My first article at Golf Observer and some quick golf travel tips.

My first piece, a short biography of Old Tom Morris, is up at www.golfobserver.com. I'll also be doing some pieces here too, including reviving my mailbag features, where I answer your golf travel and golf architecture questions. Here is my piece's direct link, but read the other guys as well. They are some of the most brilliant and cutting edge minds in golf.

Lastly, here are some quick travel tips. For Midwesterners, Fowler's Mill states its case admirably as the best public course in Ohio. This Pete Dye design, built in 1971, so it's as classic as Harbour Town for Dye, battles western Ohio's excellent Longaberger Golf Club quite well for top honors. Firestone Farms in Columbiana has many interesting holes as well and is dirt cheap...as low as $38 in high season.

ISSUE: All of the greater Cleveland area courses have experienced severe drought conditions this year with some courses actually running out of irrigation water. Call to all western Ohio courses before scheduling trips and ask about conditions. Fairways at all courses on my trip were mildly brown, but the courses are doing the best they can and prices were comp[etitively low.

In Boston, Red Tail, always at the head of the class, was in fantastic condition this weekend. The native grasses had grown knee high, the greens were lightning quick and the already wonderfully sculpted and shaped fairways were pristine. Run don't walk for a tee time and look for a longer Boston piece soon at Golf Observer soon.