Casa de Campo

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

Will,
My good man, I did not say anything negative about the Teeth. I will admit that my first time around I was underwhelmed by just how flat the site was, but I found subsequent trips around the course to reveal the greatness. I have not seen The Golf Club, but I think Teeth of the Dog would be at the top of my list of Dye courses. I think the green complexes are awesome and the inland holes have a lot more character in repeated trips around.

As for Dye Fore, the land is very severe, it is reminiscent of many Hawaiian courses I have played. I liked the width and the bunkering was more demanding than Teeth's, but I felt that it is the antithesis of TotD, which is not all bad. However, for my tastes, I prefer Teeth's intimacy to Dye Fore's scale. I have to believe that I would probably prefer The Golf Club to Whistling Straits...

Cary,
Why do you think Whistling Straits shows Dye's genius? I am interested in your thoughts.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Another thing that is near brilliant about Teeth is the routing.  Each nine follows a parallel and similar theme.  You are drawn gently into a nine.  Difficulty is slowly ratcheted up as is your anticipation.  After the climatic ocean holes a punctuation or denouement is made with the finisher.  The reverse loops (outward - clockwise, inward - counterclockwise) promise that on windy days you are confronted with corrections in every direction.  The opposing directions of the ocean holes assure that a left-to-righter is not favored over a right-to-lefter.  (Do you think Tommy D. has a little TotD is his Pac Dunes routing?)

On the negative side The Teeth have a major league cavity that needs filling - the golf carts only rule on a course that screams to be walked is a travesty.  They won't even let you pay for a cart and walk (-10 on the Doak scale).  This despite the abundance of able, willing and cheap caddies.

I completely agree with Jeff, Adam, and Ben (Mike? Ran?).  The Teeth grew on me the more I played it.  

Dye 4 is aptly named - fourth best at the resort.  The other three play to such intimacy that I just wasn't interested in D4's scale and modern overtones - I wouldn't play it again.  From what I saw the fifth course on flatter ground more akin to La Pomana holds promise.

JC

[cary lichtenstein]

Ben:

I think Whistling Straits shows Dye's genius more than any of his other work because nothing, absolutely nothing was there.

I have said before, that I think Tom Fazio's Shadow Creek is his best work. He set the bar on creating something out of nothingness.

Pete's did at WS things I've never seen or expected before. He produced blown out bunkers for scenery that pull the whole site together. Not just a few, but hundreds of them.

The variety of bunkering, when taken as a whole, is beyond my grasp. And it works.

I couldn't tell what was man made because everything looked like it was there for hundreds of years.

 My 2 critisims of the course are the big ass hump in front of 17, and the drive on 18, neither of which seem correct.

But both Shadow Creek and Whistling Straits raised the architecture bar for all of golf. With an unlimited budget, a nothingness site can be turned into a great golf course.

I think it dramatically helped architects explain to clients what they can do and gives the arch today more freedom than before. I think it raises the confidence of arch's today.

Now I don't think the whole body of Pete Dye's work is without major flaws. Too much hard edged work, too many overly penal holes, but he pushed the envelope for others to follow.

I have read recently some quotes by Pete Dye that he can't believe that he designed some of the stuff he did in the past.

I think that shows a lot of humility and maturity, and a desire to go back and fix some of the extremes.

I think Dye made the first real important contribution to golf arch since the era way before him, when all the greats did their work that we all talk about of this site so much.

While RTJones was the main man when Pete started, other than Spyglass, I can't think of any of his other work that stands out.

[Jim_Coleman]

Jonanthan:
    How complicated is this?  Let the caddy drive the cart while you walk!    It's one thing to critisize a place because you must drive.  But when the cart is included in a very reasonable green fee and you're bringing a caddy along for $20, it doesn't take much too imagination to figure out that Casa de Campo is one of the few resorts where you CAN walk.  It's a plus 10; mot a minus 10.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Sorry Jim, smelly noisy gas carts are a negative whoever drives them.  Casa is marked down for this in my book.

JC

[A_Clay_Man]

The cart myth, that it speeds play, must be part of their many mis-guided policies. Teeing off both nines for the first two hours of the day was another. Running into fresh groups on #10, after golfing the front in 1;41 was to say the least, counter-productive to pace. Not allowing the group that gets bumped by the owner (20 minutes) to play as a fivesome, could be reviewed too.

