[FASTLARRY]

Top 100 Golf courses

I like lists, but lists bring in business and many rankings are for sale. I know the top 10 beaches and top 10 cities to live in are.

Lets see, you are a zillionaire, you belong to Augusta National, you hang out with all the top boys, and you build a course and want it on the list. Lists are political, who knows who, who pads who, who lobbies who, who flies who around in the saber liner. Lots of things are for sale. You can buy anything, or anybody for the right price. You can buy an Ambassador ship to France if you just donate 200K to the party in office. Today, everything is for sale, along with the Lincoln bedroom.

One thing I have noticed in golf is the top 50 places are sacred. Maybe the top 75, they are not for sale on any list. They got on there by their excellence. You can't buy a membership into Augusta National no matter how many millions you offer, they have to ask you, you cannot ask them.

Not every thing is for sale. Maybe the back 10 or 15 can be bought and come and go, but the top 50, are all gold. They stay on there, but the back 50 and really came and went over the years.

Back in the 70's I sought to play the top 100 USA courses. I think I got 90 or 95 during my decade of that pursuit. Cypress point, Augusta National took me years to get into, others like Pebble Beach, you just make a reservation and spend lots of money to play. During that decade I was an international sales and marketing manager for a fortune 100 company first out of NYC, which gave me access to all those old open courses in the NE, then out of Silicon valley. I was traveling the entire country on company expenses, so getting to these courses was free, on business.

I belonged to a top 10 country club in Atlanta, that had a PGA tour event every year, so everyone knew its name and it was a prestige place. In the early 70's I would have my pro, write a letter to the head pro of the club I was going to, introducing me, and saying if I was allowed to play, I would pay cash, or what ever I charged, they could send the bill to him and he would pay it for me. He would confirm my membership, say nice things about me. He would enclose my handicap card which showed me as scratch and my business card. That was all it really took, the introduction, the letter, I am a fine golfer, working for a blue chip company, and I show up dressed in my business suit and present my self. The pro there would usually give me a locker and get me a game and send me right on out.
He would look in my staff bag, see my 945's, vip irons, lowe putter, and know I was for real. All you had to be, was one of them, and they went all out for you.

Some of the more exclusive places were harder, the pro would send me up to the bar, where I would make friends and find a game, or an invite to play. The pro could not put me out, I could only go out on the invite of a member, but the pro would allow me to arrange it. He would take me up and tell the bartender to introduce me around when members came in.

Some like Augusta, you can't even get inside, unless a member brings you in, and finding people in this high up positions, which are mostly Fortune 100 CEO's is a bitch to work out.

The 2009 list of the USA top clubs and courses is out and I found I had played 18 of the 20 top. I look back on those experiences and some of the greatest thrills of my life. Every pool hall you go into, they are all the same. Same bull shit, same tables, smoke, bad lighting, some are just bigger than others, but see one, see them all.

Golf courses, no two are the same. And driving in to play The old course in Scotland which I did, or Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Augusta National, Pebble Beach, Pinehurst #2, Winged Foot, Riviera, damn my dick would get hard and the hair would stand up on the back of my neck. You knew, this was going to be one of the greatest days of your life, you would remember till the day you died. My memory of each one, is crystal clear even though most occurred 40 years ago.

And the most amazing of them all is the course now listed at #16, Prairie dunes In Hutchinson, Kansas. Every year it keeps moving up. It's out in the middle of nowhere and you could never have a US Open on it, you would have no place to house the people. Its a Scottish sea side course, in the middle of the fookin country, where there is no sea. The sand, the dunes, and oh baby, the fookin wind, every thing but the ocean.

I first learned of in the late 60's when Jug McSpadden became my teacher and I joined his CC in Piper, Ks. When he found out I was a traveling salesman and my territory was all of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas he told me about it, and I had to play it. I went what in the hell can be out there. I don't even have a customer in that podunk town, no reason to go there. But Jug, ordered me to go. Back then, and I mean nobody, knew about this place, nobody.

I was doing a lot of business in Wichita and usually staying there 2 days out of every month, so sliding up to Hutchinson was no big deal.

Jug got me out on the range to prepare me for my visit. He said, I am trying to hit everything high, like Fat Jack. He said there, the wind blows 35mph on a calm day. You have to hit it lower than a quail flies. Everything is back in your stance and trap shots knocking them down.
He showed me how to hit that low 1 iron, like Tiger traps his 2 iron today. How to play and hood my 7 iron off my back foot and burn it low with a draw and slight fade under the wind.

He said, the fairways are narrow, the greens small and hard to hit, and if you miss a fairway, you usually lose your ball, and if you find it, its buried in sand, on a side hill lie, and weeds are up to your ass. You can take a 7 or and 8 so damn easy its not funny. He preached, if you don't hit all those fairways, you are doomed. Its like going through canyons of sand dunes. The entire place is one huge sand trap. He said he had the course record and how he did it was leave all his woods in the trunk. He teed off with his 1 iron and accepted longer clubs into the greens. He said it's like the US Open, very narrow fairways, hard greens, the bombers are toast there.

