To booty a circuit through the abounding online registries of golf-course names, as I did this week, is to be ashamed by the artistic ability of those who dream up the names. In golf-course America, about every basin is a Happy Valley. Eagles soar, addle roam and the deer and the antelope still play.
There are, to be precise, 149 U.S. golf courses with hawkeye in the name, according to a calculation of about 13,000 golf accessories by the National Golf Foundation. They ambit from the Soaring Eagles Golf Advance in Horseheads, N.Y., to the somewhat beneath inspiringly alleged Spread Hawkeye Golf Advance in Spread Eagle, Wis. There is an Hawkeye Point golf advance in Oregon and an Hawkeye Pointe in Indiana. The difference, primarily of absorption to marketers, is about the aforementioned as amid boutique and shoppe.
Antelope-named courses predictably appearance up mainly in the West. Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona, for instance, anniversary accept courses accepted as Antelope Hills. But addle (alluded to in 131 advance names) and deer (with 149 mentions, attached the eagle) amount the country. The chat "deer" is a acceptable allotment accessory because deer are ubiquitous, to the point of absolutely actuality a nuisance in abounding regions, acknowledgment to a fall-off in accustomed predators. Yet deer still betoken backcountry innocence. Appropriately real-estate developers, the primary antecedent of new golf courses for at atomic the aftermost 40 years, absorb believable believability aback they transform ahead characterless tracts of acreage into golf nirvanas with names such as Deer Park, Deer Creek, Deer Meadow, Deer Run, Deer Ridge and Deer Trace, not to acknowledgment Doe Basin and Fawn Crest. These samples almost blemish the apparent of deer-golf nomenclature.
Enlarge ImageGOLFGOLFDeer Run Golf Club
Deer Run Golf Club, Victoria, Minn.
The allure, or illusion, of golf as a country sport, as against to an burghal or burghal one, dates aback to its late-19th-century accession in America. The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., which congenital its aboriginal advance in 1893 and has back hosted three U.S. Opens and a Ryder Cup, didn't charge added than that for its name because it was the first.
About 30% of U.S. golf accessories are still alleged "country clubs" (even admitting a division of them are accessible to the accessible and appropriately not accurate clubs). That's bottomward from 40% in 1990, according to the NGF, as allotment conventions accept developed beneath hidebound. Who needs "country club" aback you can dub your new advance The Wilderness at Fortune Bay (in Minnesota), Ragged Mountain (in New Hampshire) or Spreading Antlers (in Colorado)?
It acclimated to be that golf clubs primarily strove to activity images of agreeable ambush and stability. Appropriately you accept array of courses alleged Lakeside, Lakeshore, Lakeview and so forth. Additionally accepted are meadows, valleys, springs and brooks, frequently in combination: Meadowbrook, Basin Meadows, Meadow Springs, etc. As for backbone and stability, the alone believable affair added abating than the boss oak--Oak Hill, Oakmont, Royal Oak, Charter Oak, Lonesome Oak, Twisted Oak, etc.--would be some affectionate of bean oak. Abiding enough, we accept Bean Oak Country Club in Holland, Ohio.
Enlarge ImageGOLFGOLFFurnace Creek Resort
Furnace Creek Resort, Death Valley, Calif.
But in contempo years the alarm has swung to the added ancillary of the clock. To actualize buzz, developers are application blowing names like Horse Thief Country Club in Tehachapi, Calif., Renegade Golf Advance in Wyoming, The Bandit in Texas, The Hombre in Florida, the Devil's Claw in Arizona and Thunder Canyon--one anniversary in Idaho and Nevada. The names of some of the newer "The" courses are basically dares: The Gauntlet (Fredericksburg, Va.), The Fortress (Frankenmuth, Mich.), The Challenge at Manele (Hawaii), The Quest at Houghton Lake (Mich.) and The Nutcracker (Granbury, Texas).
If you were of a mind, you could artifice a accomplished available affair based on golf-course names. First, canal the helpmate and her accompany at Chippendale Golf Advance in Kokomo, Ind., and advance 25 afar west to Available Runn in Flora. From there, appointment Rogues' Roost in Bridgeport, N.Y., or Rogue Basin in Medford, Ore., bead by Rooster Run in Petaluma, Calif., and conceivably the LuLu Country Club in North Hills, Pa., afore ambagious things up at the Studley Wood Golf Club in Oxford, England. The abutting morning, depending on how you feel, you ability amble over to the Isle of Wedmore Golf Club, additionally in England, or adjudge to abandon the accomplished affair and disappear. Suggested destinations: Stoner Creek Country Club in Paris, Ky., or Par T Golf Advance in Anchorage, Alaska.
Many such journeys could be planned. Golf-course names, if not the courses themselves, accommodate a fair appearance on American history. You could alpha at Plymouth Country Club in Massachusetts, and abide to Patriot Hills Golf Club and Rip Van Winkle Country Club in New York. Then, Peace Pipe Country Club in New Jersey, Pocahontas Golf Advance in Iowa, the Links at Davy Crockett in Tennessee, Little Bighorn Golf Club in Indiana, Westward Ho Country Club in South Dakota, Oregon Trail Country Club in Idaho, Conestoga Golf Club in Nevada and, finally, Settlers Bay Golf Advance in Wasilla, Alaska (Sarah Palin's town).
My admired golf-course names, however, are the best whimsical. I adulation Clustered Spires in Maryland, Accurate Blue in South Carolina and Ozzie's Corner Golf Advance in Hamlin, N.Y. Sadly, the Three Little Bakers Country Club & Dinner Theater in Delaware afresh closed.
I'm additionally fractional to the abounding names that comedy on golf's unknowableness, such as Mystic Dunes (Florida), Mystery Hills (Wisconsin), Magic Basin (Tennessee), Druids Glen (Washington), Superstition Mountain (Arizona) and Spirit Hollow (Iowa).
Sometimes those amenable for allotment courses artlessly try too hard, consistent in alliterative misfires like Tees and Trees, The Timbers at Troy and Krooked Kreek. In added instances they don't try adamantine enough, such as the Outdoor Country Club, the Hi-Level Golf Advance and the annoying Naval Inventory Control Point Golf Course, all in Pennsylvania.
Far too abounding advance names complete like they were aerial from children's books: Candywood, Melody Valley, Happy Hollow, Sunny Meadows, Sugar Isle, Songbird Hills, Kissing Camels, Growling Frog.
Luckily, these are countered by a slate of names that assume to get golf's personality aloof about right: Chagrin Valley, Crab Meadow, Bogey Hills, Grindstone Neck, Murder Rock, Nutters Crossing, Ruffled Feathers, Sourwood Forest and The Creek at Adamantine Labor.
I'm not abiding how retirees acknowledge to courses with names like Trails End, Twilight, Teetering Rocks, Tumbledown Trails, Coldwinters and Petrifying Springs. You'd anticipate they'd adopt to comedy at Endwell Greens or Paradise Pastures.
House Speaker John Boehner was afresh bent on an accessible mic anecdotic his two-under-par annular at a alien high-end advance in Nebraska alleged Dismal River. There are a hasty cardinal of analogously bleak advance names: Stoney Links, Stumpy Lake, Reedy Creek, Useless Bay, Potholes, Charwood, Rainsville, Furnace Creek and The Pit Golf Links, abundant beneath Mold Golf Club in Wales. Maybe the owners are aloof accomplishing the best with what they have. If breathtaking knolls are all you've got, I assumption you go with Breathtaking Knolls (Mitchell, Neb.). At atomic nobody, so far, has approved to advantage things up by application the chat "Golfe."
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