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Dan Kelly

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Darwinism - I (The Course Your Soul Loves Best)
« on: January 02, 2003, 09:51:24 PM »
Bernard Darwin, "The Golf Courses of the British Isles," Chapter XIV:

"There are several very excellent courses in Wales, but I am quite determined to put Aberdovey first -- not that I make for it any claim that it is the best, not even on the strength of its alphabetical pre-eminence, but because it is the course that my soul loves best of all the courses in the world. Every golfer has a course for which he feels some such blind and unreasoning affection. When he is going to this his golfing home he packs up his clubs with a peculiar delight and care; he anxiously counts the diminishing number of stations that divide him from it, and finally steps out on the platform, as excited as a schoolboy home for the holidays, to be claimed by his own familiar caddie. A golfer can only have one course towards which he feels quite in this way, and my one is Aberdovey."

Which course is your one -- the one your soul loves best? And, naturally, why?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:01 PM by -1 »
"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

Brian Phillips

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Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2003, 04:33:10 AM »
Dan,

I have been lucky enough to play a lot of great courses in the last year or so from Pine Valley to Sand Hills to TOC to Kingsbarns plus many others but the one course I am truly in love with is North Berwick.

I have a good friend called Geoff who also has played many great courses but we love giving Sam the starter a ring when it is raining hard in Edinburgh to find out how the weather is and hearing it perfect at North Berwick.  We jump in his car drive 40 minutes to find blue skies and a smiling Sam waiting for us.

Geoff and I relax more on North Berwick than any other course I have played on.  The members are relaxed and kind the pro shop is friendly and professional as well as helpful.  The bar is great and ovelooks the course as well a beautiful view of the ocean.

Pine Valley changed my attitude to golf but North Berwick puts my mind at peace like no other course I know.  No disneyland golf here unlike St.Andrews just pure links in a small town full of real loving golfers.

Brian.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
Bunkers, if they be good bunkers, and bunkers of strong character, refuse to be disregarded, and insist on asserting themselves; they do not mind being avoided, but they decline to be ignored - John Low Concerning Golf

Golf2002

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2003, 04:35:43 AM »
Dan,

I can undestand why B. Darwin loved Aberdovey. I played the course in 2000 and loved it too. Aberdovey was an AOTD some time ago and I put some photos of the course on a website for you. Here is the link again:
http://de.geocities.com/golfplatzarchitektur/Aberdovey.html


To your question: My homecourse is definitely the course I love best. It is not the best designed course in the world but having played soooo many rounds of golf on this course I have a lot of nice memories to it.
I remember playing holes in one, eagles,... , triple-pars,... someone throwing his 8iron into a tree and not finding it back although we were searching for it more than half an hour :), someone got run over by his own remote controlled trolley (without getting hurt), sleeping in a tent on the first tee 8),.......
It is not only the course itself why I love the place!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Greg Ramsay

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2003, 04:41:48 AM »
Great quote Dan, for me I have always enjoyed going to the European Club south of Dublin, its got a great story behind it and one thing i really like doing when i play there is how i would re-position the fairway bunkering and touch up the greens complexes to create a really wonderful strategic challenge to add to the delightful routing and scenery that surrounds the golfer.

I always love stepping on the Jubilee course at St.Andrews because it brings back memories of some of the best matches i've enjoyed in St.Andrews (and i am already looking forward to going back to Kingsbarns where i caddied).  

And my home course Ratho here in Tasmania, which is Australia's Oldest Golf Course, is always nice to come back to after playing some much more dynamic, but no less interesting golf courses elsewhere.

Greg Ramsay
www.barnbougledunes.com/new_site

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

ForkaB

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2003, 05:32:43 AM »
Dan

For me it is obviously my "home course."  $Even though it has never been my "home." I feel completely at home there--in terms of people, vistas, feng shui, memories, thoughts about the future, etc..  What else is there?  The fact that it happens to be one of the finest golf courses in the world is irrelevant.

Rich(ard)

PS--Even just snippets from Darwin show that the pretenders to his throne, such as Behr, Longhurst, Jenkins, Wind......even Kelly......are just that, pretenders.  They only sit at the very floor of the pantheon in which he is now ensconced.

