Play PGA Tour courses on the cheap

Stepping onto Tour courses doesn't have to mean slipping into the red.

For anyone whose favourite tales of PGA Tour history involve the kind of people and incidents the Tour will never see again (did someone say Ky Laffoon...?) Al Barkow has written a wonderful account of municipal courses that once hosted Tour events and whose tee-times now go for a comparative song:

"There still exist a number of courses where PGA Tour events were played when the circuit was far from today's multimillion dollar show of shows. We speak in particular of municipal golf courses, where you can get a walk-up tee time, pay a pittance of a green fee by today's standards, then take your shots in the shadow of American golf's most richly anecdotal, colorful, inventive era -- the old days of the pro tour."

Where do I start to capture the flavour of this joyous read..?

Keller GC - "Gangsters sneaking a break from the "heat" in Chicago, played regularly...in the '20s and '30s. They included John Dillinger, as legend has it, and one day, when Dillinger was playing the third hole, he saw FBI agents approaching his group. He jumped the fence and hopped a train that ran adjacent to the course. He left his clubs behind."

Memorial Park GC - "The curved concrete bench, called The Rail, is still in front of the pro shop where the "players" in the old days - cab drivers, night-club musicians, bookies, cops, pimps, even oil barons - sat waiting to get up a 'game'. They were guys named Red Nose, Runt and Spiz."

Brackenridge Park - "You know you're on a course packed into small acreage when you walk onto a green and fix a pitch mark from a ball that was going in the other direction."

El Rio - "An El Rio regular recalled recently that as a 9-year-old he caddied for Bill Ogden, and when asked what club to hit he told his pro: 'Anyone you want, there's a lot of them in there. He didn't get hot, and even gave me a nice tip.'"

Rancho Park - "[Palmer] won three times at Rancho, but also earned a plaque at the 18th tee from which he made a 12 on the 478-yard par 5 in the 1961 event...Palmer complained that the original plaque was too big, and somehow it disappeared. But course-proud Rancheros replaced it, albeit with a smaller one. Inscribed is how he did it: A fine drive, two sliced shots into the driving range, followed by two hooks onto Patricia Avenue. He finally hit the green with his sixth shot, and two-putted. Eight strokes plus four penalties...

Other courses mentioned are Fort Sam Houston, Willow Springs, and Randolph Park. Of all of them, Rancho Park gets my nod, partly because I love the logo and partly because every club should have a member called Johnny Disco...