Never heard about anything like this.
Nothing even close.
Raise your hand out there if you know someone who has played 1,000 different golf courses?
Can you even fathom that?
Paul Rudovsky did.
First of all, it took Paul 60 years to do it. He got into golf by accident when he was 10 and attending a summer camp for kids. He had to make a fast activity choice and it came down to soccer, arts and crafts or golf. He took a flyer on golf. That’s how this story began.
Pinehurst is his winter home and the good news is you can probably find at least 40 different courses in that part of North Carolina. His 999th course was Bulle Rock in Maryland so he had a major decision in front of him. What course would be No. 1,000?
He decided on The Cradle a new amazing nine-hole short course designed by Gil Hanse. At 789-yards, that’s an easy day, even when you’re 72 years old as Rudovsky is.
But how did he get to 1,000?
Golf publications started putting together lists of the top 100 courses in America back in the 1960s. In all, there have been 323 different courses on that list over the years. Give no longer exist so make that 318. Rudovsky has played all of those.
Then the task came down to playing the everyday courses that most of us find. He obviously found plenty of those.
In fact, he started compiling his own lists.
Then, when actually forced to lie low for a period, Rudovsky’s mind really kicked into gear.
“About 10 years ago, I had a mild case of pneumonia here in Pinehurst and was in bed bored,” he says. “I said, ‘What am I going to do to pass the time?’ And I thought, well, I could update the list because I had put them all in a file and I hadn’t updated it in a couple of years anyhow. I figured it could be the world’s greatest Excel schedule.”
His accomplishment, thus, has been carefully detailed.
This is something most of us can’t even dream about, much less pull off.
One-thousand different golf courses? Most of us would probably be happy with 100.
It one heck of a lifetime of golf for a retired executive from Pennsylvania.
He’s gotta be the best go-to guy to talk about the best places to play. Forget that Matt Ginella guy on the Golf Channel, he can’t touch this man when it comes to golf travel and venues.
So what are Rudovsky’s thoughts about a good golf course?
“My test today of a great golf course is: When you walk off of 18 or 9, do you want to go out and play it again? Is that your immediate thought?” he said. “And if it’s not, well, that’s not what the game’s supposed to be about.”
Congratulations Paul Rudovsky, you are THE MAN!