PPS--I have never been to Aberdovey, but it is a course that has very "homey" significance to me........
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2003, 06:17:09 AM »
“The course your soul loves best?”

What an interesting way to ask the question.

I thought about that for some time and I would say Mallow G.C, Mallow, Ireland, certainly not a course to win any awards from anyone.

I spent a week in Mallow, found out about the little Mallow G.C that sits on a steep hillside falling down to the river that runs through the town. After introducing myself I played Mallow every morning at daybreak, alone, and was home before breakfast or even before anyone was out of bed and before a single car arrived in Mallow G.C parking lot.  

There was never any of the other things to think about involving golf I’ve become so used to—other players, competition, talk, waiting, whatever. Just the early Irish mornings, the expanse of the Irish countryside, the river and town below, the super fast, quirky, hillside course of Mallow, me and my excited thoughts about the possibilities of the bounding ball doing things and going places I was learning and loving more about each day.

I know I’ve never come that close to what I consider the true essence of golf must be—but I hope I do again someday!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:01 PM by -1 »

THuckaby2

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2003, 08:03:33 AM »

Quote
Dan

For me it is obviously my "home course."  $Even though it has never been my "home." I feel completely at home there--in terms of people, vistas, feng shui, memories, thoughts about the future, etc..  What else is there?  The fact that it happens to be one of the finest golf courses in the world is irrelevant.

Rich(ard)

Rich - wow, that Aberdour really must be something.  Can't wait to see it some day.   ;)

TH

ps Bernard Darwin is and always shall be the best - well said. After reading a new book about Ouimet's win called "The Greatest Game Ever Played", Darwin is now also a hero to me... he's a big part of that story....
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2003, 08:23:33 AM »
If I'm not mistaken I believe Darwin was Ouimet's scorer on that great day in Boston--I believe Darwin's signature is on Quimet's card.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2003, 08:27:49 AM »
You are not mistaken, TEP - Darwin was Ouimet's scorer.  Assuming we can believe the accounts given by Frost in this new book, he also picked out Ouimet earlier as an American to watch out for after Ouimet's impressive showing in a loss to Travers in the US Amateur.  Frost's account also just makes Darwin out to be a great guy... by my read anyway!

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

ForkaB

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2003, 10:11:32 AM »
Dave

Darwin was very much talking about his "home" course.  If Itasca doesn't do it for you, neither Medina nor Rye will really qualify.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2003, 10:15:08 AM »
Excellent clarification, Rich.

Which just makes me even sadder - I don't have a course that meets these qualifications... Somehow no course that I've called my "home" stirs my soul as Darwin describes.  The courses that get me excited and give me cause for blind and unreasoning affection are all other people's homes.  Such is the curse of the public course golfer... oh well.   :'(

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

ForkaB

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2003, 10:50:17 AM »
Dave

My understanding of Darwin is on the same level as my understanding of my own golf swing, i.e. intuitive, usually OK, but occasionally tragically wrong.

I'm pretty sure that Darwin came to Aberdovey fairly early in his life, probably on holidays, and throughout his life saw it as a peaceful bolt hole from the helter skelter of London.  Just the concept of taking the train from London to the Aberdovey station instills a great sense of peace in me, even though I have never taken that route, nor even ever been to Aberdovey.  I think that Bernie was a Captain of the club.

From all I have heard about the course, it is OK, but not in any way of Rye standards.  But, who really cares?  What matters, at least to me, and I think Bernie, is a place that when the stationmaster (literal or figurative) calls out "Aberdovey!" there is a rush in your blood that fills your soul with a holistic warmth that overwhelms even the feeling of standing on the 16th tee at Cypress.  If the golf course is more than just OK, that is just a minor bonus......
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2003, 11:13:51 AM »
Rich, you sell yourself short, you're a tremendous slouch.

Sorry for that last part - had to be said for Dave's sake - Caddyshack line.

