As a PGA Master Professional with more than fifty years of involvement with the sport and business of Golf, I am often asked, “What is your favorite golf course?
Because that is a question I cannot answer.
It is akin to, who is your favorite child, preferred city, or most-beloved relative?
It is an impossible task to convey or consider because each of the hundreds of golf courses around the world I have worked at, played, visited, or broadcasted from during my journey throughout my golfing life calls up a particular delight and appreciation of each of those individual locations, events, or tournaments.
Each one summons its own remarkable recollections, histories, and memories.
How do you choose?
I cannot, or the simple reason is that every golf course on earth, in my view, is a whimsical, fanciful, and genuinely memorable destination, a beautiful thing like a fine wine, a work of art, or a unique piece of music, regardless of where or when I might have encountered those properties or traveled to on this planet.
There is no place on earth I would rather be than on a golf course as the sun sets on the finishing holes and the end of another blissful, perfect day.
I have spent much of my adult life recording and preserving those reflections as best I can, for each visit is distinctive, extraordinary, and incredibly special.
I have no answer because every golf course was fantastic, and I have played worldwide.
However, out of all the courses I have been fortunate to visit, the ones I remember most vividly were those I did not get to play, even though I had called ahead, booked a tee time, had people to play with, was in the area with my golf clubs, but could not take part for assorted reasons and circumstances, to my everlasting regret and disappointment.
It just did not happen.
Each of those instances portrays its own unique, beguiling account and narrative.
So, here are three of the most celebrated, notable, and distinguished courses I have visited and are:
“The Best Golf Courses I Never Got to Play.”
PASTATEMPO GOLF COURSE-Santa Cruse, California, rated No. 37 in the World and No. 2 in California, Designed by Alister Mackenzie in 1912.
We were on the road to Reno and blew right through Wendover, Nevada, a compulsory stop for adventure and pleasure-starved boys from Utah.
However, later that afternoon, we were due in what is touted as “The Biggest Little City in the World” and needed to check in at the hotel, which was picking up the tab for our night’s stay.
I was on assignment for Kall 910 and The Intermountain Broadcasting Network, the radio station where I served as Director of Golf.
There was work to do, along with the obligatory glad-handing and chit-chat accompanying such nonsense.
We met the staff, had dinner, and interviewed management, the owners of the new golf course being developed just outside of town, and other notables from the local sports community.
This was a big deal for the area, highlighting the first significant construction of a major golf resort within the Reno City limits in decades.
The network was giving it major play, including broadcasting my regionally syndicated radio show from the hotel property the following morning before moving on to the Monterey Peninsula and the Open Championship conducted at Pebble Beach Golf Links.
This was the first stop on a ten-day promotional junket billed as “The Road to the Open.”
We were covering the 2020 United States Open Golf Championship, which Tiger Woods eventually won in record-breaking fashion, at twelve under par.
This would be only the eighth time the US Open would be contested in Southern California, and the world would be listening.
All the major sponsors were on board for the multi-day project, including paying all the expenses and providing a new Toyota Land Cruser with all the bells and whistles for my crew, which consisted of myself, another reporter, a photojournalist, and my sales manager, who attended to the trip’s logistics.
We all had press credentials and would be housed in the media hotel off Fisherman Wharf on the seventeen-mile drive entrance to the Monterey Bay area of Central California with its scenic coastline, beaches, marine life, natural beauty, and rich history, including some of the most well-known golf courses in the region, which we were hoping to visit and play.
The plan was to cover the Open, file my updates and reports, write up a story and blog post including pictures for Rocky Mountain Golfer, a magazine I owned and published, and enjoy unfettered access to one of the most significant sporting spectaculars in the world.
On Monday, we would cap off the venture by driving up the coast to Santa Cruse, where we had tee times, and checking off a marvelous inland links course that had long been on my bucket list by visiting and playing Pasatiempo Golf Course.
It was a celebrated and famous course that impressed Bobby Jones so much when he first saw it during the 1929 United States Amateur contested at Pebble Beach that he engaged its architect and creator, Allister McKenzie, to construct the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, the eventual home of the Masters.
I was excited and looking forward to playing a course about which I had heard so much.
It was shaping up to be a perfect adventure, and everything was going as planned until providence reared its auspicious head.
On Mondays at Major Tournaments, media members may enter a lottery to play the host golf course.
Some do, and some do not, but Pebble Beach was an enticing incentive for journalists covering the tournament.
The course setup would be the same championship tees and hole locations the pros play on the last day of the tournament.
Not for the faint of heart, it is a captivating way to test amateur games against the pros under exacting tournament conditions.
As luck would have it, one of my crew drew out and was selected to play Pebble on Monday.
This meant the rest of the group was stuck overnight in Monterey, and playing Pasatiempo became a wishful fantasy.
