[NAF]

I had the pleasure and luck to play the following courses over the last 10 days..

Cruden Bay
Royal Aberdeen
Royal Dornoch
Sunningdale Old and New
Swinley Forest
Rye

Wow! What a group..Rather than write my experience..thought I would give awards to my favorites..

Best Par 3-Really hard when you compare the great par3s at Swinley vs. Rye..I would say my favorite was Rye #7.  What a tough green to hit..Give me 10 balls to try and hit the green and I still might miss every time.

Runners-up the 4th and 8th at Swinley..Death for those who dont hit the green..the 8th has a big dropoff to the right..10feet plus..I missed right, hit a perfect flop shot and still had to sink a 20 footer to save par..

Best Drivable par 4s..Cruden Bay #3 and #8..A lot of fun trying to make 3 on these holes..You pay for it on #8 with the hike to the tee box on #9..

Most Fun to Play-Without a doubt Cruden Bay..Where else can a 230yd+ Blind par 3 give you a rush when you round the bend to see where your drive (r) landed..

Best hole with an aiming stick-Tie b/t the Alps hole at Rye (#13) and the 17th at Dornoch (Valley)..

Best Cross Bunkering on a hole-The Bottleneck hole at Sunningdale Old..

Best opening hole-Royal Aberdeen..Gets you going right to the ocean..Watch the spectators in the lounge gawk at your tee shot.
Best Par 4-Dornoch-#14 Foxy..How can you not love a hole that turns like an S, has a plateau green, no bunkers and still hard to make 5.

Best Par 5-Royal Aberdeen #2..Set perfectly among the dunes with lots of moguls, bumps and hillocks in the fairway where your ball runs and disapears and reappears before your eyes..Is only 530 yds but plays 600yds into the wind..The sounds of the north sea above the dunes further enhances the experience.

Most Underrated Opening 9-R.Aberdeen 3400 yds that plays into prevailing wind as 4000 yds in my opinion..

Biggest Surprise-Not expecting the punchbowl green at Cruden Bay #14

Best Grooming/Conditions..Sunningdale..Greens were like velvet..

The loveliest place when the sun shines--Royal Dornoch..made me feel a world away and feel lucky to be playing at such a wonderful place on earth..

Best Rhododendrons-Swinley Forest was the loveliest shade of Purple..

Best Clubhouse/Halfway house-Sunningdale..Any half way house that serves sausage and bacon rolls plus Pimms is special..

Club I wish I was a member at-Swinley Forest

My Favorite Course of the bunch--This will cause a furor...but Swinley Forest is the fairest maiden of them all..the place is magic...

[Ran Morrissett]

Noel,

How would you compare the Old and New course at Sunningdale? Which did you prefer? Was there any disappointment at either?

Is the 14th at Cruden Bay actually a punchbowl green? Technically speaking, the green itself is flat. They were maintaining the downslope that leads onto the green as rough a year ago - have they regained their senses to where they now cut it at fairway hieght?

Is it fair to say you preferred Royal Aberdeen to Rye?

[NAF]

Ran,

I preferred the Old to the New but I believe 2 of my other 3 playing partners preferred Harry Colt's course to Willie Park's..I just found the style of bunkering more interesting at the Old while my playing partners found the New course having more strategic options.

I just found myself somewhere around the Bottleneck Hole on the Old loving the course. While the members had said the New was more difficult than the Old due to tighter fairways and better bunkering I didnt see that on my only loop around both...I think the Old is a solid 8 and the New a notch lower..Call me crazy if you wish but I think Doak got it right in his rating.

You are correct in saying the 14th at CB is not a punchbowl green, perhaps a better statement is the way it lies in a sunken dell which funnel the ball on to a flattish green..In any event I wasnt expecting what I saw..My approach shot landed by the aiming stick and rolled all the way down, I cannot remember if the rough you speak of was there but my gut tells me no..

R.Aberdeen vs. Rye is tough...I would say the opening 9s are very comprable to me and both places have great finishing holes..I would rate them even at 8's each but given a gun to my head I would rather play #2, #4, #7, #13 at Rye vs. R.Aberdeen so I think Rye would be my choice...But I still can't even remotely see how Doak gave RA a "5"...Holes 10-14 are good but 1-9 and 15-18 are great..

[Paul Turner]

Noel

Did you like the par 3s on the New?  Not quite in Swinley's class (although the 5th is)but a fine set nevertheless.  Also, the New's 6th is perhaps the very best heathland par 5.

I can't see Aberdeen in Rye's class, it's a beautiful course with some fantastic terrain but lacks Rye's strategy and variety.

