Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: TEPaul on December 13, 2008, 01:49:38 PM
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Some of the old guys who wrote so well about golf and architecture used this term.
Some may think that by it (if they've really thought much about it at all which I don't believe I ever have until recently) they simply meant the goal or experience of just having fun and enjoying oneself.
I've been thinking more about that term they used back then and I'm thinking they meant a bit more than just that by it-----maybe even a whole lot more.
What do you think?
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I suspect that "an adventure of the spirit" is multi-dimensional. The most obvious of the dimensions to me are 1) the control by the mind over the movement of the body (the mental side of golf) and 2) the opening up of sensory perception to the physical surroundings.
Item #1 above I suspect is obvious, but item #2 is deeper, more fleeting and less susceptible to articulation and interpretation. The greatness of The Old Course, for instance, came only slowly to Bobby Jones. And what sensory perceptions caused Crenshaw to say that NGLA had the greatest golfing ground ? One's spirit is engaged by "stopping and smelling the roses" as much as it is by freeing the right side of one's brain to allow the flowing movement of a proper golf swing.
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jkinney:
How about a #3 that might be something like the adventure of actually welcoming the dealing with more than just a very slight modicum of misfortune and figuring out a better way (both within and without) of dealing with it and even feeling that the ultimate goal is that it has somehow been overcome when the day is done?
Perhaps, even though it seems to be completely counterintuitive to most of us, what if the very idea of apparently inevitable misfortunes was looked upon as a positive somehow? If that were true, maybe we could begin to see it as the other side of the equation from our rewards and we would not be so concerned about equitableness in golf and architecture as it seems so many of us have become.
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Tom -
maybe it's because you mentioned that it was the old guys who used the phrase, but the first things that occured to me when I read "An Adventure of the Spirit" are things like sailing/yachting, and taking flights in crazy Wright-Brother-era airplanes, and exotic big-game hunting expeditions in Africa, and mountain-climbing in the Alps...in short, the exact opposite kind of experiences as those I associate with golf. I think those old guys might've wanted the challenge of testing themselves and their skills and their nerves via golf more than we do today. They wanted to experience the whole range of emotions (in the realm of the spirit)...
Peter
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Peter:
Don't forget, an inordinate number of those guys from back then that wrote on golf and architecture and frequently used that term really did do other things (and did them very well) that you mentioned such as flying in crazy air contraptions, ocean racing etc etc. Are you familiar in that vein with the life and times of the likes of Herbert Leeds and George Thomas, Behr, probably Hunter or even Flynn?
Compared to most of all of us today to say those guys were sort of all-around adventurers is kinda putting it mildly! ;)
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Tom - I only know about Leeds, who I think was a top-flight yachtsman.
Yeah, my adventure of the spirt these days is stumbling to the kitchen to make my first cup of coffee! The only hazard is my little boy's toy fire engine...
Peter
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Tom -
maybe it's because you mentioned that it was the old guys who used the phrase, but the first things that occured to me when I read "An Adventure of the Spirit" are things like sailing/yachting, and taking flights in crazy Wright-Brother-era airplanes, and exotic big-game hunting expeditions in Africa, and mountain-climbing in the Alps...in short, the exact opposite kind of experiences as those I associate with golf. I think those old guys might've wanted the challenge of testing themselves and their skills and their nerves via golf more than we do today. They wanted to experience the whole range of emotions (in the realm of the spirit)...
Peter
Peter, this seems entirely true.
I looked up the google definition of adventure:
"an activity that comprises risky, dangerous, and uncertain experiences"
Now, I must say that golfing with me with could certainly be risky, dangerous and uncertain...but I doubt that is what they had in mind.
While on the surface, golf is certainly an uncertain experience ..one never knows what will happen...it doesn't probably qualify as too dangerous to your physical being (in the mold of the other more daring activities that you describe).
But in a broader fashion, as you set out on a round of golf you certainly are "adventuring forth" and expect to encounter certain types of risk and danger within the game itself (hazards, poor lies, 3 putts ;)). I would also say that the "adventure" feeling is much more pronounced when walking than when riding in a cart and certainly the "old guys" you refer to would be experiencing golf in that way.
