If you take the time to peruse this website, you can readily tell one of my hobbies in the golf realm is playing golf courses that are new to me. I am sure to purchase a logo golf ball from each new course I play.
In 1994, as I started obtaining logo balls from each new course I played, it occurred to me that I had some catching up to do. I needed to obtain logo balls for the 70-some courses I had played before I decided to use logo balls to document my golf travels. Since I had been logging my rounds for a long time, I knew all of the courses I needed to contact to bring my collection up-to-date. I visited all the courses local to Fort Wayne, IN I had played. When visiting my parents’ home in Wickliffe, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, I visited each course I had played as a youngster. For every other course, I simply made phone calls. I made many tiny credit card purchases which included the cost of shipping and handling. And slowly, small packages appeared in my mailbox. I wonder what the postman thought.
In 1994, as I started obtaining logo balls from each new course I played, it occurred to me that I had some catching up to do. I needed to obtain logo balls for the 70-some courses I had played before I decided to use logo balls to document my golf travels. Since I had been logging my rounds for a long time, I knew all of the courses I needed to contact to bring my collection up-to-date. I visited all the courses local to Fort Wayne, IN I had played. When visiting my parents’ home in Wickliffe, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, I visited each course I had played as a youngster. For every other course, I simply made phone calls. I made many tiny credit card purchases which included the cost of shipping and handling. And slowly, small packages appeared in my mailbox. I wonder what the postman thought.
Amazingly, not all golf courses sell logo balls. I am still on the hunt for logo balls from fifteen golf courses including the first course I ever played...Green Ridge Golf Course in Wickliffe, OH. I have been successful in the past in badgering golf courses to begin carrying logo balls. Repeated yearly phone calls to these courses with a pronouncement that I will not play a course that does not sell logo balls seems to work. When I make a tee time at a new (to me) course, the first question I ask is “do you sell logo balls?” No logo ball, no round for me.
This passion I have is encouraged by my wife Linda. In the mid-nineties, she threw down a challenge. She told me I needed a goal. She suggested a minimum of thirty new courses every year! Are you kidding me?!! And when we designed our current home in 1998, we included an 18x30 foot putting green complete with fringe and undulations in the basement. My logo ball racks surround the green. And a shelf above the logo ball racks contains a hat from each of the current Top 100 courses I have played.
For ten years, I conducted a 32 person, match play putting tournament on Super Bowl Sunday. The participants of this tourney named this portion of the basement auGUSta Putting Links (as my nickname is Gus). But that’s a story for another article. I’ve now played over 840 different golf courses.
I was ending one of my golf trips in 2003 at Boulder Creek Golf Club south of Cleveland, OH with a good friend, Steve Rossa. Rossa wanted to introduce me to one of his friends and proceeded to grossly overstate my golf passions during the introduction. Rossa’s friend interrupted him and calmly stated “I don’t want to meet him; I want to meet his wife!” I am a lucky man.
This passion I have is encouraged by my wife Linda. In the mid-nineties, she threw down a challenge. She told me I needed a goal. She suggested a minimum of thirty new courses every year! Are you kidding me?!! And when we designed our current home in 1998, we included an 18x30 foot putting green complete with fringe and undulations in the basement. My logo ball racks surround the green. And a shelf above the logo ball racks contains a hat from each of the current Top 100 courses I have played.
For ten years, I conducted a 32 person, match play putting tournament on Super Bowl Sunday. The participants of this tourney named this portion of the basement auGUSta Putting Links (as my nickname is Gus). But that’s a story for another article. I’ve now played over 840 different golf courses.
I was ending one of my golf trips in 2003 at Boulder Creek Golf Club south of Cleveland, OH with a good friend, Steve Rossa. Rossa wanted to introduce me to one of his friends and proceeded to grossly overstate my golf passions during the introduction. Rossa’s friend interrupted him and calmly stated “I don’t want to meet him; I want to meet his wife!” I am a lucky man.
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