How a trip to Reynolds Lake Oconee taught me to appreciate the sport of golf

#4: Unlike other sports, you can relive history when playing it.

Steps

taken

on the greens of the U.S. Open

Unless you yourself are a professional athlete, or you have lucked into a VIP opportunity, odds are that you are not going to be on the field or court that your favorite athletes played on; the New York Mets' sales department briefly let me and some friends get on the field of Citi Field when we expressed interest in buying season tickets. But non-professional golfers are able to play on most of -- if not all of -- the courses that host major tournaments like the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, and the Masters Tournament.

By being able to step foot on famous golf courses and play a round, you are relieving historic moments as a golfer. You are keeping traditional of the sport alive while also making one-of-a-kind moments of your own.

Many golfers opt to take history on the course a step further, according to Dan Vukelich of New Mexico Golf News. "There's a subset of golf known as the hickory movement, in which tournaments and championships are contested using only wooden-shafted clubs of the type used by Bobby Jones and his predecessors. These people test themselves against past greats on classic courses designed by A.W. Tillinghast, Donald Ross and Alister MacKenzie, which were designed for such equipment."

Continued Vukelich: "Fanatics within this subset go even further back, playing with golf balls made out of gutta percha or even using 'featheries,' leather balls stuffed with tightly-packed bird feathers first used hundreds of years ago. Regardless of the equipment used, the desire to play famous courses often is driven by the desire to walk where the legends walked."

Joe Barks of Club & Resort Business talked to me at Reynolds Lake Oconee about how golf plays into history from a different angle: "Golf can provide you with the increasingly rare chance -- especially in metro areas suffering from overdevelopment and sprawl -- to get out and enjoy some true quiet amid really striking natural scenes, and in a much more unique and less crowded way than just going to a park."

Barks added: "This is true for many public/municipal courses as well as private clubs or higher-end resort properties, and the enjoyment of just getting around the course and seeing all of the various natural features and experiencing the serenity that it offers can minimize a lot of the frustration that might be experienced with trying to play the game itself."

According to Barks, a lot of this has to do with the people who provide upkeep on these courses: "The golf course superintendents who maintain the courses are the unsung heroes in the industry, in how they provide beautifully manicured playing areas while also preserving the surrounding natural landscapes. More courses are now promoting their properties as places to walk on trails and enjoy nature and wildlife, whether or not you play the game."

Luxury journalist Shaun Tolson, who frequently writes about golf, agreed with Vukelich and Barks: "Golf, like most sports, reveres its history. But unlike those other sports, amateurs have the opportunity to play some of the same courses that their golfing heroes played. For example, baseball fans might nostalgically remember Carlton Fisk waving the ball fair as he watched his game-winning home run sail over the Green Monster in Boston, but they’ll never get a chance to take batting practice at Fenway Park to experience what it’s like to hit a ball against or over that famous outfield wall. Some of golf’s most famous courses, however, are open to the public; so amateurs can test their abilities hitting a tee shot to the famous island green on the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass or they can learn firsthand how difficult it is to hit a tee shot on the 18th at Pebble Beach with Carmel Bay all down the left side of the fairway."

Continued Tolson: "Even beyond some of those iconic shots, many famous courses have hosted significant championships over the centuries, and many of those courses have changed little over the years. That means that amateurs who are fortunate enough to play the Old Course in St. Andrews, for example, know that they are walking the same fairways and putting on the same greens as some of the sport’s greatest players -- golfers who grew the sport to the level that it has reached today. That, by itself, makes those rounds of golf special and memorable."