However, in my wildest dreams, I would never refuse a friend and fellow journalist the chance to play one of the most acclaimed Golf Courses in the world, especially with the USGA picking up the tab instead of the $500 Green Fee Pebble Beach was charging at the time.
It turned out to be an incredible opportunity for everyone.
My friend got to play at the world-famous Pebble Beach Golf Links, and we all spent another night and day unwinding at one of the most renowned destination resorts in the Western United States.
As our plans changed, I asked a fellow writer to join us the next day to complete the foursome.
I made reservations at the Historic Del Monte Golf Course, the oldest continuously operating golf course west of the Mississippi River, and the staff welcomed us with open arms.
Built in 1896, Del Monte was the first golf course constructed on the Monterey Peninsula and launched the golf boom in Central California.
The golf course was an absolute pleasure to play.
Afterward, all of us, including my lucky lottery winner friend, retired to the legendary Nineteenth-Hole Tap Room in the majestic Pebble Beach Lodge and Hotel, just off the picturesque eighteenth hole, and gazed in wonder at the pictures and memorabilia that adorning the walls, told tall stories, and reveled in the glories of another perfect day relaxing and gazing out at the Pacific Ocean and the majestic sunset framing one the most well-known and recognized finishing holes in all of Golf.
Afterward, when we were done, tired but exhilarated with the week’s proceedings, we loaded up the Land Cruser.
We headed out, leaving the California Coast and the excitement of the US Open behind.
We returned to Salt Lake City, completing a perfect excursion mingling amongst the prominent and celebrated Golf’s influential elites and high rollers.
It was an outstanding trip, and once again, we bypassed Wendover, never thinking to stop, wholly satiated and satisfied by our unique and wonderful adventure.
Like Pasatiempo, Wendover would have to wait and remain on a future bucket list, awaiting another day and adventure.
NATIONAL GOLF LINKS OF AMERICA-Southampton-New York, New York, rated No. 5 in the world and No. 2 in New York, was designed by Blair MacDonald in 1908.
Over my thirty-five years as a journalist and radio host, I have attended and broadcasted over a hundred Major Golf Tournaments, most of which were contested at classic and unforgettable masterpieces from around the Country.
Nonetheless, some novelty, sparkle, and endless travel had worn off with five Championships a year, one a month throughout the summer, including the semi-annual Ryder and Presidents Cups.
I now treated and managed them as work assignments, which they were, and whose attendance and travel routines were predictable and etched in stone.
Although some duties were more noteworthy than others, including the Masters, whose annual trip to Augusta, Georgia, each April became a traditional spring rite, and any time a Championship was contested west of the Mississippi, especially on the West Coast, was equally as unique and remarkable.
However, New York State, principally for the vibe and atmosphere of the location, has always been my favorite place to visit and broadcast.
The upstate industrial district which includes the rural farmland scenery of the Finger Lakes wine country, the Erie Canal, Buffalo, Albany, Niagara Falls, the stately Catskill Mountains with their unique geographic diversity, and, of course, Long Island, with its quaint fishing villages and ultra-sleek living style, fantastic beaches and recreational sites have always caught my fancy.
I love everything about New York and its setting, including The Big Apple, the city’s inhabitants, their passion, the town’s hustle and bustle, and the cacophony of sights and sounds that arouse and stimulate me whenever I visit.
Especially the Golf Courses.
My favorite venue will always be Shinnecock Hills.
In 1986, I attended my first United States Open Championship as an accredited media member, and I was overwhelmed by the experience.
It was, and still is, one of the most fantastic and most challenging golf courses I have ever reported from.
It traces its roots back to when the game of Golf was birthed over four hundred years ago on the sunbaked fields of Edinburgh, Scotland, amid the gorse and thistle-populated links of Scottish shores and sprinkled amidst the inlets and estuaries that abutted the Firth of Ford on the North Coast.
Wind and rain, sleet and hail fashioned the barren, sparse, and sandy linkslands that first spawned the sport of Golf,
Shinnecock was fashioned from the same mold.
The golf course, founded in 1891, is one of the most memorable and historical golfing institutions in the United States.
It is the oldest incorporated golf club in America, the first to admit women to membership, the oldest clubhouse in the United States (1892), and one of the five founding member clubs of the United States Golf Association (1894).
It also hosted the second United States Open and United States Amateurs held in 1896.
The place reeks of history, and I vowed I would do so if I ever returned and got to play the course.
I got my wish in 1995 when the Open returned to Shinnecock.
By then, a seasoned hand who knew the ropes and my way around tournament rules and protocols, I packed my clubs to New York and laid my plan in advance.
I would stay over a few days after the tournament, play Shinnecock, travel a few miles across the island, and play at The National Golf Links, which, like its neighbor, is cut from the same historical mode as Shinnecock and is one of the most incredible but most exclusive golf courses in the world.