In any case, your take on Darwin seems to jive with a little bio I found:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/golfonline/history/features/darwin.html

His club afflitiations are described thusly:

"It was not only in golf literature that he was prominent. At the Royal and Ancient he was Chairman of the Rules of Golf Committee and in 1934 Captain of the Club. He was a member or honorary member of numerous well-known clubs, of which his favourites were St. Andrews, Hoylake, Rye, Woking and Aberdovey in Wales, where he regularly spent his summer holiday."

TH

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Tom MacWood (Guest)

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #13 on: January 03, 2003, 11:32:38 AM »
Darwin's mother was Welsh, her family - including his grandmother - lived nearby Aberdovey. BD's father was introduced to golf by his wife's brother, he and another brother (Bernard's uncles Richard and Arthur) actually laid out Aberdovey. (Similar to Hutchinson, whose uncle helped to establish Westward Ho!) BD played most of his early golf at Felixstowe, Cromer and Eastbourne, but the trips to Aberdovey evidently made the greatest impression.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

RJ_Daley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #14 on: January 03, 2003, 11:46:46 AM »
golf2002, great post and thanks for the link.  

Dan, you didn't tell us yours.

While I want mine to be Wild Horse, under the rules I will gladly accept the Ed Lawrence Packard designed course I play week in and week out, Brown County Muni.  I would be happy to take any of the GCAers to the course without having reservations that it isn't good enough.  It will give them all that they can handle and would impress them sufficiently.  But, for the reasons golf2002 states, it is the memories of good times playing it with the buddies that really makes it special.  Even the 10 minute drive out there, whether alone or with one of the regular men's club 4some is filled with quiet anticipation and thoughts of how to attack one of the holes that has been getting the best of you lately. Driving in the parking lot and seeing all the old regulars cars and knowing that everyone is blessed to be in place for one more day of golf comraderie. The course is so good, that any one of the holes can become your new worst nemisis.  And, the one that was beating you up previously, has started to yield to your play, if only temporarily, until that little thing starts to happen in your head that needs to be reworked in your pre-slumber ponderings.  Still looking for the hole-in-one memory however...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
No actual golf rounds were ruined or delayed, nor golf rules broken, in the taking of any photographs that may be displayed by the above forum user.

ForkaB

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #15 on: January 03, 2003, 12:30:27 PM »
Tom IV

I have always been a great slouch, and being of the same birth year as the creator of Caddyshack (and Animal House) I have a contemporaneous sense of both films that wet-behind-the-ears youngsters such as you and/or Dave S. will never have.  Thankfully, unlike Doug Kenney (RIP), I am still alive, although if and when I do go, doing a double gainer with 3 1/2 twists off a cliff on Maui ain't bad.   Is there a comparable place at or near Kapalua?

As for geezers such as Tom III "....the trips to Aberdovey evidently made the greatest impression...." MacWood, there still may be some hope...........
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #16 on: January 03, 2003, 12:36:32 PM »
Rich:

Touche.  I should have known better than to doubt you re anything important, and Caddyshack certainly qualifies there!

Contemporaneous sense or not, you do NOT want to mess with Mr. Schmidt when it comes to Caddyshack knowledge, however.  He is to that what Tiger/Jack/Bobby Jones combined are to golf.

TH

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Dan Kelly

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Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #17 on: January 03, 2003, 01:52:38 PM »
Now wait just a gorse-pickin' minute!

This course of your soul needn't be your home course! It needn't be one you play often! It needn't be in your own hemisphere!

For Dave Schmidt, it's Rye! No need for it to be any other. His need to travel to Rye (along with the approach thereto) is, it seems to me, perfectly parallel to Darwin's travels to Aberdovey; his affection for Rye, spiritually kin to Darwin's unreasoning fondness for Aberdovey. It matters not one whit if Shivas is ever a Captain (or even a Member) there. That's the course his soul loves best!

(Thanks, Golf2002, for those terrific pictures of Aberdovey. I like them all, a lot, but especially the one with the railroad tracks in the foreground, the two greens in the middleground, and the sea in the background; I like that one so much that I've made it, at least temporarily, my computer "wallpaper," replacing a picture of the magnificent vista provided by Nos. 17 and 18 at Sand Hills.)