Tom, Peter...what do you feel when you see a course for the first time that you have long been anticipating...isn't it that sort of edgy tension that you might get as you set out to white water raft or hike or hang glide?
Just my thoughts,
Bart
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"Tom - I only know about Leeds, who I think was a top-flight yachtsman."
He was. I think he was also a national caliber tennis or court tennis player, well known college baseball and football player. Joshua Crane was probably more well rounded in athletics. I believe he won the nationals in tennis or doubles tennis and I believe he was incredibly fascinated with yachts and ships perhaps designing a number of them. Behr was a really good competitve tennis player and I believe his brother was national caliber in tennis. George Thomas was remarkable with his flying exploits in WW1 (the reason he was known always at the Captain---he actually both trained and funded his entire squadron). He should not have lived through WW1 with the three mind-bending crashes he had. Thomas was a world class rosarian (rose breeder) and he wrote an apparently pretty significant book on Pacific deep sea fishing.
And C.B. Macdonald won the first US Amateur, he was a great golf architect, Rules mind and he was apparently the most accomplished the Universe has ever known at collecting and entertaining show girls on the sly and some say even simultaneously. Apparently he even had a special house built on his property since then affectionately known as the "Hen House". C.B might have even punched out or tried to more people at more and different clubs than golf has ever known.
Those guys were some kind of diverse and very good at their particular diversities. ;)
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Great subject guys,
This summer I participated in a selection process to find a golf course architect for a project here in Canada. For the last eleven years I have been working as a design associate for a firm, and on that occasion, for the first time, I had to formulate my own personal design philosophy, independently of my firm....
It took me a long time to clearly express my thoughts, and it's not until I saw a documentary on the creation of a show for the Cirque du Soleil that I finally grasped what I was looking for. In the documentary, the show's creator was talking to the artists by putting the enphasis on the emotions they had to express during the show. All he kept saying was "Emotions. Emotions. Emotions!!" And that's when I got it.
The most important thing I am trying to acheive as I design a golf course is to create emotions in golfers. Enjoyment, anticipation, surprise, confusion, doubt, even fear. These are only a handful of emotions a golfer can experiment through a round of golf. I personnaly beleive that it is the repetition of the good emotions, and the overcoming of the bad ones that make this sport so great for golfers of all ages and all playing levels. I think the more an architect can create emotions in golfers, the most chance he has of creating a golf course of lasting appeal, a course that will stay in the golfer's mind long after they are done playing.
I think the quote "An Adventure of the Spirit" is the perfect way to summerize my thoughts on the subject.
Thanks Tom!
YP
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Guys, One modern day adventurer/free spirit is probably Ted Turner. He has no golf connection that I am aware of but was a world class sailor and his sense of adventure out West is intriguing.His business accomplishments speak for themselves. Sadly, the Hemingways of these times are nonexistent. Jack
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jkinney:
How about a #3 that might be something like the adventure of actually welcoming the dealing with more than just a very slight modicum of misfortune and figuring out a better way (both within and without) of dealing with it and even feeling that the ultimate goal is that it has somehow been overcome when the day is done?
Perhaps, even though it seems to be completely counterintuitive to most of us, what if the very idea of apparently inevitable misfortunes was looked upon as a positive somehow? If that were true, maybe we could begin to see it as the other side of the equation from our rewards and we would not be so concerned about equitableness in golf and architecture as it seems so many of us have become.
TEPaul - That's a #3 for sure. Since when was true linksland golf ever fair, for instance ? The auld Scots thought of it as a bracing walk that would extend life. The ball bounced every which way, and they were chasing after it. Fairness only applied to The Rules.
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jkinney,
My father and I used to refer to golf as a "career extender", so I appreciate the quote very much.
Another great thread. The front page has at least three excellent ones going. It's great; very creative stuff all of a sudden.
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Aye, John Kirk.....and haven't ye played yer purest golf when all ye wanted was a brisk walk through the linksland ? I once shot a 93 from the back tees at Meadowbrook on Long Island in 58 minutes jogging along holding 5 clubs in a canvas Sunday bag. Never once thought about my swing; just jogged up and whacked the ball forward.........That was " an adventure of the spirit " because I was able to lapse into that "Alpha"
state of mind so often cited in long distance running. It was a beautiful late October afternoon with the leaves in all their color, and that'd what I remember absorbing.
