10 things I learned about golf in America on a cross-country road trip

Thirty-five years ago, legendary football writer Peter King accompanied the mythical football coach John Madden on a bus tour across America.

The pitch of the story was simple – a look at the country through the eyes of its main narrator – but the effect was gripping. For all Madden’s skill in diagnosing the blitz and admiring a well-executed seal block, perhaps the subject he spoke most eloquently about was his country.

It made sense. In his second career as a broadcaster, Madden spent more hours crisscrossing the country in his bus (affectionately called the Madden Cruiser) than anywhere else. He drove because he was too claustrophobic to fly, but soon found he enjoyed the experience. Madden read Steinbeck voraciously, and the author’s lust for the open roads of America seeped into the football coach.

I can’t remember the first time I read King’s story from the Madden Cruiser, which you can (and should) read here. I still remember the sentence that ended the story. It caught my eye at first glance and has stuck around ever since.

“You go to a big city and you hear that the world is going to hell, but that’s not true. Small parts of it are; the whole thing isn’t,” Madden said. “Going out makes you feel better about America. The thing works.”

I thought about this line again a few weeks ago when I made the relatively sudden decision to move from New York City to Park City for the winter. For the first time in my life, I had a good reason to drive (most of the way) across the country. I saw states I had only flown over or rushed through, a ship passing in the night on its way to somewhere else. However, now there would be no way out. I would have to drive through every small town and rolling prairie behind the wheel of a 2011 Toyota Highlander, an endless stretch of asphalt in front of me.

When people asked me about the ride, I did my best to steal Madden’s passion and optimism. “I’m excited to find out exactly what’s out there out thereI said.

But deep down I was worried. Not by the prospect of Nebraska, Iowa, or Western Illinois, but by my lingering skepticism that there was anything worth finding out there. I feared that what once endeared Madden to this country was gone – that the goodness of America had disappeared into a well of nihilism and self-interest, behind lines drawn in internet comment sections and on debate stages.

The night before I left, I decided I had to fight these worst instincts. As I stuffed the last few clothes into my suitcase, I formed a plan. I would follow the one ray of light I was sure I would find in every state – golf – and see if I could learn anything along the way.

The 10-state journey began the next morning, November 3, shortly after 5 a.m. local time.

10. New York

It was the shortest part of our ride, but also the hairiest. Only about twenty miles separated us from New Jersey, but those thirty miles traversed New York City’s most congested stretch of rush-hour traffic: the corridor that connected Long Island, the Bronx, and New Jersey.

In the haze of pre-dawn darkness, I almost forgot to spot the first golf landmark on our trip: Douglaston Golf Course, a bustling course in New York City sandwiched between three major highways, just across the border from Queens.

I’d only played Douglaston once – a forgettable lap at a glacial pace during which I’d accidentally managed to break off an old driver’s head – but I couldn’t help but smile as we passed. Long ago, Douglaston was one of my grandfather’s golf houses. Poppy, a New York bon vivant and diehard golfer, helped instill in me the adventurous spirit that fueled my decision to move west.

I thought he might get a kick out of this.

9. New Jersey

As we left the George Washington Bridge, I stared, as I always do, at the Overpeck Golf Course – a public course that overlooks I-95 on the Jersey side of the bridge.

North Jersey does loaded with golf courses, and the Metropolitan Golf Association regularly visits area clubs such as Knickerbocker, Ridgewood and Arcola. Overpeck is different from those places. Located in the lowlands near the swamps of MetLife Stadium, this is the kind of public course that represents so much of the sport in the Northeast: an oasis from the hustle and bustle of the city… conveniently located, well within sight of rush hour traffic.

It only took about 20 minutes of driving before we broke one of Madden’s golden rules of the road.

“Don’t wait for anyone, finish every bottle of water you start and drink straight from the bottle,” Madden had told King. “And never take I-80 in or out of New York; there is always construction going on.”

Madden was indeed right. There was construction on I-80 again and before 6 a.m. there was an endless traffic jam. We left the New York metro area at just the right time.

8.Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is rapidly shifting from metropolis to heartland. I-80 would take us across the entire state, nearly 300 miles from east to west, and most of it would be spent traveling through the morning hustle and bustle of rural America. The winding highway wound through beautiful yellow-orange terrain with views of the Allegheny National Forest and breathtaking amber steel towns like Clarion and Stoneboro.

From the highway, a series of golden shadows fell on Clarion Oaks Country Club in the morning light.

7. Ohio

You don’t have to leave I-90 to see why Ohio’s golf courses are among the most respected in America. Boulder Creek is an oasis on the side of a boring stretch of highway, and the golfers who filled the fairways and greens indicated that a light rain shower in November was unlikely to spoil the fun.

