percent of pleasure?...the Old Course

[paul cowley]

...what percent of golfing pleasure would increase if TOC was built in say Bandon, sans the auld grey toon...or North Berwick without the hardscape scenery....how much do the competing surroundings take away from the golf experience?

[THuckaby2]

Paul:

Whoa!

Do you really think the surroundings TAKE AWAY from the golf experience at St. Andrews and N. Berwick?

I found the surroundings at each of those pretty damn cool... in fact such kinda MAKE the experience at St. Andrews.

I guess re N. Berwick you might have a point, but there's nothing at all BAD there either... and man it is on the sea...

But perhaps I shouldn't get caught up in the examples.

My take on this is as follows:  surroundings can only INCREASE golf pleasure, not decrease it.  I can have fun playing this game no matter where such occurs, as to me it is all about the playing.  But one certainly does not play with his eyes or heart closed, so great surroundings can and do make the heart sing.  I just don't think bad surroundings make the heart necessarily SINK, that's all.

Unless one has expectations of better, I guess.  In that case one can get bummed.  But then it just gets back to being about the playing of the game!

[Neal_Meagher]

Not to be contrarian, but I am and always have been of the opinion that one of the best features of TOC is precisely its setting.  There are so few courses anywhere that share that same dynamic, North Berwick being one other, that to experience a golf course that is so of a town is truly wonderful.

No doubt, if TOC were placed within a totally natural dunish and distant setting, it would have a different feeling, but I'm not sure that I could assess a percentage of that making it better.  It would just be different.

[THuckaby2]

Neal - well if you are a contrarian then so am I - I said much the same thing about St. Andrews.

I'm gonna guess that this is the majority view, also.  Paul is the first I've heard say that the town detracts from the experience.

[Sean_A]

Paul

I agree with Tom and Neal.  The setting of North Berwick is all world in my opinion.  One of the truly great places in golf.  TOC and The West Links would be very different without the setting.

Ciao

Sean

[Kris Spence]

This post got me thinking about one of the greatest yet strangest settings? for a  great little course by Old Tom Morris in Lossiemouth Scotland, the Moray Golf Club.  I absolutely loved this course, a quality design that starts and finishes in an urban setting similiar to TOC.  The 18th dramatically skirts the edge of town and finishes at the door step of the clubhouse, actually one of the best finishing holes in Scotland. There is a draw back though, the course sits at the end of the runway for the Scottish air force and the jet noise is deafening. The jets seem head high, you can see the expressions on the pilots faces.

Not much beats the Old Course setting, my percentage of pleasure is pretty high there.
 

[paul cowley]

OK....I admit I posted this thread in a sneaky attempt to bring out and identify my fellow contrarians....well met, and  you have passed to the first level but I must warn you that, as I am writing this, someone in our parallel universe is asking "what percent of golfing pleasure would increase if Pebble Beach wasn't built along the ocean?".....sheesh

[THuckaby2]

 

Well done Paul!

And you know there just has to be SOMEONE out there who feels that way about the "distractions" at Pebble.