As palpable as the art was at Jasper Park, T.Dog missed me on a spiritual level.
 

[Keith Durrant]

Re. the 5th, I believe the picture on the front of the card shows the hole as it was with the 'old tree'. It seemed quite a bit bigger and more visually intimidating than the one which was planted to replace it.

Given trees often get such a bad rap on this site, could one argue against the greatness of this one?

[Bryan Izatt]

Re. the 5th, I believe the picture on the front of the card shows the hole as it was with the 'old tree'. It seemed quite a bit bigger and more visually intimidating than the one which was planted to replace it.

Given trees often get such a bad rap on this site, could one argue against the greatness of this one?

The card does show it, as I sit here looking longingly at it.  Below is a picture of the hole in 1990, showing the tree, although it's a bit shadowy, followed by a current picture.  





The tree sure cut down on the shot options for playing the hole, but it certainly increased the resistance to scoring considerably.

If, as Jim says, the hole once played 200 yds, it must have been near impossible.  A cut 3 iron over the ocean holding against the crossing wind - a true Nicklausian shot that I don't have.

In looking at pictures from 1990, I noticed that the 15th wasn't always a skyline geen.  Following are 1990 and 2005 pictures of the green. Some refinements are for the better.

[Jonathan Cummings]

There's another positive thing about Casa.  The weather was wonderful.  I always fear that when I go to the Carribean my vacation risks being washed out by storms.  Casa has a well defined wet season and apparently, a dry season you can also count on.

JC

[Mike Nuzzo]

Enough about those USA ratings ... where are the world ratings so I can say why isn't the Teeth Higher

What a great few days.  
The camaraderie was worth the trip alone.  
The course was worth the trip alone.  It was excellent.
Put them together and you have one hell of a trip.

Banff and Jasper were so unique it would be hard to compare.  
Casa was equally unique.  Having pina coladas in the pool after the teeth had bitten is a hell of a day anywhere.

I was also underwelmed with the inland holes after round one, but they got much better with additional trips.  I really like the start.  
Twice I got to the "new and improved" ocean fifth at level par.  The first time I played conservative and aimed for the right grass bunker, and hit my target - and made bogey.  The second time I played the aggressive line and hooked it somewhere in the Pacific.  

The par 5s were the only cavities at the Teeth.

Hey!

[Jeff Goldman]

The barmaids at whatever the name of that bar was will not soon forget the welcoming greeting of Mike Nuzzo, nor will we.

[Walt Cutshall]

Teeth was one of those courses that I liked more as I played it more. I particularly liked the green complexes--sutble, challenging and interesting (to me anyway).

Dye Fore, on the other hand, wasn't my cup of tea. There was so little challenge off the tee, and the lack of visual definition of holes turned me off. The greens that were perched on the cliffs over the river were fun and challenging. There were a few holes that presented a challenge off the tee (4 and 5 come to mind), but largely it was grip it and rip it off the tee.

[Paul_Turner]

Did you guys feel that the inland holes were stronger on the first 9?

All the greens were very good as I recall.  (The less memorable holes like 10,11 14 all had good greens)

Looking at The World Atlas, the 14th was once more impressive with the lagoon open to the sea. And the 7th would have been even more impressive with that beach bunker.  And yes, I think the tiny 5th green was added later.  I think both greens were present when I was there about 5 yrs ago.

Was the 17th as tough as I remember.  Green is a very tough target, particularly with the wind.

Is the runway gone on the 12th/18th?

Whatya think of the La Romana?  Good, I think, apart from  a falt/soft hole or two around the water near the clubhouse.

[ChipOat]

Haven't been there in years, but the "other" course was called the Links.  It was truly an artificial links-type layout; mucho more manufactured looking than anything Macdonald or Raynor ever dreamed of building.

I liked it, though.

Why not mentioned?  Is it gone/changed?