So I arrived there, with all my woods, and it was short back then, I don't really remember, but I think it was only 6500, and I attacked it with my woods. I did not listen to the old man. When I came back he said, show me your card. I had a 92. He laughed, here you shoot 72 at Dubs Dread, there you shot 92. Did you learn your lesson, Open courses bomb away, tight courses you have to pull it in. I said, I damn nearly ran out of balls, I lost so many.

He said, I told you so, and you have to have more than one game, and each game must suit the course you play. You do not bully a course to bow to you. You adapt to the course you play which means surrender on many shots you normally use. You take what the course gives you. You lay back to survive, you only attack a few holes if they give you that. The rest you play safe on. You do not attack, what is not attack able. If its not there, do not push it. On some courses, 73-74 is a score you can win on or stay in the hunt. Go out and try to shoot 68, you pay the price. Get lucky drop a couple of long putts and you might pull in a 71, but I repeat, never push it. Take what it gives you and no more.

Lacking par 5's its only a par 70, but the course rating is 74, which I felt if the wind blows its a 76-77. That's what Jug kept telling me, what did you shoot, 76, he would say, that is great, on that course. But I would say, I want to break par. He would say, I want Marilyn Monroe in my bed also.

He felt until I learned to play that course well, I would never be a real top golfer. He said here at Dubs, its new, the trees are small, its wide open, bomb away. But he said in 20 years when the trees grow up, this place will be unplayable by only a few. As the trees grow, he said you game and attack plan must change here and they cut off and change your options.

He said, conquer Prairie Dunes and you will never fear any course ever again. And when you get over to the old course, you will find it a piece of cake, compared to this bad boy. I played it once a month, for over four years, and logged in 50 rounds there. Eventually I pared it, but never broke par there. I was usually 2 or 3 over, the friggen wind, my aggressive go for broke mentality, trying to rein all that in there was so hard to do.

All that work on this course, nobody ever heard of, in the fookin middle of nowhere, and I knew this place was great, even though at that time, I had not been out of that 4 state area. Little did I know, I was learning on a top 16 golf course, that had not been discovered yet. It was cheap to play, never crowded, the people treated me like a king. I loved, every round. I don't remember what I paid back then to play, must have been 25-30 bucks, they were grateful to have some extra business. People from out of their town were a rarity for them. Somebody in from KCMO was a big deal for them. Today, with their #16 rating, its up to $235 a round and worth every penny of it. Visitors no longer impress them that much from big out of town cities. 40 years ago, it was a different world out there, than it is today.


The windy city is not Chicago, the windiest city is Dodge City, which is close to it. I learned how to hit it low under the wind, to run up shots, and when I got to Scotland, I kicked ass on all those old courses. I had already been trained in Hutchinson. I already had all the shots. I could drink single malt neat, and knock a low flying grouse out of the air with me 1 iron laddie, what else did I need.

How many people have played 50 rounds on a top 16 course. And to play anything finer, grander than this, laddie, ya have to die and go to heaven and get a tee time up there me boy. This is as fookin good as it gets here on this planet.

You look at the short holes and the score card and you say, dude, I am going to eat this one up. Right, you think you are the hunter until you get out there, then you realize, you are the hunted. The first fairway you missed really big and into the deep shit, you then know, you are triple fooked. And on each tee, after you score that 8 or 9, you are standing there, looking down that little narrow chute, trembling in fear. Hit the fairway, easy par, miss it, 7 or 8. You'll be wacking it out of there until the cows come home laddie.

Some how Robin Williams take on golf, is like a round there.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=l_OmnP527Dw

Prairie Dunes Country Club Information:
General: 18 hole regulation length course
Private Equity Facility golf course
Designed by Perry Maxwell, ASGCA/ J. Press Maxwell, ASGCA
70 par, 6,598 yards
74.0 rating, 139 slope
Just Golf facility

Green Fees: Weekend: $235.00*
* includes golf cart where available

Staff: Contact: Jeff Buery, General Manager
Golf Professional: John Lanham


Amenities:
Food & Beverage Available
GPS Available
Driving Range


Rules/Notes:
Softspike Facility
PGA Facility

Scorecard:
Front Nine
Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Out
Mens 404 142 308 150 402 360 485 412 400 3063
Ladies 390 138 272 134 391 324 429 359 320 2757
Handicap 7 15 13 17 3 11 9 1 5
Par 4 3 4 3 4 4 5 4 4 35

Back Nine
Hole 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 In
Mens 160 442 362 355 334 169 396 477 372 3067
Ladies 128 420 323 276 326 134 349 447 352 2755
Handicap 16 2 8 10 12 18 4 6 14
Par 3 4 4 4 4 3 4 5 4 35

http://www.prairiedunes.com/pdhome.php

http://www.golflink.com/golf-courses/cours...x?course=416845

http://en.wikipedia....es_Country_Club