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C.B. Macdonald . . . was apparently the most accomplished the Universe has ever known at collecting and entertaining show girls on the sly and some say even simultaneously. Apparently he even had a special house built on his property since then affectionately known as the "Hen House".
Attention, George Bahto! Can we get one of these built at Old Mac?
Nice thread fellers. Makes me ponder . . . positively.
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Tom,
Adventure of the Spirit was exactly my original point about NGLA being "alive," like a living, breathing entity.
Its a great term. One that all beginners should be fortunate to learn what is driving them to take to the Sport. "The "Bug" so-to-speak...
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That's nice.
One of my best friends up here in Oregon, Kelly Garland, and I try to celebrate the summer solstice each June with a very late round. I'm getting a little old and creaky, so it's hard for me to hoof it around in much under three hours. But if we tee off at 7:00 PM, we can play the whole thing, finishing in deep twilight.
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I guess I'm feeling more than a little sentimental and corn-ballish today, because re-reading this thread and the new posts, I suddenly thought of the poem that captures this "spirit" of the game, or at least the attitudes that go with it. You all know it, here are some snippets:
If you can dream, and not make dreams your master,
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it...
Peter
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I have tried to explain many times the "spritual" side of golf. I am typically ridiculed for it.
Those who have played a "church nine" at Sand Hills - or its equivalent at any other course/club of great personal meaning - know what this means. Otherwise it's very difficult to define.
But sprituality in golf very much ties quite obviously - at least for me - to the term "adventure of the spirit." Of course it would, given use of the same word....
In any case that's what it means to me - golf allows one to tie into a higher being. Certainly other sports do as well. But golf does it as well as any sport I have played.
TH
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Im certain the adventure of spirit is much more encompassing than this thread, or any thread, could ever fully illuminate.
What I find sad, is how many people are so unaware of their own senses, the majority of people who golf casually, don't appear to be able to find the spirit for which to have an adventure.
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Sometimes it feels like life conspires to deflate our spirit. The "nattering nabobs of negativity," the daily grind, the little defeats that somehow manage to overshadow the little victories in our hearts and minds...... And yet the opportunities for adventure are there to be had, and golf is, for me, certainly one of them. For some folks, their spirit can't seem to find adventure unless their body comes along for the ride, and some kind of compelling dangerous endorphin-elevating excitement akin to a near-death experience is necessary to give their spirit the adventure it needs. But golf can become that kind of adventure for your spirit if you buy in with your heart and soul. Not just in the sense of competition (which can certainly be part of it) but with some kind of internal commitment that allows the simple hitting of a ball with a stick to become a thrill-ride of its own........
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Wonder what the monks would say about the "Spirit"?
See the interesting story attached about Malibu CC:
http://www.malibucountryclub.net/fun-starts-now/
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Tim, Funny you should mention Malibu CC. It's where I played with Steven Pressfield, the author of "The Legend of Bagger Vance". What's even more coincidental, I was watching that film last night for a brief period. While many consider it a bad movie, I still think it's a good film. The artistic attempts at impressionistic shots was bold and worked to capture the era the film was set in.
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Tim, thanks for that link. Not sure what specific variety of monks those are (or were), but I think I need to join up. Golf is an integral part of my religion, too.
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Ahhh... PL Malibu CC.....
Yes, that's what it used be called... PL was an acronym for Perfect Liberty.... and the monks were indeed there, ever-present, admonishing those who did not replace their divots to do so. It's a very hilly course - our HS golf coach used to make us play it and walk it, for conditioning. Lots of sprituality was felt there, via many means and in many ways. Good times, good times.
BTW Kirk your post a few back sums this up absolutely perfectly. You ought to have been one of those monks.
TH
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PLGC, Oh, the non-club affiliated celebrities that hang out there....make that hide out there...