[NAF]

Paul,

Big fan of #2, # 10 and # 17 at the NEW..Better par 3s there than at the OLD..Jim Reilly is a big fan of #17...he made a near impossible up and down to tie me for the hole and go dormie on the match..

#6 took its pound of flesh from me as I put my tee shot right and had a heck of a time trying to hit a 100 ft high shot out of heather over a tree..

I see your point on RA, it isnt in Dornoch's class but I think people underestimate the front 9 for as good as it is..Rye does have much more strategic holes especially the par 3s and #4, #9, #13, #16 and #18 (although 18 at RA is damn good!!!)..The proximity of the north sea on the opening 9 at RA adds an element Rye doesnt have..Still I love both courses..

[Jim Reilly]

Regarding Sunningdale.  I thought both courses were solid with the Old having slightly more charm and the New being more strategic.  I would give the nod to the New by a hair.  I would like to give both courses another loop around before giving them a permanent number, but my initial reaction is that they are both solid 7s.  Both courses had too many shallow bunkers (coming from a weekend of Woodhall Spa and Ganton, I might be biased) and both had a sense of fairness that kept them out of the league of Ganton, Rye or the Addington (yes, I'm addicted to quirk and prejudiced against fairness).

[Paul Turner]

Jim

One day maybe the club will return the bunkers back to this kind of look:

[Ran Morrissett]

Have any of you played Woking, Ashdown Forest or St. George Hill? How would you compare them to Sunningdale New (which I have never seen)?

[Ran Morrissett]

That picture is amazing! Is that 5 on the New? How many trees would be in that photo if taken today?

[Ran Morrissett]

So many write glowingly of Sunningdale Old 65 years ago when the course had a more barren, sandy edge to it ala Pine Valley. Visually, it was more rough and perhaps intimidating and less "charming," which is always the word associated with it these days.

I reckon I would agree with Doak that it was an 8 then but in today's more finely presented form, I think Jim has it right as a 7. Like you say, Jim, it's all so terribly fair that something seems missing from nature.

[Jim Reilly]

Paul,

Thanks for the Pic.  Rather than ageing gracefully it appears Sunningdale has been to the plastic surgeon.  I share your hope about the bunkers, but the other thing about the picture is the lack of trees (although Sunningdale does appear to have done a good job of keeping trees out of the line of play).  

Ran,

I play St. George's Hill the weekend after next, and I really don't know what to expect, although my anticipation is great.

[kilfara]

Boy, that picture has really screwed up my display, here. I have to scroll back and forth to read each response; nevertheless, in the name of GCA perseverance...

I'm one of those who has come to prefer the New to the Old at Sunningdale. The par 3s are THAT good, and as Paul mentioned, the par-5 sixth is quite possibly my favorite hole in the heathlands. Also, the feel of the course is much better for me, with many wide-open vistas of heather and adjacent holes (the Old is much more tree-bound).

Comparing St. George's Hill to these? I'd put it just behind Swinley, just about even with Sunningdale New (maybe just ahead of it), and ahead of Sunningdale Old. It's a different kind of course - closer to Swinley in its golfer-friendliness, and probably the grandest of all of the heathland courses. I think I've just figured out why Doak likes SGH so much: there's a heroic flavor to it which is absent from most of the other heaths. Take the par-3 eighth, pictured in Doak's book - how many other heathland courses have chasms (you could almost call it "quirk") like that? Maybe Berkshire Red (the 10th), but it's not as good a course in other aspects. I'm starting to get into the realm of intangible factors I can't really define, but I suppose I can say that SGH fits a happy medium between the character  of Swinley and the relative length/difficulty of the Sunningdales.

Cheers,
Darren

[Ran Morrissett]

I'm glad/relieved that you both use the word strategic to describe Rye. Given its lack of bunkering in the fairways and given that all my favorite holes there are straight (save for the 16th), I have always wondered just how strategic it is.

Yes, more so than any course other than Westward Ho! and St. Andrews, it makes you try and control the flight of the ball under the wind from humpy lies/awkward stances (and thus separates the player from the golfer), but as for strategic, I was never sure.

[Paul Turner]

Ooops, that photo wasn't supposed to be that BIG!

Ran, yes it is the 5th on the New, I scanned it in from Geoff Shackelford's Golden Age book.  Here's a photo of the present hole from the website (not a very good photo, it's still an excellent hole!)

I agree that the Old course at Sunningdale would benefit the most from a return to the raw looking bunkers, only the 7th appears to have retained the raw look; a hole where the terrain gets rougher .

