Loop Links, no. 21
Playing the course you're on
It’s only been two weeks since my last newsletter, but it’s been a long two weeks. Even when all of the events are in the calendar ahead of time - life still comes at you fast. I feel like the Popeyes meme at the moment.
During that time, I did manage to dig into my old drafts, and I pulled this one out that I wrote back in the summer of 2021. I would say I’m in a slightly different spot three years later than I was then, but I found the feeling described in it to still be applicable. You will get the gist in a moment when you read it. But a few weekends ago I played two new courses, one a top resort course in the state, and one a little known gem. Both were exhilerating, and yet the idea of finding the gem excites me more than checking the nationally known course off of my list.
Really this is about the conflicting feelings I have towards private golf, list-checking, and being in the moment. I’ve left most names out of the story out of fairness, because we are all complicated people, we all have conflicting feelings, and we are all sometimes hypocrites.
“We are going to try to meet at the club around 8am” read the text.
The club, in this instance, was Franklin Hills, a 1927 Donald Ross, much-heralded for its wonderful routing and unique Volcano green at the 13th hole. Coming from Ann Arbor, Franklin’s Bloomfield Hills location is one of the harder places for me to get to, especially on a weekday during morning rush, so I was out the door and on the road well before 7am. Today we’d be playing in a group of guys that included Andy, Will, and Garrett from the Fried Egg, who had put on an event that we played in the day before at Meadowbrook Country Club.
A one-two combo of Meadowbrook and Franklin Hills on back-to-back days was likely the first time I’d ever played two privates in consecutive days, and certainly was the highest caliber back-to-back that I’d ever done. I was nursing a sore wrist that morning, the result of a badly chunked 9-iron out of the rough late in the day as my game had slowly spiraled downward during the 36 holes at Meadowbrook. I was holding the club quite gently due to the wrist and swinging easy, and as a result I was actually playing pretty well despite a loss in distance. Playing well at a new, interesting course is a feeling I never get tired of, and I was locked in on Franklin that morning.
As well as I was keeping up on the course, I was having less success keeping up in the chatter. Much like the previous day*, the topic of conversation on and off throughout the round at Franklin was generally some variation of, “where have you played?”. Our host for the day, along with my two other playing partners, were all members of at least one club. One guy was a member of two, adding a national membership at Inverness to his portfolio recently. As we progressed through the front nine of an eminently playable and enjoyable Franklin Hills track, discussions of trips to Ireland and Scotland were had, as well as experiences at many of the most prestigious clubs in the States. After a brief hiatus to talk about various work-related topics, when we reached the 11th tee talk circled back to the big one. One guy had a standing invite to Cypress Point. Another guy thought he had an angle, but wasn’t ready to use it yet.
“What am I even doing here?” I thought to myself.
*This was particularly vexing to me at Meadowbrook, where the Andy Staples redesign has some really mind-bending stuff going on that warrants a lot of discussion. That was what I wanted to talk about during the round, not comparing where everyone had played.
Growing up in Mid-Michigan, I wasn’t exposed to much private golf. I believe the only private courses in the Tri-Cities are Saginaw CC, Midland CC, and formerly Bay City CC, which went so public that for a few years it was literally called Saginaw Valley Public Golf Course (it has since changed back to Bay City CC, but is still public). As the son of two teachers, belonging to one of these clubs wasn’t even a consideration.
My golf introduction and early years of playing occurred at a 27-hole public course, where the strategy on nearly every hole was to hit it straight and stay below the hole. It wasn’t a place that helped me hone my game, but it was a place that only charged local kids $5 to play 9 holes. A Friday morning youth league every summer was usually the highlight of my week, and once my parents dropped me off I often didn’t have trouble finding a friend who was willing to play an extra 9 with me, or even occasionally playing the full 27. I even recall rounds in full-on downpours. There wasn’t much you could do to keep me off of that course.
Prior to my teen years, my only exposure to what would be considered prestigious golf courses were the ones I saw on TV in men’s pro tournaments, and up close seeing Warwick Hills at the Buick Open. Back then, I understood the best venues for golf to be whatever the PGA Tour happened to be playing. It was a big deal for me when Apple Mountain Golf Club opened in my hometown, and I got a job there working bag drop before I could even drive myself to work. Getting to play that course frequently felt like a coup, like I was playing one of the best courses in the state not named Warwick Hills.
Working at Apple Mountain while playing on the golf team in high school, I got to see a variety of courses in the Mid-Michigan region. I didn’t really have a conception back then of good design or poor design, but seeing so many courses at least helped me establish a range. There were nice courses, usually conveyed by how fancy they were, and dumps, like where I played. And then everything in between.
Later in high school, I got to take a whirlwind trip up to Boyne to play Bay Harbor, and then whatever we could finish before dark of the Heather course, the Arthur Hills course, and the Moor course. That early morning round at Bay Harbor, teeing off in a little bit of fog on the Links nine, was unreal. It didn’t even feel like a part of my life. Walking off the last hole of the Quarry nine, I was convinced that the bar had been raised, and that I wouldn’t play a better course in my life. We played all of those holes for free that day, courtesy of the assistant pro at the course, who had been a football player at the school where my dad coached. We certainly wouldn’t have played any of those courses without that connection.
About 25 years later, I played my second round at Bay Harbor as someone firmly entrenched in the community of golf course design enthusiasts. Needless to say, Bay Harbor is no longer the best course I’ve played in my life. It’s not just because I’ve played better designs. It’s also because golf means different things to me now than it did back then.