For Tom I, it's Malone G.C. -- where he has spent but a week of his life! It's not Merion, and it's not Pine Valley, and it's not even Gulph Mills. And I say: Beautiful, Tom I! Even though my presence would have wrecked your solitude (solitude being a beautiful thing on a golf course, especially at dawn or dusk), I'd love to have been there with you on that empty course, learning to love the bounces.

And as for me? It's one of three courses, none of which I've played enough -- in enough conditions, at enough stages of my life, with enough different sorts of people -- to know for sure that it's my soulmate. One (Sand Hills), I've played for two days in 1996; one (North Berwick), I've played only one round, in the late fall of 1999; and one (Hazeltine), I've played just once since high school, when I played it pretty regularly (and quite cluelessly; this was long before the game became an obsession for me).

Sand Hills and North Berwick are wonderful golf courses in spectacular settings. You all know that. I loved Sand Hills' being in the middle of nowhere; I loved North Berwick's being in the middle of town -- or even more than that: BEING, it seemed, both the physical and the spiritual center of town. (I'm delighted to hear, from Brian Phillips, that the club's friendliness is a habit; that I didn't just get lucky the day I was there. I wish I'd known to say hi to Sam the Starter -- though he may not have been there that day; I was one of a very few players on the course, on a beautiful November Sunday.) Hazeltine, by contrast, is a fine, fine golf course, on wonderful rolling farmland, under those wide Midwestern skies -- not spectacular, I suppose, speaking as objectively as possible, but spectacularly representative of the part of the world that's my my part of the world: big, open, honest, straightforward, unpretentious. I've spent 21 wonderful long dawn-to-past-dusk summer days at Hazeltine (1970 and 1991 Opens, 2002 PGA), walking the course and watching the best in the world show how the game can be played. And after all three tournaments, I hung out there as long as they'd let me, this past summer walking the holes one last time, feeling bereft -- as though I were leaving home -- and aching to play the course again, just the way Dave Schmidt ached to play the forbidden Medinah.

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

THuckaby2

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #18 on: January 03, 2003, 02:05:12 PM »
OK.

I'm big on definitions today.  ;)

If we're basing this on Darwin's quote, it seems to me Rich is right - it has to be a home course.  That's the gist of what Darwin is saying.

If we're just asking about courses that stir the soul, for whatever reason, then it's Sand Hills without a doubt for me.  The drive from N. Platte would equal the train ride to Aberdovey.  

Pebble Beach qualifies for me also - many important life events have occurred for me there, so it always has a strong place in my soul... and the drive south to it, 101-156-merging into 1 - off at 17 mile drive - this would always stir the soul....

But neither is close to being my "home."

I wish that they were!

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Dan Kelly

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Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #19 on: January 03, 2003, 02:18:14 PM »

Quote
I'm big on definitions today.  ;)

If we're basing this on Darwin's quote, it seems to me Rich is right - it has to be a home course.  That's the gist of what Darwin is saying.

Not to mince words (or initials, even), Tom IV, but --

B.S.!

Darwin was using the word "home" metaphorically. He's a writer, man!

He said that every golfer has one course for which he feels a blind and unreasoning affection, one course that every golfer's "soul loves best of all the courses in the world." That course, Darwin is quite clearly saying, is, by definition, "his golfing home" -- no matter where it is located, no matter the golfer's connection (or non-connection) to it!

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

THuckaby2

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #20 on: January 03, 2003, 02:41:34 PM »
Dan:  that was Clintonian.  Home doesn't mean home.  OK, I get it now.   ;)

Actually I do understand what you're saying.  Home is where the heart is, not where one plays most of his golf or is a member.

Aberdovey was one of the courses where Darwin was a member, that's all.  To me that holds more weight than his metaphor, or any diagram of the sentence.   When you know this, the quote takes on the meaning I've given it... At least I think it does.

One's golfing home is the course that his soul loves best of all the courses in the world.  This was Aberdovey for Darwin, a course at which he was a member, and thus his "home course" by our modern definition.  That's the assumption behind the quote - we all have a home course like his, that we love the best - with "home course" meaning a place we're a member at, not where our heart wants to be.  That comes from being a member, from being at our home - not the other way around.