Sunningdale's Old course has such a strong variety of fairway bunker placement:

Groups of cross bunkers at 9,12,14,16,18
Single bunkers smack in the middle of the fairway: 2,6,16.  As well as more conventional flank/diagonal bunkers.  And so I reckon a restoration to the raw look would have a strong impact.  

I love the way that the Old sprawls across the heath and some of the par 4s are in the very top echelon.  Making up for the odd weaker link.

Still regarding the change of the heathlands:  I noticed an old photo of The Addington in The Spirit of St Andrews, is this the same hole that Tom Doak photo'd in his gourmet section?  If it is then it's good illustustration of how these courses have changed.

[Laun M]

Jim (or anyone else),

What is unfair about Addington?

[Jim Reilly]

Laun,

As you can probably tell from my post I would say nothing.  However, I could see someone who is preoccupied with their score calling the 12th unfair when two drives hit on the same trajectory and within 4 inches of each other result in one having a perfect lie on one of the tiers of that fairways landing area, while the other has a hanging, buried 75 degree downslope lie because his drive wound up trickling 4 inches past that shelf; or, perhaps, because two drives in the same fairway result in one being in 3 inches of rough because the mower didn't reach into the depression in the middle of the fairway to cut the grass, while the other guy has a nice clean lie because his ball wound up on a high spot.

[Paul Turner]

I'll try again with that modern photo of the New's 5th:

[Laun M]

Jim,

The reason I asked the previous question was that I think I am blinded by love of this course and am interested in the less biased opinion of another. It seems to polarise people into love or hate and when I enquire the usual reasons given for dislike are the 12th and the condition.

I think that the 12th hole has, to an extent, been made unfair by modern equipment. From the back tee its about 275yds to reach the end of the fairway and reach the "lottery" of heather etc. I don't think the hole has changed (at least in length) since the course was laid out (about 1914) when 275yds was a good hit. Most of the members seem to have mastered the semi-layup onto the first tier down, but it is a pity that many visitors run out of fairway as the shot from the top of the hill to the green has lost none of its power. I have always believed that in the mind of the designer it was supposed to be a full drive to the top of the hill or the first tier down and then a brassie across the valley and heather or a layup. Interestingly enough, a "bogey" 5 is shown on the scorecard rather than par 4 - perhaps a subtle hint for the best strategy?  

As far as course conditioning, the club has begun to make some investments and, the last time I was there, was in pretty good shape (although these things are relative).  

[Jim Reilly]

Laun,

Any lover of the Addington is a friend of mine.  Where are you located?  

I played this past november in a driving rain.  I played two balls on the 12th.  The first I went for and put the ball off to the left, just past the second shelf.  On the second, I laid up just short of the hill as you suggest is the smart play.  I played the first ball from a horrendous lie SW, 8-iron and made the put for par.  The second ball I played from the top of the hill 5-wood to the edge of the right front bunker, chip and made my put for par.  Talk about two different routes.  

I mentioned on this site before, that during my round, I had a fox that follow me, seemingly in disbelieve that any human would play in such weather, for most of my round.  Needless to say, I had the course to myself, and what a great day it was.  It reminded me of Dan King's post regarding walks between tees.  At times at the Addington, you feel like you're traversing a secret garden.  

My email address is jreilly31@btinternet.com.  If you're in the UK, drop me a line and we'll head out there some afternoon for a round.

[Ran Morrissett]

Count me in as an fan of The Addington - in fact, after Swinley, it's my favorite inland course in the UK (though I haven't seen Notts or Royal Worlington).

The Addington has one indifferent hole and it's over four minutes after you've teed off  

[Jim Reilly]

Ran,

Don't you think that the 1st is a perfect start to the Addington in that is sums up the iconoclastic nature of the course and the club. (hell, getting past those peacocks on the porch was something you don't have to deal with at your average country club for a day). Granted, the countouring around the first green could be a lot better, but it states right up front that the Addington marches to its own tune and make appologies to no one.

[Laun M]

Jim,

Indeed I am in England...

my email is launmiddleton@yahoo.co.uk

[Geoff_Shackelford]

Ran and Paul,

FYI, I sent that old photo of Sunningdale's fifth to about 10 very knowledgable architecture nuts, and no one could figure out where it was. The photo is from the USGA and it had no I.D.  Finally, I discovered a similar shot in an old magazine at the Ralph Miller Library (RIP). Since most of the people I sent a copy to had seen Sunningdale New, I had to figure it doesn't resemble the old state too closely today. Thanks for posting the new shot Paul, looks like it has too many trees!
Geoff

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