Centre Hills GC, Aurora. Dick Phelps, 1988. NLE

This 9-hole par 3 course was for all intents and purposes the place I truly learned the game. The holes were basically down in a drainage basin playing along and over a creek and some ponds in the bottom. It was owned and run by the city and I guess I understand why they gave up on it a few years back, but this is the kind of place golf needs more of—not some weird pitch-and-putt First Tee “course” tucked in a corner of some club, but a place where a seven year-old can (with his dad’s encouraging) lie to the pro about his age, and then head to the tee, ready to learn the hard way, and on his own, the love of a game that hasn’t relinquished its grip in the 30+ years since.

[1998?]