Ever want to take a golf trip? How about a really long one, say to all 50 states? The author and his wife did just that in 2008, traveling over 17, 000 miles in a small RV on an amazing golf odyssey. They played and rated top courses in one small town per state and explored America's past along the way. This personal memoir chronicles their travels in a light and whimsical style, starting on an Apache Reservation in Arizona and ending in Hawaii with numerous thrills and misadventures in between.

Tour de Fore!

Golf and History in 50 StatesBy Glenn W. Morgan

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Glenn W. Morgan
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-1394-3

Contents

Preface - See the USA...............................................xiTour de Fore! Itinerary.............................................xvii"Front Nine" States.................................................11) ARIZONA: Kissin' Jenny and Geronimo..............................32) NEW MEXICO: Shootout in Socorro..................................123) KANSAS: Prairie Chickens on Parade...............................174) MISSOURI: Entertaining Branson...................................245) ARKANSAS: Tornado!...............................................296) OKLAHOMA: Choctaw Country........................................347) TEXAS: Glen Rose Stories.........................................378) LOUISIANA: Audubon's Land........................................459) MISSISSIPPI: All Y'all Come!.....................................5110) FLORIDA: Scottish Links in Scratch Ankle........................5611) ALABAMA: Heaven on the RTJ Golf Trail...........................6112) GEORGIA: Breakdown and the Big One..............................6813) SOUTH CAROLINA: Tiger Treat.....................................7414) NORTH CAROLINA: Fightin' White Squirrels........................8015) TENNESSE: Tall Tales............................................8516) KENTUCKY: Appalachian Challenge.................................8917) WEST VIRGINIA: Heroes and Hollers...............................9618) VIRGINIA: Longest Hole..........................................10119) PENNSYLVANIA: Ike and Intercourse...............................10920) MARYLAND: Hot Times on the Eastern Shore........................11621) DELAWARE: First State...........................................12122) NEW JERSEY: Birder's Paradise...................................12423) CONNECTICUT: Almost Skunked.....................................12924) RHODE ISLAND: Aquidneck Island Feast............................13425) ALASKA: Midnight Magic..........................................140"Back Nine" States..................................................14926) OREGON: Faith, Hope, and Charity................................15127) MAINE: Downeast High............................................15728) VERMONT: Ben There, Dunne That..................................16229) NEW HAMPSHIRE: Return to Bretwood...............................16730) MASSACHUSETTS: Golf and Art.....................................17331) NEW YORK: Woodstock and the Hall................................17832) OHIO: Nicklaus Country..........................................18533) INDIANA: Hoosier Daddy..........................................19034) ILLINOIS: Labor Day in Lincolnland..............................19435) IOWA: If You Build It ..........................................20136) WISCONSIN: Blood Brothers for Life..............................20937) MICHIGAN: Da Yoopers............................................21938) MINNESOTA: Main Street..........................................22539) NORTH DAKOTA: Bully Ball........................................23140) SOUTH DAKOTA: Wild Ride in the Black Hills......................23841) NEBRASKA: Beware the Wooga......................................24342) COLORADO: Rocky Mountain High-Low-Hook-Fade.....................25043) UTAH: Golf in the Red Rocks.....................................25944) WYOMING: Jackson Hole Dudes.....................................26545) MONTANA: Slagging It............................................26946) WASHINGTON: Windy Wazoo.........................................27547) IDAHO: Numb and Number..........................................28048 NEVADA: Washoe Lufus.............................................28449) CALIFORNIA: Playing with Pros...................................28950) HAWAII: Aloha and Goodbye.......................................295Endnotes:...........................................................301Our Top Ten Golf Courses:...........................................301Our Top Ten Towns:..................................................305Best and Worst of the Trip:.........................................308Epilogue:...........................................................311

Chapter One

ARIZONA: Kissin' Jenny and Geronimo

Monday, April 21st: Apache Stronghold Golf Course, San Carlos, Arizona

"A hundred ten in the shade is sorta hot, but you don't have to shovel it off your driveway." Author Unknown

If you want to begin a golf trip to all 50 states in April, Arizona is a fine place to start. It's warm then, but not too hot. And sunny, of course, which is why they call Phoenix and Maricopa County the "Valley of the Sun." It is now the fifth biggest megalopolis in America, thanks to an amazing growth in the last forty years or so. It all started in 1867 when an enterprising fellow named Jack Swilling spotted this arid desert country and figured a little irrigation could turn it into an oasis. He and a few others dug canals and by the following year a small settlement was thriving along the Salt River. They found remnants of the Hohokam, the Pueblo people who had lived there from 700-1400, and so they named the village "Phoenix" after the mythical bird which rose out of its own ashes to be reborn. Swilling really wanted to name it "Stonewall," after Stonewall Jackson.

Phoenix has seen phenomenal growth partly because it is Arizona's state capital, though this wasn't always the case. In 1889 Prescott (pronounced "Press-kit") was the capital of the Territory of Arizona, but Phoenix wanted the honor. Some crafty folks hired "Kissin' Jenny," a local bedroom entrepreneur, to spend the night with a self-conscious delegate from Prescott who had a glass eye and was a known drunkard and womanizer. As the story goes, every night he removed the eye and placed it in a glass of water on the bedside table. Sometime during the night Jenny woke up and took a drink, accidentally swallowing the eye. Next morning she couldn't be coaxed to produce it, one way or the other so to speak, and the Prescott delegate was so embarrassed he refused to leave the hotel for the vote. Phoenix won. So now 119 years later Prescott is a pleasant town of 41,000 in the mountains and Phoenix is a huge megalopolis of over four million people. This surprising tale and many others can be found by reading Arizona historian Marshall Trimble's delightful book, "Arizona, A Cavalcade of History."

It was fitting for us to begin this 50 state journey in the Phoenix area where people have moved to. Our purpose was to explore the rest of this beautiful country, to see small-town America where they moved from. Chandler was the starting point, a rapidly growing suburb just south of Phoenix where son Ryan lives along with his wife Carmina and their two children, Sebastian and Mia. We only had time for a quick weekend visit before our big departure, which was probably just fine with them. Being grandparents, we are allowed short visits like this, just long enough to get reacquainted and disrupt the household. We take the grandchildren out for a day at the zoo and bring them back all sunburned and filled with questions about the monkeys. "Why was the daddy monkey on top of the mommy monkey?" they ask, which is our cue to leave the room so their parents can deal with this question. Worse, we feed the kids French fries and cotton candy an hour before dinner and then...