By Ted Curtis

It's one thing to offer a ranking of 100 top courses. It's quite another to figure out a way to play all of them.

Bernie Hiller had come too far to let a little thing like a trip to an intensive care unit stop him.

For more than 23 years, the 70-year-old insurance agent from Long Island had chased a dream. Over two decades, he had played many of the world's most respected courses, even some that had been removed from the top-100 rankings compiled by Golf Digest and Golf Magazine.

Finally, Hiller found himself a single course from making his odyssey complete: Durban Country Club, near Johannesburg, South Africa. And then, the day before he was scheduled to play at Durban, Hiller found himself in an emergency room. He had collapsed of a heart ailment at the 14th hole of a nearby course.

You might think he missed his chance, but come sunrise, there was Hiller — against the advice of local doctors — standing at the first tee at Durban. For his efforts, Hiller was rewarded with four more days in ICU before physicians would permit him to travel home.

"I must have been totally crazy to do that," chuckles Hiller, now almost shocked at the extent of his obsession. "But anyone who knows me would just laugh and say, 'Well, if Bernie died right there on the golf course at Durban, at least he would have gone happy.' "

Such are the deliciously outrageous lengths to which a handful of players will go to. And while top-100 lists seem to generate as much disagreement as concurrence, it is the quest that counts. In fact, there's usually more than 100 courses involved in completion of the quest. To satisfy any and all doubters, those tackling the U.S. 100 usually play those courses listed on "America's 100 Greatest Courses" as ranked by Golf Digest and those Golf Magazine proclaims as the "Top 100 Courses in the U.S." It usually adds up to about 120 layouts. Only Golf Magazine publishes a ranking of worldwide courses.

Meet Jimmy Dunne, a 42-year-old investment banker from New York who carries a 1 handicap, holds a disdain for motorized golf carts, and displays his collection of world 100 monogrammed golf balls arranged in order of his own personal ranking (Pine Valley and Shinnecock Hills tied for first, with Ireland's Royal County Down in third).

Meet Hiller, he of the fluttering heart. A modest fellow, he proudly shows off the wall map in his office, covered with pushpin flags marking the sites of the top 100 courses he has played. So intent on completing his worldwide efforts has been Hiller that he often has traveled with little more than his clubs and golf shoes, making trips to courses such as New Zealand's Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club in just a weekend, or the National Golf Club of Canada in a single day. "My wife used to joke that if I wasn't home by dinner, she would call the locksmith," says Hiller. "But I haven't missed a meal yet."

And meet amazing Bob McCoy, a 59-year-old former Wall Street executive. A decade after he became one of the first to turn the U.S.-world 100 double play, McCoy got serious. Last summer he played all the courses on Golf Magazine's world list in 100 days.

His odyssey took nearly a year to plan, and he began by contacting the hundreds of friends he met his first time around the world. He plotted his potential itinerary on three huge, evolving magnetic boards. "I had to do a lot of reshuffling around corporate shotguns, men's association events and ladies' day tournaments," quips McCoy. "It was quite a challenge just to put the trip together."

When it finally came time to hit the road, the effort required $35,000 to fund and hundreds of hours of flight time. In one week, McCoy bounced from San Francisco to Japan to New Zealand to Australia. He played Pebble Beach and Cypress Point on the same day. And he played Valderrama in two nines, beginning one evening and completing the 1997 Ryder Cup site the next morning.

"After I completed the World 100 for the first time, my friends asked me what I was going to do for an encore," said McCoy. "I thought that to do it again, but this time in 100 days, would do the trick."

Why would these golfers go so far? For many, the chase simply helps to satisfy a seemingly unquenchable love of the game. "Ever since I was a kid, I have just loved to play golf — anytime, anywhere," explains Steve Young, an Illinois high school guidance counselor, math teacher and golf coach who remains about 20 courses from completing the U.S. 100. "It's really that simple. There are just so many fabulous golf courses in the United States and I want to play them all."

Such quests also offer ordinary golfers the extraordinary opportunities to pay homage to the game's rich heritage.

"It's like walking through history, playing these great courses," says Norman Klaparda, a 60-year-old retired clothing manufacturer from Southern California who completed the world 100 in 1993. "Naturally, when you walk onto Augusta or St. Andrews, you know you are walking on hallowed ground. Anyone with a true appreciation of golf and real love for the game understands that."

But perhaps more significantly, these quests provide lifetime memories.

"When I went to Turnberry with a friend," explained McCoy, "the pro let us out on the course around 7 p.m. We put our bags on our shoulders and headed out into the evening sunlight with the hotel, the lighthouse and the Royal Air Force monument all in perfect view. Then the bagpipes started to play. Even though we later found out that they played bagpipes at the hotel every night at that time, we felt as if they were playing just for us. Now that was a glorious evening, and quite an incredible memory."

To be sure, a few golfers seeking to play the U.S. or world 100 have cashed in on lifelong connections. But the overwhelming majority have done so without a single introduction. For them, reaching the first tee has been the result of years of dedication, countless hours of letter writing and a little luck.

Dunne played at Royal Dar es Salam in Morocco only after that country's king answered a letter that Dunne had written to his royal highness, requesting permission to play his golf course.

"When we got to the course," recalls Dunne, "there was a sign at the first tee that said 'Course Closed Today.' We went into the pro shop and presented the letter. The pro took one look at the king's seal at the top of the letter and turned absolutely pale. He ran out to the tee, pulled the sign right out of the ground and said, 'Play away.' "

Hiller had been unable to get onto the exclusive Shadow Creek Golf Club in Las Vegas. That is, until Ken Wynn, the brother of club owner and Vegas mogul Steve Wynn, personally set up Hiller's tee time after hearing of the 14 handicapper's top-100 efforts from a pro at a club in Georgia. And Young, who has detailed his quest with a collection of top-100 bag tags, has enjoyed the fruits of his wife's public relations-minded, letter-writing labors.

"My wife had found out that Reverend Oral Roberts is a member at Southern Hills in Tulsa," he recalls, "so she wrote him a letter, starting off, 'This may be one of the most different kinds of prayer requests that you have ever received.' It was amazing. His secretary called back and actually arranged for me to play the course.

"As a result of these kinds of efforts," continues the

51-year-old, "I have played courses such as Cherry Hills, Southern Hills, Los Angeles North, Riviera and Baltusrol. Not bad for a guy who doesn't have connections."

But of these intrepid golfers, few have endured the challenges set forth before Samm Klaparda.

Klaparda, whose husband has completed the U.S. and world 100, has traveled a rocky road simply because she is a woman. Klaparda has refused to allow gender-restrictive club rules, from limitations on starting time availability to prohibitions on playing at all, to stand in her way. She has gone before club boards of directors, seeking special votes that have allowed her to play. She even signed a release after one club insisted she never publicly mention the name of the course — or even that the club permitted her to play.

"I had to really work at overcoming some road blocks," says Klaparda, who recently matched her husband's conquest of the world 100. "It hasn't been easy."

But regardless of whether they are at Seminole, Pebble Beach, Pine Valley or even an area public course, these golfers play foremost for the joy and perfect simplicity of their sport.

"It doesn't matter where you are, the best course in the world or your local municipal course," says Dunne. "If you have your bag on your shoulder, a good golf course in front of you and friends along, that's about as good as it gets."