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Well, since Tom H opened the door to discussing the spiritual aspect of the game, I might as well come clean too. The potential access to those higher powers is one of the main reasons I play golf. I think the game and its fields of play can help open the doors to (and help us open ourselves up to) a higher power that is a balance of forces; and that the game offers the possibility of bringing us into that balance. If I could personify golf, I'd say that It strives to bring us into balance, i.e. when we get too much into ying, it yanks us back into yang, and vice versa. And the fields of play that are least cluttered and least prescribed best help the game bring us into that balance. I think that when we react strongly to a golf course, it's probably because it's pulling us in a direction that we don't want to go (for whatever reasons) or in a direction that we very much wish to go (for whatever reasons). I also think Par plays an important role in all of this.
Peter
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I'm with Tom and Peter regarding the spiritual side of the gaeme... Some more poems to get you in the 'spirit':
During one of the "Wandering Golfer" episodes, Gia interviewed one of Barnbougle Dunes first caddies, who shared a poem he'd written about the place.
As the sun sets slowly over the dune,
The company's good and my swing is in tune.
All around me is beauty like I've never seen,
It's on every tee bed and each fairway and green.
The lovely sea birds and wildlife abounds,
While the waves on the seashore make a mystical sound.
Am I in heaven? Are they Angel's tunes?
No, It's just the wind through the marram at Barnbougle Dunes.
(http://www.artfulgolfer.com/photos/barnbougledunes.jpg)
And here's a poem by Paul Bertholy, a golf instructor and good friend of Moe Norman.
"Golf is happiness for
Happiness is achievement.
The father of achievement is motivation
The mother is encouragement.
The fine golf swing is truly achievement
Man may lie, cheat, and steal for gain.
But, these will never gain the golf swing
To gain the golf swing man must work.
Yet it is work without toil
It is exercise without the boredom.
It is intoxication without the hangover
It is stimulation without the pills.
It is failure yet its successes shine even more brightly
It is frustration yet it nourishes patience.
It irritates yet its soothing is far greater
It is futility yet it nurtures hope.
It is defeating yet it generates courage
It is humbling yet it ennobles the human spirit.
It is dignity yet it rejects arrogance
Its price is high yet its rewards are richer
Some say it's a boy's pastime yet it builds men
It is a buffer for the stresses of today's living.
It cleanses the mind and rejuvenates the body
It is these things and many more.
For those of us who know it and love it
Golf is truly happiness."
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Guys, that is great, great stuff. Many thanks. Methinks we have some kindred spirits in this whole sprituality thing.
Not to overuse that word....
;D
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I have always maintained that golf does hold a sacredness over other sports and thus appeals to the spirit.
Anthony
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Tom,
Adventure of the Spirit was exactly my original point about NGLA being "alive," like a living, breathing entity.
Its a great term. One that all beginners should be fortunate to learn what is driving them to take to the Sport. "The "Bug" so-to-speak...
It is the lucky golfer indeed, who gifted with spiritual/sensory attunement, can find golfing ground that is "alive...like a living, breathing entity." NGLA is that place for me too, Tom.
Doak said in his CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE, ".....for me no place can match the overpowering golf atmosphere that hits you when you pass through the gate at The National". But for me it's much more than that. I'm convinced there's an invisible shroud over and around the ground that repels all bad karma. I start to sense it driving down Sebonac Inlet Rd. as it turns the corner and opens up onto the Cape hole, and I know it for sure when my car passes through the Macdonald gate. Every time, without fail. And each year the feeling gets stronger.
I really do hope that all CGA members have a golfing ground where something like this happens to them.
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Adventure of the Spirit was exactly my original point about NGLA being "alive," like a living, breathing entity.
Its a great term. One that all beginners should be fortunate to learn what is driving them to take to the Sport. "The "Bug" so-to-speak...-Tommy N
I enjoy watching youngsters play golf while they still know how to play, and before they realize that so much of what makes golf a potentially adventurous undertaking, has been built right out of it.
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Using such generic words as "adventure of the spirit" is useful if and only if it is understood that the "spirit" of any human being has incredible complexity and uniqueness and also varies over both time and space, and that we all have different ideas as to what constitues an "adventure."
In a tautological sense, every golfing experience--from standing on the 11th tee at the Old Course as the sun breaks through the clouds to the 18" third putt at Podunk Muni which hits a spike mark and spins out--is an adventure of the spirit. Also, for most of us on this site (loveable wingnuts that we are) the adventures are usually very rich and the spirit usually willing to appreciate this richness. But his is hardly unique to golf. I find trying to imbue in my children the concept of "responsibility" to be an amazingly challenging and occasionally euphoric adventure. My spirit is as stimulated by walking through an unfamiliar gallery and seeing a painting that says something to me as it is when laughing with a fellow golfer over a beer or three in even the most basic of clubhouses.
