my clubs down through the town of St. Andrews.  Everything was perfectly quiet and I didn't see another person on my 5 or six block walk.  It was just such a unique experience capped off, of course, by playing The Old Course for the first time later that morning.




Very similar for me.  I was in line by 5am (October, so freezing my Titleists off...) and I had the old starter shack, the 1st tee, 18th green, and the entire fairways all to myself for about two hours.  Just me and the stars.


The crowd started to shuffle in about 730am, I got my tee time set for about 11.  Went back to my room (only a few blocks away near the Castle), crushed a full breakfast, took a nap, then had the best day ever.
I still like Greywalls better.

Paul Jones

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #22 on: June 13, 2022, 08:46:09 AM »
A couple of neat experiences for me, are similar to others stated above. 


I was in my 20s, broke and traveling with my best friend to St Andrews.  We shared a room in a small bed and breakfast and woke up at 4am to get in line at TOC.  That entire week was amazing. 


I was able to play Sheep Ranch 1.0 when it was trespassing.  A friend of mine got to know the Sheep Ranch super and gave me directions and instructions on how to open the gate.  I also got a map with letters for each green and whomever won the hole, got to pick the next green. 
Paul Jones
pauljones@live.com

Jerry Kluger

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #23 on: June 13, 2022, 09:10:37 AM »
Around 7 years ago Michael Whitaker and I played Nairn Portnoo in the morning and we were told by some folks at the course that we had to go and play Cruit Island which we had never heard of. So off we went with the final leg being a narrow one lane road leading us to the course.  We went inside and were greeted by a sign saying we could be lifetime members for 1,000 Euros. We then paid the bartender 15 Euros and played this wonderful 9 holer with spectacular views of the sea from various points on the island.

Jason Topp

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Re: OT: Unique Experiences
« Reply #24 on: June 13, 2022, 03:43:53 PM »

Some golf related meals:

Watching the President's Cup at Sand Hills with Coore, Crenshaw and crew celebrating the 10th anniversary of the course.


Lunch in the R&A clubhouse with Renton Laidlaw at the next table and being called to the first tee on the Old Course just as we finished the meal.  I understand that the R&A no longer allows members to issue guest passes for the clubhouse so I doubt that one can be repeated unless accompanied.


The Lobster/Cigar dinner at the Creek Club.   Food and setting are about as good as it gets.

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