Wayne:
Regarding your post #15 and Huntingdon Valley---I think a course like that one which really does take some understanding and caution in a multi-round tournament is one of Philadelphia's best examples of a course that has what I call a "high intensity level". I've always felt the courses in this area that had that factor are Merion East, PVGC, HVGC and to an extent Rolling Green.
By that I mean that on those particular courses for various reasons a single bad mistake seems to get magnified even with very good players.
The result courses like those ones produce even in a good multi-round tournament, even a state amateur which HVGC will hold next week or even the US Amateur at Merion East is one that produces a much wider separation of scoring throughout the entire field. Somebody, or a few generally play those courses OK throughout but from about the top ten on back things tend to really separate.
It was that way at the Pa State Amateur at Oakmont last time---another course with an unusually high "intensity level".
Having played all those courses over the years in one kind of tournament or another (compared to the rest of the courses I know) those few seemed to give me a much larger headache (literally) when the day was done. Obviously the reason for that was everyone who knows those courses well understands you just have to concentrate far more throughout with basically no let up for 4 and 1/2 hours. Those courses were much more mentally draining than the rest. On those ones you seem to be much more "on edge" all day long. The good news was if you played those ones OK it was far more gratifying than if you played any of the rest of the courses around here well.
The other ones around here that drained me with that "intensity level" were Moselem Springs and Aronimink. The latter did that to me probably only because it really is a bit of a slog and I was so short compared to the people I competed against.
The other end of the spectrum around here for me were LuLu at the top of the list, GMGC and ones like Riverton, St David's, Whitemarsh, Concord, Overbrook, Sandy Run, Sunnybrook, Manufacturers, Torresdale Frankford, Cedarbrook, PCC or even Wilmington and the Cricket. Most of the rest I hardly remembered.
