Now’s the Season to Vote and Campaign for Your Favorite Courses

by Team FG

Golfers are tinkerers. It’s just part of the deal.
Even when the swing feels grooved and the fairway seems to be getting in the way of the ball more often, tweaking the move or slipping a new club into the arsenal is nearly irresistible. And when it comes to travel, look out — we’re all about mixing it up. We don’t like standing still unless it’s to light a cigar or tip a cold one, and our wanderlust is legendary.

If you’re reading these words, you know what we’re talking about. You’re one of us, always looking for something different. Which is why, for our second-annual Hack-it-ology contest — known to some as the Road to the Final Fore — we’ve come up with a new look and feel for our annual quest to discern just what is the best golf course in the West.

On the next page, you’ll still find 128 seeded courses chosen by FG staff and contributors from nearly 1,000 contenders, just like last year. But instead of breaking them out into brackets based on geographical sector, we’re going deeper into the courses’ very character, the way they interact with the land they inhabit throughout the incredibly diverse West — or, in some cases, how their architects have managed to override their setting and climate to almost trick the golfer into thinking they’re somewhere else.

Within the four brackets for 2010 — Coastal-Island, Desert-Inland Links, Valley-Parkland and Mountain-Forest — are courses that obviously belong where they are, especially in the coastal category (you’ve got to be able to see the ocean from somewhere on the field of play, the clubhouse, or both).

But looming in the three other categories are a handful are iconoclasts, rogues, outliers ... whatever you want to call them. Shadow Creek is by no means a desert course for instance, though it resides on a perfect square of previously featureless dirt in North Las Vegas. And while Canada’s sublime Big Sky is surrounded by peaks thousands of feet high, the course itself sits smack in the middle of a valley. Hence, it’s battling the other valley tracks.

Clearly it took leaps of faith and imagination on our part to place individual courses into their ultimate families, but they undeniably belong somewhere in the first-round seedings, at least as far as we can tell.

Your job is to tell us which golf courses in FG’s Great 128 deserve to go all the way. It’s easy and fun to do, with profit potential: Just head for www.fgmagazine.com, sign up for our exclusive Hack-it-ology contest (with brand-new, interactive brackets this year thanks to our friends at ICV Digital Media and Hack-it-ology’s first-ever sponsor, GolfTripGenius.com), make your selections through each round and boil the battles down to your final winner. For your efforts, we’ll put you in the running for several great prizes, including a Leupold GX-II Rangefinder valued at more than $300.

All we ask is that you’re honest, thoughtful and completely committed to your picks. The main point is that we want your wisdom as a well-traveled golfer and passion for your favorites to shine through. And by all means, invite your friends and co-workers to chime in, just like the fans of last year’s final four did to very successful effect. The folks at Trump National Los Angeles, The Chase at PGA Golf Club Coyote Springs, Links at Spanish Bay and Bandon Dunes worked hard to get the word out and drum up support. What resulted then, and most likely will again, is a political campaign in spikes, one we hope is ultimately based on a love for the game. One thing’s for sure: If enough people join you, we’ll have powerful proof that Hack-it-ology, like its college basketball counterpart and inspiration, is a worthy way to crown the king.

The first phase of the online contest runs through April 15. We’ll announce the Final Four in the May-June issue, and the winner in July. So get moving … and get ready for a great ride through the finest golf in the West. FG

Click HERE to place your votes! FG

Published in FG Magazine, March 2010

AMERICA'S MOST HONORED MAGAZINE AT ING AWARDS
It’s getting to be a habit, and we can’t seem to help ourselves. For the fourth straight year, FG racked up an impressive load of hardware at the International Network of Golf Media Awards announced at January’s PGA Merchandise Show. We scored six awards in all, besting writers and photographers from such national publications as GolfWeek and Sports Illustrated. First-place honors went to Vic Williams in Competition Writing for his piece on Tiger’s historic U.S. Open victory (July-August 2008), Joann Dost for her epic shot of Tiger’s 72nd hole putt on Open Sunday; and Calder Chism for his “Weekend Wisdom” drawing of Vic in the May-June 2008 issue. Outstanding Achievement awards went to Williams and Darin Bunch for Travel Writing. Other FG contributors who took home awards included Tony Dear and Bob Seligman. Next year, look for the clean sweep.