Somehow, I think this discussion could be made richer by focusing on those very special moments when golf has seemed to be almost something bigger than life itself, or even a microcosm of life--what Joyce and others have called an epiphany. That's the easy part. The hard part is in trying to articulate how and why. Here's an attempt:
Watching my opponent search for and then find the fall-line on a treacherous downhill sidehill putt on the18th and then him stroking his ball so that it stopped exactly there and then trickled down into the hole for a 3. Him then telling me what a "fall-line" was and then my finding mine, on a similar putt and having it also trickle into the hole. Forging a friendship soon afterwards in the grill room. Never forgetting that moment.
Rich
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I am not going to attempt poetry ... but I will throw in one of my favorite quotes, from George Thomas:
"No matter how skilfully one may lay out the holes and diversify them, nevertheless one must get the thrill of nature. ... The puny strivings of the architect do not quench our thirst for the ultimate."
Most great golf architecture is sort of primal. You've got to hit your ball over that bunker (or sand dune!), make it stay up on that plateau, and ultimately you've got to hole out. I think Yannick is on the right track.
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TomD:
You just said you think Yannick is on the right track, so I reread his post. He talks a lot about emotion so that's what you must mean when you say he's on the right track.
I think you're right---eg emotion.
Frankly, in that so-called Crane/Behr debate the value of emotion is basically what Behr took Crane to task for ultimately---eg that Crane strove to reduce the game to scientific analysis through appliction of mathematical formulae. When Crane actually admitted in print that he was really disappointed to see TOC, a course he liked so much, come in so low in his scientific/mathematical rankings, Behr shot back at him with---"Does this man not know or trust his own mind?" ;)
When I think back right now on perhaps some of the most emotional golf I've ever played or think of a time when my emotions were working overtime on a course more than any other time, I go back to that week in 1999 when I played the little Mallow course in Mallow, Ireland every day at daybreak.
But since the course wasn't really any great shakes architecturally, I wonder what was it then about that time and that place that provoked my emotions more than ever before? The course had a ton of slope to it as it was along the side of a gentle mountain but I realize now the thing that completely created the emotion for me was how fast it was through the green. I'd never seen anything like that, not even close, and it was totally transfixing to me. I remember going back for about seven straight days and saying to myself---if I hit it over there where in the world will the ball finally stop? Totally transfixing.
So to me right now that's what does it for me---to watch the ball scoot along the ground this way and that way. And I mean really run, maybe up to 100 yards or more in some spots. I think I now realize that all the golf I've played, all the shots I've hit over the years were basically all in the air. It's a beautiful thing to hit a beautiful aerial shot but how different is it really whether you're in America, Ireland or wherever---ie it pretty much flies through the air basically the same way no matter where you are!
But the GROUND, and that ball scooting here and there along the ground even at the end of a nice aerial shot-----THAT, I think is where my emotions really start to check in! Maybe for me THAT is the true connection between GOLF and NATURE! And, at least for me, that's very emotion provoking! ;)
THAT is my best Adventure of the Spirit---little super dry, super fast Mallow! I never experienced anything like that before or since.
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So to me right now that's what does it for me---to watch the ball scoot along the ground this way and that way. And I mean really run, maybe up to 100 yards or more in some spots. I think I now realize that all the golf I've played, all the shots I've hit over the years were basically all in the air. It's a beautiful thing to hit a beautiful aerial shot but how different is it really whether you're in America, Ireland or wherever---ie it pretty much flies through the air basically the same way no matter where you are!
But the GROUND, and that ball scooting here and there along the ground even at the end of a nice aerial shot-----THAT, I think is where my emotions really start to check in! Maybe for me THAT is the true connection between GOLF and NATURE! And, at least for me, that's very emotion provoking! ;)
THAT is my best Adventure of the Spirit---little super dry, super fast Mallow! I never experienced anything like that before or since.