[Jim_Coleman]

   I think the back inland holes are more impressive.  The only weakish hole on the back is #11.  Doak has an ! in his book for #10 (a great green); #12 is brutal - a real Hilton Head type hole with a good overhanging tree; 13 is an early version of #17 at TPC (an island with sand instead of water), again with a Hilton Head tree; I like the #14 lagoon par five - legit second shot cape hole, good risk/reward with a pretty tough layup (Couples hit it in two from the right hand bunker with a SEVEN IRON.  Unbelievable.)  And #18 is brutal.
   The inland holes on the front to me are less eventful.  #2 is terrific (toughest driving hole on the course), and #3 ok (the green is interesting and must be approached from the right); but #'s 1, 4 and 9 are less impressive.
   14 out of 18 good/great holes is some golf course in my book.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Paul
Yes 1-4 were better than 10-14.
Off the top of my head here's how I ranked the inland ones...
1,2,13,10,3,4,12,9,18,14,11
The greens were all unique and well done.

My one afternoon round at the Teeth was very windy and the 15-17 stretch was a brute.

The runway is there, just not active, unless your drug running.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Why not mentioned?  Is it gone/changed?

It's still there.  I would have preferred to not have played it.  

I hadn't seen Jim's post on which nine is better, I find his comments interesting and pretty cool that we had completely different takes.

Enough of the inland holes.
Those 7 holes on the water made me feel great.  While Ran and Ben were chirping away I was soaking it all in.

[Joe Hancock]

Mike,

I'm curious about your greeting to the barmaids!

It's all about developing my sense of architecture.....

Joe

[Bryan Izatt]

Paul
Yes 1-4 were better than 10-14.
Off the top of my head here's how I ranked the inland ones...
1,2,13,10,3,4,12,9,18,14,11
The greens were all unique and well done.

My one afternoon round at the Teeth was very windy and the 15-17 stretch was a brute.

The runway is there, just not active, unless your drug running.

Mike,

Why did you rank the three par 5's so far down your list?  Although they all present generous landing areas for the drive, the second shots always have to be strategically located to provide a decent angle for the third shot to very difficult green complexes.  And, 14 is potentially reachable in two to add a little risk/reward excitement.

Hole 1 seemed to me to be a relatively easy lead in to the course (although the green complex was wonderfully done) and hole 4 seemed to me to be the weakest hole on the course (ill defined landing area where it seems you can hit the ball almost anywhere and still have a shot at the green, albeit at better or worse angles).

P.S. Did you see the runway before or after the bar?    When I was there in February the old terminal, apron, and runway were all grassed (weeded) over except for a small patch in front of 18 tee that was preserved for posterity.  The runway used to run from just left of the 9th tee down in front of the 12th tee with the terminal building a nine iron or so to the right of the 12 tee.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Some pictures from the trip:


Flowers everywhere.


2nd


5th


6th


7th green


7th


8th Green - it pitches a low away and down from the fairway (left to right as pictured).


8th


13th


15th


16th


17th

What a trip

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

Without tradition points, how does TOD stack up against Pebble?  My opinion seems to be in a tiny minority.  I think Casa de Campo is the ultimate Golf Resort!  Maybe the one weakness of Dye Fore is that the bogies may be too easy for the 18 handicap.  Perhaps it is a hard par/birdie for the good player, but the higher handicaper can get it around the green after any sort of a tee ball--perhaps that player does not feel challenged after playing most courses where the drives are more severely penalized.  I find the course to be as strategic as anything I've ever played--I shot a 68 and 69 when playing well in 2003 and 73 and 76 in 2004.  The differnce was tee ball placement--I am putting much better in the past 6 months.   These scores were from the tips--#10 was being resodded in 2003, but is just as good from 510 as 610--you need to approach from the left with a hanging lie or hit a huge cut from the right to hold the green. In mid-Dec. the greens were PGA tour (normal non-rain conditions) firm with a stip of around 9 and change.  I really believe that if this were an exclusive club, perhaps the place would seem more special.  Though there are not many aesthetics better than at Casa de Campo.  

[Will E]

I would have really thought that the group would
have more positive things to say regarding TOD.
I found it be an excellent mix of challenging holes,
presenting themselves in a variety of ways
depending upon the ever chaning winds.
As I've mentioned before it appears to me to
be the most thought out of all the Dye courses I've experienced, much more so than La Romana
which looks more like a P.B. course to me.
The only thing I could see that could be lacking on
TOD could be length, especially on some of the early
holes.