Playing the worlds Top 100 Golf Courses
March 23rd, 2010 by Doogs
John Sabino loves his golf, a director at Morgan Stanley in New York who decided a few years ago that golf on his local course wasnt enough of a challenge and planned to play the Top 100 golf courses in the world. John won’t be the first to complete this epic challenge, however more people have walked on the moon! John started his adventure in 2006 selecting the Golf Digest 2003 Top 100 list as his target.
John has a very sound philosophy on golf, he prefers to walk rather than drive a cart and carry his bag, he dislikes courses built for property over design, believes golf should be played in all conditions and that length doesnt make a golf course and shirts should be tucked in! Here, here John, I couldnt agree more.
Chris, John and Tom – 15th tee at Kingston Heath
John and his mates Chris from New York and Tom from Florida are playing the Australian courses in the Top 100, NSW, Kingston Heath, Royal Melbourne (East/West) and Royal Adelaide. They also ducked over Bass Strait to play Barnbougle and get a sneak peak at the new Lost Farm layout. I joined the gents at Kingston Heath with John playing his 90th course of the top 100, Chris and Tom have played around 50 or so!
Kingston Heath is in superb condition, the fairways are immaculate carpets of green turf, the greens firm and fast. We had fantastic weather and the US lads were full of praise for the course rated the best in Australia. They couldnt get over the amount of bunkers spread over the course, and we all visited them! We all struggled with the pace of the greens early, the deceptive breaks and subtle undulations. A post game discussion over a couple of beers rated the course very highly, high praise indeed for someone who has played 90 of the best in the world.
I asked John what the likelihood of being stuck on 99 for a while, which he said would be a good possibility. The illusive one of course being Augusta. They had all been to Augusta as spectators at the Masters which sounds like an awesome experience in itself, however getting onto Augusta is about as easy as playing golf on the moon!
We also caught up with Jamie and Mike, the Puregolf lads from New Zealand playing a round of golf every day for the year, certainly proof that golfers are a rare breed and many are passionate, obsessive and just that little bit crazy!
Keep up to date with John’s Top 100 quest on his blog: http://top100golf.blogspot.com/