The most obvious, but easiest thing to overlook about the game is that it is played with a ball, and that a ball does more than fly - it bounces and rolls. Mine even does some splashing. :P
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Over on the "Butterfield & Sand Hollow" thread there are a few photos of the courses at Sand Hollow.
Looks like a great spot for an A of the S.
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Bump...
I miss Tom Paul. I love the way he thinks about the game. This thread is a pretty darn good example of that.
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Gentlemen,
Now this is a thread that appeals to my sense of the romantic as well as the religious...golf is a religion no?!
Reply #19 by Kirk Gill and #25 by Peter Pallotta are gems. I so agree with what they say. I know it intellectually but still have not mastered the art and still "strive(s) to bring myself (us) into balance" when I play. I've bought the game "with my heart and soul" and do find the "simple hitting of a ball with a stick ... a thrill-ride of its own" but far more often than not I become downcast at my own ability, not in an angry sense but a somewhat forlorn one! A tragic golfing tragic is me.
But it is an "Adventure of the Spirit" for me as, on an adventure, you should see and recognise new things and come to terms with them. I see my character being mirrored and I have to reflect on the wee failures on the course just as in life and deal with them accordingly! And I don't always succeed. What a rambling response this was! Not a patch on the musings in this original thread or on any of the ones below.
A few that I have enjoyed recently are these if anyone is interested. The original disciples of this forum may know of them but I am not so sure that recent members will.
Darwinism - I (The Course Your Soul Loves Best) http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,1814.35.html
The purpose of GCA is...Behr
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,1726.0.html
Books by Max Behr??
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,1739.0.html
Max Behr Golf Architect
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,1285.0.html
Writer's Block - Behr philosophy
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,1392.70.html
Cheers Colin
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Awesome, thanks Mac.
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Mac and friends,
Thanks for bringing this thread up again. Note the quality of both Tom P. and Tom D's insights. That quality is what makes this site, when it is on top form, without peer!
Cheers,
Kris 8)
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Need some time to do a full reading, but Tommy Naccarato, Rich Goodale, and Tom Paul? This is a THREAD!
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8) :o 8)
Wow Paul Bertholy, thats a blast from the past!
The advent of cart golf certainly took some of the charm from playing. It's just not the same experience. Walking down the slope on five at Portrush to the fairway was almost a religious experience.
Sir Richard Branson is a modern day version of what was described earlier.
Surfers here at the Jersey shore certainly understand what we golfers do, maybe more so !
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Liked seeing Tom's name up there on this thread.
Liked reading his topic, and the responses.
Liked my own response (especially "nattering nabobs of negativity." I had to google that and found that it was something that Spiro Agnew said in a speech that William Safire wrote. Where the HELL did I pull that from?)
It might be pure "beard pulling," but I sure enjoy this kinda stuff.
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Kirk...
Nothing wrong with beard pulling in my book. Figuring out why you feel someway or what makes you feel a certain way could be the key to finding golf courses you love and, therefore, the key to enjoying yourself.
For me epic moments on a golf course have been had at:
8 at Ballyneal;
15 at Dismal River;
7 at Sand Hills;
13 at Pac Dunes;
16 at Bandon Dunes;
14 at North Berwick;
16 at Askernish.
See any correlation? I do!! Can't wait to play these again and/or find others like it. St. Enodoc looks right up my alley!!!
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The theologian Paul Tillich wrote once that the question isn't whether we're still part of the old creation -- we all are; the question is whether or not we also participate in the new creation, at the level of "being" participating in "the ground of all being". It's the same with golf courses and gca I guess (on a less important scale, to say the least). The question isn't so much whether any given golf course is a decent field of play -- most are, and a select few are much more than that; the question is whether they also transcend the form, whether they can engender in the golfer a sense of freedom and transcendence.
Kik - ha, ha; yeah, I was wondering where/how you dug up that one!
Peter
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Kirk...
Nothing wrong with beard pulling in my book. Figuring out why you feel someway or what makes you feel a certain way could be the key to finding golf courses you love and, therefore, the key to enjoying yourself.
For me epic moments on a golf course have been had at:
8 at Ballyneal;
15 at Dismal River;
7 at Sand Hills;
13 at Pac Dunes;
16 at Bandon Dunes;
14 at North Berwick;
16 at Askernish.