A few weeks prior to the Meadowbrook-Franklin Hills doubleheader, I found myself at Rackham GC for the first time since college, participating in the inaugural Maxamania event, organized by the Refuge community at No Laying Up. Having spent one summer living back in Michigan so far, albeit a COVID summer, I was disappointed with the lack of golf I had played since the move. Of course, playing more golf wasn’t the reason why we moved, but it was an added benefit that I knew came with the package. In order to kick start what I hoped would be a busy summer of rounds, I knew I had to start amassing some potential golfing buddies, even if it meant going in blind. An event at a Detroit muni with a crowd that I had some familiarity with seemed like about the safest landing spot that I could find.
My randomly-paired group at Rackham consisted of a golfer from Chicago, another who had family in the area, and a local who frequented the Detroit muni scene. My cart partner, Ryan, didn’t take a single practice swing all day. If he did, I missed it, as I was usually hearing the whack of the ball before I even knew he was hitting. Brian was also a quick player, and on more than one occasion dropped an iron shot from somewhere in the trees right onto the pin. On the holes he played more conventionally, he frequently was sinking long bombs around the greens. Kevin, who had secured a cooler of Oberons for the event from a local beverage distributor, was ripping heaters and generally befriending every person he met throughout the day. As far as I know, there wasn’t a single club membership to be had between the four of us.
Whether it was within my group, at the clubhouse during lunch, or with some of the other players in the large alt-shot group we paired up with later in the day, the topic of conversation would occasionally, and inevitably among a group of self-described golf sickos, stray towards other places to play golf at. The details and logistics of trips to places such as Bandon, Streamsong, Sand Valley, and Sweetens Cove were hashed out among those who had and hadn’t been yet. These were expensive trips, no doubt, but entirely attainable. The resort version of the “where have you played?” game, let’s say. We were still at a muni, however, and with a large group of Midwestern golfers, so discussions of the best local loops were entirely in play.
While this may sound like I’m being critical of the “where have you played?” discussions amongst foursomes, let me be clear that I am just as much of a culprit as anyone else. I mean, I use games like PGA 2K to replicate real life golf courses virtually, precisely so that I can obsess over and discuss courses that I only have a glimmer of hope of playing, such as Merion, Oakmont, and Augusta. If you name a course, I’ve likely recreated, researched, or stalked that course in some way. I’m not sure how many other people there are out there who can have in-depth discussions about courses that they’ve never actually set foot on or seen in person like I can. I say this less as a brag and more as a dorky reality. If we are playing golf together and you want to ask the WHYP question, I can at least make the conversation interesting despite having a pretty uninspiring list of courses played myself.
However, the conversations from Meadowbrook and Franklin Hills from that summer have still stuck with me, and as I tried to piece together my thoughts on the contrast between my experience at Rackham and my experiences at the country clubs, things started to crystallize for me later that summer. In particular, I found myself one day paired up with a few guys who I “knew” from Golf Twitter but hadn’t actually met before, and we were playing at a local course by a giant in the golf design industry, a course that I’m lucky enough to play once or twice a year.
Throughout the round, the talk of other places to play golf almost never ceased. Bandon, Kingsley Club, Greywalls, Pinehurst, Mid-Pines… it was endless. When talk of a particular tee shot, or strategy, or element of the course we were currently playing rose to the surface, it was gone almost in an instant. Make no mistake, I was having a good time and enjoyed the company. But as I tried to hold on to those moments and savor the shots that I was playing, a question kept returning to me that I couldn’t shake. If this is what it’s like at this course, what do these guys think about while they are playing Bandon, or Kingsley Club? Is there a caliber of destination where all thought of other courses ends? Or does this game continue regardless of the venue, and they are never satisfied with the course that they are actually playing while they are playing it?
These were just musings that I had about my playing experiences over the past few years, and I’d be lying if I didn’t wonder if maybe they stemmed from a little bit of jealousy about not being able to speak about these courses from personal experience. I wondered if maybe a little imposter syndrome was creeping in as I tried to hang in the conversation using only my dorky virtual design knowledge to relate.
I vented these thoughts to a frequent local golf partner of mine during one of our rounds that summer. I figured he was being polite and hearing me out. He surprised me a few weeks later, however, and brought the topic back up. He had recently played in a 54-hole, weekend-long event at three different public courses in the state by a notable architect. It was an event that I had hoped to play in and was bummed about when family obligations got in the way. The event brought together a number of golf sickos from the regional area, and this golfer had noted that the “where have you played?” game was out of control the entire weekend. He told me that he had remembered my rant from our previous round, and that he felt that he was one of the few players there who was fully immersed in the courses they were playing, and it helped not only his performance, but his recollection of each hole they had played and his enjoyment of the experience.
I have absolutely come to realize that as I have experienced more courses around Michigan, and there have been some good ones recently, that my enjoyment (and frequency) in participating in these conversations will probably increase. It’s hard to shake the box-checking, Top 100-chasing element of golf. I get that.
I have a fear, though, of finally standing on the tee at Crystal Downs, a course that I’ve virtually recreated and obsessed over for a long time, and being paired with a group that won’t let up in reminding me that I need to get to Bandon. Or regaling me with stories of trips through the private clubs of Long Island. And have I been to Ireland or Scotland yet? I really need to experience true links golf (yes, I know!).
But if I’m ever lucky enough to play Crystal Downs, I absolutely want to spend the entire round playing Crystal Downs. If you and I are ever fortunate enough to play CDCC together, let’s mostly talk about the Downs while we are playing it. Yell at me if I don’t. Make me stay in the moment and play the course that I’m on.
Afterwards over a drink, I’ll happily pretend to play “where have you played?” like I belong in the conversation.
Fucking amen to this. Well said.
Great stuff! If I am ever lucky enough to get on the Downs I won't want to talk about any other course in my lifetime let alone during that round.