About 16 or 17 years back, and close to 600 golf courses ago, I was first exposed to a wonderland called Crumpin-Fox Golf Club. This is a delightfully hilly and serene walk through the woods in the northern Massachusetts town of Bernardston, adjacent to the Vermont border, and just a couple miles off of Route 91.

When I first spied the terrain, still something of a golf neophyte in terms of my previous exposure to great courses, I was taken aback at the dazzling challenges the course presented—so unlike the standard parkland fare I was accustomed to. Sharp doglegs, thick forests, steep drop-offs surrounding exposed greens, and virtually no parallel fairways, I was both amazed and intimidated. Who knew golf could be so daunting, so terrifying and invigorating concurrently? I was instantly transfixed, and made it my business to return as often as possible from my home an hour south.

In the ensuing years since that initial exposure, I've moved a thousand miles away, and managed to visit and play hundreds upon hundreds of golf courses around the world, including nearly half of the worldwide Top 100. But I still pay an annual visit to Crumpin-Fox whenever I return to western Massachusetts, and this bucolic nature walk, full of challenge and intrigue, never, ever disappoints.

With apologies to novelist Thomas Wolfe, you can go home again.

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