However, unlike its neighbor, the membership abhorrer publicity does not allow the general public to enter the property, does not entertain outside tournaments, and has never hosted a United States Golf Association or PGA Tour Event.
Billed as the Snobbiest Golf Club in the Country, the urban legend on why a club of its stature and pedigree does not hold significant tournaments is that the membership does not want golf fans from anywhere in America wearing their golf shirts with its distinctive logo embroidered on the front pocket.
I pulled many strings to get my tee time and was excited to experience and play two of the Country’s oldest and most superb golf courses back to back.
Alas, it was not to be.
I played well at Shinnecock, but it was a brute and wore me out with its demanding test on every hole.
My partner in crime, a fellow writer whose excitement about playing matched mine but not nearly as accomplished, was also beaten up, exhausted, and shattered from the exacting test, cried uncle, and begged off our tee time for tomorrow, vowing never to play Golf again.
So, we packed it in, nursed our wounds, bruised egos, and aching backs, and retired to the historic clubhouse high on the bluffs overlooking Shinnecock Bay and the Atlantic Ocean for a cold beer and memories of what might have been.
Like all those golf fans from Middle America, I have never set foot on one of the most esteemed and respected courses ever built, nor do I have a logoed golf shirt proclaiming my attendance there.
All I brought home was a bumper sticker proclaiming in capital letters: I LOVE NEW YORK.
CYPRESS POINT GOLF CLUB-Pebble Beach, California, rated No. 2 in the World and No. 1 in California, was designed by Alister Mackenzie in 1928.
The central coastal region of California has a special place in my heart and holds many magical charms and memories.
My earliest childhood recollection is of being four years old, riding on my father’s handlebars as we pedaled downhill toward Fisherman’s Wharf.
We lived in Monterey while he attended the United States Army’s Foreign Language Center after World War Two, and the sights and smells of the ocean still linger in my sub-conciseness with permanency to this day.
My mother’s cousin was the Administrator-Caretaker at Will Rogers State Park in the Santa Monica Mountains. He lived in the old cowboy philosopher’s stately mansion, which we visited often in the summer. I learned to surf the beaches of Pacific Palisades.
I attended Basic Training in the United States Army while stationed at Fort Ord, California, in Seaside, on the Monterey Peninsula abutting the Pacific Coast shoreline.
I spent my Honeymoon at Pebble Beach Resort, visiting and playing Golf on the stored Links.
I have attended and broadcasted four United States Open Championships contested at Pebble Beach in 1972, 1982, 1992, and 2000.
Our first family vacation after I was married and had children was Southern California, Disneyland, The Pacific Coastal Highway, Sea World, and Monterey, California, where I showed my kids the house where I grew up.
I have always considered myself a California kid and embraced the laid-back surfer vibe even though I have lived most of my life in Utah.
However, the crown jewel of my involvement with Southern California was through my daughter Sarah.
She began her collegiate experience at the University of Utah while working for the Utah Grizzlies of the Eastern Hockey League.
Sarah amplified her marketing experience by volunteering for the Good Will Games in New York City and the Summer Olympics in Sidney, Australia, in 2000.
After accepting a position as assistant to the Marketing Director for the Long Beach Ice Dogs, which competed in the West Coast Hockey League, she moved to Long Beach, California.
She continued her education at Golden Gate College.
Sarah progressed to Special Affairs Coordinator for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association before accepting the Marketing Director position at Pebble Beach Corporation and moving to Pebble Beach, just off a seventeen-mile drive in Monterey.
When we visited, I was in heaven.
I got to play all the great courses on the peninsula except one: Cypress Point Golf Club, the No. 2 ranked course on the planet and generally considered the most exclusive private club in the world.
One day during a visit, on a chance, I called the course and asked for the Director of Golf.
I explained who I was and asked about playing privileges typically extended to PGA Professionals.
He graciously explained that the club allowed one foursome of PGA Professionals a week outside playing opportunities on Monday afternoons.
Those positions were filled for the current week, but there was one spot for the following Monday if I was available, which, unfortunately, I was not, as I was going home in a few days.
He gave me his name and phone number and told me to call the next time I was in town.
I thanked him and said I would.
Two months later, my daughter Sarah accepted a new marketing position with the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA and left California, never to return to Southern California along with any chance I had to play the greatest Golf Course west of the Mississippi River.
When I asked her later why she would leave the land of milk, honey, avocados, and palm trees waving in the setting sun, she remarked, “Pebble Beach is a great place to visit but a bad place to work.”
It was probably because of all the freeloading guests and family members she had to put up with as a nursemaid on Monterey’s many golf courses and beaches.
Regardless, I never got another chance to play the most incredible golf course ever built on the West Coast of the United States, but I could only dream about what might have been.
During his half-century as a PGA Professional and Broadcast Journalist, Jeff Waters has been fortunate to play many of the outstanding Golf Courses worldwide and enjoyed every one of them.