That's why I thought I can't claim Sand Hills no more than Dave can claim Rye, sadly.

But hey, I'm happy to have it if that's what this is about... that's just a far easier question than sticking to the way Rich interpreted it.

TH

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Dan Kelly

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #21 on: January 03, 2003, 02:55:39 PM »

Quote
that's just a far easier question than sticking to the way Rich interpreted it.

Wrong again, Tom IV!

If your "soul course" has to be, in your terms, your "home course" (course at which you're a member), that makes the question immeasurably EASIER ... unless you're one of those freakish characters who are members at great courses here, there and everywhere.

Listen, I'm deciding here -- and shall brook no more dissent  :o : Darwin meant what I say he meant. His actual Membership at Aberdovey (among many other courses, apparently) is entirely beside his point!

Course your soul loves best = your golfing home.

Ergo:

Your golfing home is Sand Hills.

Dave Schmidt's is Rye.

Tom I's is Malone GC.

Brian Phillips's is North Berwick.

Dick Daley's is Wild Horse.

Rihc's is Royal Dornoch.

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

RJ_Daley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #22 on: January 03, 2003, 02:56:52 PM »
I'd like to thank my lawyer and editor for returning my soul home to Wild Horse!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
No actual golf rounds were ruined or delayed, nor golf rules broken, in the taking of any photographs that may be displayed by the above forum user.

THuckaby2

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #23 on: January 03, 2003, 03:09:06 PM »
Well ok, now that you've made the autocratic proclamation, than I ought to nod a simple assent.  

But as the great Lee Corso says, not so fast my friend.

Sand Hills is only one that does it for me.  There are likely 100 others.  That's why at least for me, it's a very easy question.  I could go on all day.

I guess just to get off the fence, I could say a great triumvirate of Cypress/Sand Hills/NGLA stirs my soul more than any other courses, with Pebble stirring it for more personal reasons.  Then add to that Studio City par 3 course, where I learned the game as a kid and just won a stirring father-daughter foursome match this past weekend with my 7 year old partner... that course has no hole longer than 130 yards but it stirs my soul for greater reason even than any of the great triumvirate.

But none of these places is "home", not for me anyway - I have no home course really.  

So for me, it's easy to say all these great courses stir my soul - except for the par3 course, they'd stir ANYONE'S soul.

The harder question is where one really is "home", in a golf context.

And sadly, that for me remains nowhere, as I see it.

But you're the boss.  So give me basically any course discussed on this site, and it stirs my soul for one reason or another.

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:01 PM by -1 »

ForkaB

Re: Darwinism - I
« Reply #24 on: January 03, 2003, 03:48:52 PM »
Interesting stuff.

Dave

You needn't spend so much time trying to parse what I say and hire linguistic consultants (Mr. Goldman?) on top of that!  Just look at the quotation marks/inverted commas that I put in when I typed "home course."  Dornoch is no more my "home" than was Aberdovey to Darwin.  However, to be a "home" course, I think (and I think that Bernie would agree) that it has to "feel" like "home."  What would Aberdovey be to him if when the train started to pull to a halt there was no caddy waiting for him, and when he walked up to the pro shop/starter they said to him:  "Darwin?  Sorry, sir, have you booked a round for today?  Very sorry, but the course is hired out to Alliance & Leicester for their annual Spring Texas Shotgun Scramble."

Well, you know what it would be to him?  Yes, his "home" course.  He'd brush off the fact that he couldn't play that day.  Go up to the bar to swap lies with his pals, and look forward to playing tomorrow.

I love Rye and North Berwick and Brora and Stanford and Pebble Beach and Woods Hole and Spyglass Hill and Ballyliffin and..........many more, as well as I love Dornoch,  But none of them are "home."  As much as I loved the 36 I played at Rye nearly 22 years ago in the early Spring, if I were to pull up to their gates tomorrow would I love the feeling?  Yes.  Would I be full of anticipation?  Yes.  Would I feel at "home?"  No.

Dan Kelly

Think of George Carlin's bit comparing baseball and football.  In football, you SCORE!!!!  In baseball, you come home.......
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

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