For those who follow the golf-nerd world as I do, you probably have heard about the amazing feat of Jimmie James.  In one calendar year, Jimmie managed to play ALL top 100 golf courses on the US Golf Digest list.  https://www.golfdigest.com/story/a-regular-golfers-quest-to-play-americas-100-greatest-courses-in-one-year

I recently had the chance to play golf with Jimmie at the CalClub and here are a few things I learned (in no particular order):

 

—  Jimmie is a GREAT guy.  He has a magnetic personality and is a natural leader.  He is smart, interesting, funny, and very respectful and polite.  It is no wonder that a guy like this was able to pull off this feat.  Anyone who plays with Jimmie would want to help him find his way onto his next course.

 

—  His journey began when he had a buddies trip to Scotland planned but his friend had to cancel due to a work emergency.  Jimmie decided to go on the trip by himself and was amazed at the kindness of the golf community.  People took him into their homes, invited him to dinner, etc.

 

—  After Jimmie played Augusta his original plan was to play two courses in each of the fifty states in his retirement.  Instead the vision changed and he decided to go for the “top-100”

 

—  When he started the journey he charted out which courses he thought he could get on… it wasn’t even a ¼ of the list.  He mapped out resort courses like Pebble, Bandon and Erin Hills which are expensive but do-able because of the public access.  He then had friends over the years at a dozen or so other courses he knew he could leverage to try out their courses.  From there he just “went for it…”  In each round he mentioned his quest and through the kindness of the golf community he began to be introduced to friends of friends and the journey took a life of its own.

 

—  The most random round he had to play to just “check the box” was the one he played it was at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.  For some crazy reason the day he was there it snowed.  He played in the snow anyhow.

 

—  Jimmie’s favorite five courses were (in no particular order) Augusta, Pine Valley, Cypress, Fishers Island, and Merion. 

 

—  Jimmie isn’t very good at golf (Jimmie, it takes one to know one!).  He only learned to play 14 years ago or so in his mid-40’s.  He plays fast and no one cares…

 

—  As we played at CalClub, I introduced Jimmie to the golf staff and club management.  Jimmie took the time to ask each of them for their email address.  I was wondering why… the next day Jimmie wrote a personalized note to everyone he met at CalClub.  It was a VERY classy move, from a very classy guy.