I just finished watching the highly popular and very successful movie, “The Bucket List” with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. The movie revolves around two men in the later stages of life, both with terminal cancer, who decide to live their last days fulfilling their “bucket lists”, or doing all the things they have ever wanted to do in their lives. Well, I decided I wanted to fill out my golf bucket list. Now I am not dying anytime soon and I am not old by any stretch, but I have a great list of golf courses I have already played and an even larger list of courses I would like to play.
Let’s start on a national level- with no regard to status and/ or price. I would like to play Augusta National (GA), Pine Valley (NJ), Cypress (CA), Pebble Beach (CA) and Pinehurst No 2 (NC) are my top 5 in the USA. That’s great, but 3 out of 5 of those are private and I haven’t met anyone who is a member yet. I would also include St Andrews in Scotland as an international course. Now if I am going to look only at California, I have some great ones as well. After Cypress and Pebble Beach, I would like to play Spyglass, Pasatiempo, Bayonet and Spanish Bay in Monterey. Courses such as The Olympic Club, Harding Park, Wente Vineyards, Hiddenbrooke and CordeValle are great ones in the Bay area. Trump National, La Costa, Riviera, Bel Air, PGA West and Riviera are great courses in the So California area. Locally, I have yet to play Serrano, Del Paso and Morgan Creek, but I look to change that soon. I have already played some of the great courses around the Sacramento and Northern CA area including Winchester, Dark Horse, and The Ridge in the Auburn area. I have played Poppy Hills, Poppy Ridge, The Presidio (San Francisco), Stevenson Ranch (Modesto area), Coyote Creek (San Jose), Coyote Moon (Truckee), Half Moon Bay, Saddle Creek (Copperopolis) and Cinnabar Hills (San Jose). Outside of California, I have played Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Sunriver Crossings Course (OR) and Circling Raven in Idaho.
Everyone has certain courses that mean something to them. For me I would like to play Chambers Bay in Washington simply because it is the newest course added to the US Open rotation and is a public course. I would like to hear your golf bucket list. Please send your all time courses to play as well as the ones you have already played. Send us a list just for California as well. Send your info to www.golf@northsacnews.com and we will post your answers in the coming issues.