See any correlation? I do!! Can't wait to play these again and/or find others like it. St. Enodoc looks right up my alley!!!
Mac's list includes three of my favorite holes anywhere. 14 at North Berwick is the definition of "adventure" for me: a short par four with a blind second shot to a green hard by the Firth of Forth, across the way from the island upon which "Treasure Island" is based. Not only that, but North Berwick's 14th is my favorite hole on my favorite links course in Scotland, which I got to play with my Dad. There probably isn't one single hole that has more meaning to me.
8 at Ballyneal: well that's one of my favorite holes on my favorite golf course. A tremendous uphill par five, twisting between hauntingly beautiful bunkers to an undulating green that is just my kind of crazy. Favorite memory? Making eagle during an emergency twilight nine with a couple of GCA pals. I fired a 37 without ever using a sand wedge. I don't know if I've ever had more fun playing golf.
And of course, Dismal's 15th. I made quite a few memories there this past summer, and I know I'll make many more during the future. The drive down the Tucker Ranch Road alone is worth the trip. So many great features out there, but that massive sand blowout at the 15th is truly unique, a marvel. And I could sit on that tee all day trying to get the draw just right.
Of course, I can't confine "adventure of the spirit" to the world's most renowned courses. Even Tom Paul frequently waxed poetic about the virtues of Fernandina Beach municipal (architect: Tommy Birdsongs, if I remember correctly). A lot of the fun in the game is trying to find the truly hidden gems that you think are great, even if few else do. I'm think places like Byrncliff or Terry Hills in Upstate New York, which have a lot to offer for the truly adventuresome. Or how about a twilight round at Galen Hall, or a last-minute trip a little-known Ross course called Tumblebrook (it had some wicked greens), or a Flynn nine-holer in Monroe, New York that is a blast to play because it still hasn't installed a sprinkler system. For me, the world's finest courses, as well as the world's simplest courses, offer that spirit that we are searching for. If you read my post closely though, you'll see that the quality of the golf course is not the only element necessary for capturing that spirit.
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Sorry that I can't let this thread die...but this gets to the heart of what excites me about playing golf. This adventure of the spirit concept. I'll play golf anywhere and everywhere. I love it. But when you can play golf on a course that ignites the adventure of the spirit, it is magical.
I don't think I can put what I am thinking into words perfectly, but maybe a view images can help. These are golf and non-golf images that I hope highlight that feeling I am looking for.
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/hiking.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/CPC16old.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/mteverest.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/OldMac15.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/skiing.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/PacDunes13.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/rafting.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/RockCreek17.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/yachtracing.jpg)
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu239/mplumart/SDC10721.jpg)
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Thanks Mac. That 6th picture/place does the trick for me. Don't know where or what it is.
Peter
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Mac,
Extreme Sports meets Extreme Golf and becomes an Adventure of the Spirit that's Mac Plumart for sure! That wasn't quite the way I envisioned this thread but vive la difference!
That last picture with yellow gorse is Balcomie, Crail n'est ce pas? Less than 80 kilometres from where I lived in Scotland. Now that was an adventure and the weather on the first two holes extreme.
The accompanying photo of the racing yacht looks as though it was from the Gold Coast and that is less than 80 kilometres from where I now live 45 years later.
Haunting indeed. Yer getting spooky Mac, yer getting spooky!
Cheers Colin
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Peter...the 6th picture is the 13th hole at Pac Dunes. It is truly an amazing golf hole...tee through the green.
Colin...indeed Crail Balcomie. That round with you was one of my all-time favorites. Side ways stinging rain for two holes in wind that was howling like mad. Then sunny and wonderful, but still windy. Welcome to Scotland. Right?
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JNC - I agree with you about how it hopefully shouldn't take playing on a world-renowned course to trigger the adventure we're talking about. I know I've felt these feelings on courses that wouldn't receive much comment on this board. But it may be that the greatest courses touch this spirit in us more than others.......and it's an interesting question to think about what design elements have the most effect in this area, or if the site is more important to creating this spirit of adventure.........
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it's an interesting question to think about what design elements have the most effect in this area
Kirk...exactly!!!