6.Indiana

It must have sounded like I was going crazy when, twelve hours into our first road trip, I turned to my road trip partner (and girlfriend), Jamie, and blurted out the following line.

“Wait! Is that the Warren Course at Notre Dame?”

Indeed it was. I had seen my first real golf landmark: a beloved college course in Coore-Crenshaw with gnarled bunkers and quirky greens. But better than golf we were approaching our first stop and dinner was in the offing.

5. Illinois

It was shortly after nightfall when we finally pulled into the parking garage of my GOLF colleague Sean Zak’s Chicago apartment. After almost 13 hours of sitting it was time to stretch our legs.

We walked along Lake Michigan for only a few minutes before a golf landmark stopped us. It was a driving range, less than 200 yards from Mr. Zak’s apartment. No wonder it was so difficult to reach on summer afternoons.

4. Iowa

After a year of living in Brooklyn’s bustling Williamsburg neighborhood, the name “Williamsburg, Iowa” was too enticing to pass up.

The city, complete with its own ‘Central Park’, could be on a postcard of small-town America, complete with a cozy center full of bustling cafes and restaurants. Mi Casa Mexican, in the central city square, treated two distracted travelers on a work visit to warm service and a delicious meal of fajitas and enchiladas.

Just on the road, at Stone Creek Golf Clubone of the most pristine nine-holers anywhere in America offers a similar welcome. For $26 you can go once around the nine-hole loop designed by five-time PGA Tour winner DA Weibring.

In other words, in Williamsburg, Iowa, you can find a hot meal and a great round of golf for less than $50. In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, $50 might not get you a couple of coffees.

3.Nebraska

Long before the road trip began, Jamie and I chose to stop our second day of driving at a hotel in Kearney, Nebraska, a small town right in the center of the state. I didn’t tell Jamie at the time that part of my interest in Kearney was more than logistical: Madden and King had stopped by in the same town. their travel across the country, enjoying a meal at a family-run steakhouse called Grandpa’s, which Madden said typified his feelings about America.

When we arrived in Kearney, we discovered that life went on after the Madden Cruiser’s visit to Grandpa. The steakhouse no longer exists, but the heart of the place that Madden loved remained intact. Kearney may no longer have Grandpa’s, but it does have Barista’s Daily Grind, a surprisingly good coffee shop with a line that rightly wraps around the parking lot.

It turns out that not all of the changes in Nebraska over the past 35 years have been bad. Not much further along I-80, Jamie and I stopped in Gothenburg, once a crucial stop along the Pony Express (the famous horse-and-ride mail exchange that connected much of the American West in the 1860s). Gothenburg has since become something of a golf hotspot, welcoming the development of one of the most underrated new public golf courses in America. Wild horse.

True to his name, Wild horse cannot be entered without a 1.5 mile trek on a dirt road. And, true to its name, the golf course feels like it exists in a world completely untouched by humans. I didn’t have time to play, but from what I saw I’m already convinced. At $65 on weekdays and $80 on weekends, I’m not sure there is a better golf value anywhere in America. I have already circled a visit for my return trip.

2. Colorado

If you were hoping to prove John Madden’s words about America in an instant, you’d go to Buccee’s. The eponymous (and enormous) chain of truck stops is like a fever dream of the American ideal: all at once a gas station, shopping center, supermarket, barbecue joint, confectionery and an award-winning pit stop toilet.

Maybe you’d stop there on your way to or from Rodeo Dunes, the brand new resort course opening about an hour outside of Denver. But if that felt uncomfortable, you didn’t have to drive far to find some of the Mountain West’s best golf courses elsewhere in the state.

The most surprising thing about the drive through Colorado was how much of the state was covered in golf. For nearly three hours, the I-70 corridor cutting through the Rockies was littered with exotic-looking mountain trails. As the mountains turned from earth to sandstone and the colors changed from dark brown to red, the familiar sight of golfers traversing the fairways and greens of their local courses acted as a kind of north star.

We were nearing the end.

1.Utah

We finally arrived in Park City to find that ski season hadn’t quite started yet. An unseasonably warm early November had put Opening Day in doubt for the nearby mountains, but the string of sunny, 60-degree days was welcomed by at least part of the local community: the golfers.

When I first drove through my new hometown, I looked around and saw four golf courses in plain sight. Everywhere I looked, golfers seemed happy. They walked and rode, carried and pushed, drank in the landscape and the sunshine.

I thought about the words Madden first spoke 35 years earlier.

“What I’ve learned traveling around is this: the people are nice,” he said. “Hey, all we have to do is spread out a little, because we have a lot of room.”

I thought about every restaurant and fast food joint. At every gas station and truck stop. Every highway and hiking trail. Every old friend and honest stranger. After a week of traveling across the United States, had someone dissuaded me from that idea?

The answer was simple: No.

America still turned out to be good. You just had to try to see it.