[Darren_Kilfara]

I was thinking this morning about our discussion a few weeks ago about the second-best course in East Lothian, and my thoughts drifted back to the group's appraisal of North Berwick. In particular, I thought about the 14th hole, which has the following peculiar characteristics:

--The fourth green is scarily close to the 14th fairway, and is very much at risk of being bombarded by short slices off the tee.
--The row of bunkers at the end of the landing area precludes any great aggressiveness from the tee - there are no real strategic options as such (except perhaps in the availability of a bail-out area on the right, i.e. the 4th hole).
--The green is blind and sloped strongly away from the line of play, in such a way that getting close to the hole is often a real fluke.
--Beyond the green is usually thick grass (and thereafter the beach) - because the hole is blind, it's usually impossible to tell where a ball has entered the tall grass, or indeed if it has crossed the hazard line.

I know the hole is called "Perfection", but I wonder if that only goes to show that the Olde Scots had a sense of irony...my real question is this: does this hole in particular get a free pass among the "great" Scottish links courses simply because it is old and Scottish? If Pete Dye were to have built this hole in the first place, wouldn't people be screaming bloody murder?

Cheers,
Darren

[ForkaB]

Agreed.  It is a pretty good driving hole (even though I have been in the 4th greenside bunkers more than once.... ), but the 2nd is lacking for the reasons you cite.

Of course, the 13th at Lundin Links is not "Perfection" either.  Maybe the Scots just have a different take on the word.......

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

14 is far from my favorite hole at N Berwick. I do find a little more thought off the tee than you do Darren. There is an aggresive path and a concervative one as well. I think the conservative one often leaves you a blind second shot. I do not see this hole getting built today period.

[Carlyle Rood]

[Dan King]

Like Tiger, the 14th in not one of my favorite holes at North Berwick. But I also don't have a serious problem with it. Have you ever had a great, multi-course dinner where one of the courses didn't work as well as the others? It really didn't detract from the meal, just gave you something to talk about when you bring up the dinner.

But the name doesn't apply to the 14th as it is now, but to a hole on an earlier version of the course. Perfection was just borrowed from this earlier hole that lost its life when the course was lengthened.

"For the fourteenth we have one of the most sporting character, due, we believe to the fertile imagination of the energetic young secretary of the green committee. There the 'High Bent' putting green is not used any longer, and 'Perfection' is also removed from its old place and the title given to the fourteenth hole, where the putting-green is in a blind hollow to the north-west of the present dyke and bunker. Mr. Asquith's phrase, 'ploughing the sand of the seashore' will, in the future as in the past, apply to a good many shots on the way to the Perfection Hole, for the danger of a long drive seaward will be even greater than before, and many will have a second shot to play with accuracy before they are safe in the happy hollow. The fifteenth ('Redan') and the last three holes remain as before."
 --John Kerr (The Golf Book of East Lothian, 1896)
 
Dan King

The old eighteen-hole course, though it was certainly too short, had a great many features about it endearing it to golfers. The designer of the new course acted very wisely and considerately in preserving some of these, such as the Redan, the Quarry and the Pit.
 --John Kerr (The Golf Book of East Lothian, 1896)

[ForkaB]

Great pic, Carlyle

But, does it denote to you perfection, and if so why?  Compare and contrast with other artistic concepts of "perfection."  You have 25 minutes for this part of the exam.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Dan your post reminds me of an episode of Frazier.  Niles and Frazier have just eaten at the latest hot restaurant and they are debating how a place that served such excellent wines and superlative food could have let itself down in some small detail.

Martin chimes in and says it sounds like the meal was perfect. They round on him and say didn’t you hear us, they messed up the (I can't remember the detail)?

Martin then says "No for you two that meal was perfection. You're slapping yourselves on the back for discovering such a place and because you've found something to criticise you’ll be able to talk about it for years."

I often think of Frazier when I'm reading GCA!

[Stan Dodd]

Had the pleasure to play twice last week
Round 1 drove into cross bunker had no shot (and no skills) and made 5.
Round two 5 wood layup, 9 iron almost to the beach and chip two putt, another 5.  
Pin was on the front there is no way to get it close.
Fun, challenging, quirky yes.  Perfect golf hole, not.

[Brent Hutto]

I don't have my Donald Steele book with me but IIRC he says the name "Perfection" refers to the need for perfectly-played shots in order to win the hole.

[ForkaB]

Brent

If so, Steele (sic) was wrong.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Steel (actual spelling) wrote (actual words):

Perfection has a lot to live up to in its title.  Blind shots are not to everybody's liking and the second shot on the 14th is over a big hill to a green sited perilously close to the beach, but it is undoubtedly fun to play.

[Brent Hutto]

Hmmm, I must be remembering a different hole named "Perfection" (not to mention a different "Steele").

[TEPaul]

I've only been to North Berwick one time and have only played the course and "perfection" one time but it was one of the holes that surely did intrigue me and stuck in my mind.

I liked it in large part for all the reasons some say (some on here) it shouldn't be considered a good or perfect or perfection hole. I'm also very mindful of the fact that many of its architectural traits---eg its sort of odd fairway, its blindness, its complex green to an approach shot making some call it "fluky", it's juxtapositon to real danger behind combined with the blind approach were all characteristics of much that was admired and even prized in architecture long ago only to do a complete about-face in popularity or even acceptability when man began to more seriously and scientifically analyze  what should be and what should not be in acceptable architecture.

The Road Hole, the way it plays would probably never be seriously considered today in golf either but that makes it no less great to me.

[Darren_Kilfara]

I dunno, Tom...the Road Hole would never be built today, but its strategic merits are both great and relatively easily understood. "Perfection" is both architecturally awkward in golfing terms and a real hazard for golfers playing on the parallel hole (the 4th) - for the latter reason it probably couldn't be built in this day and age for legal reasons, certainly in America if not in Scotland.

I know that a great part of North Berwick's appeal is how "fun" it is, but for all of the other quirky and fun holes which I enjoy on the course (even when they don't always reward good shots or punish poor ones), #14 isn't much fun to me. And I promise you: played in firm and fast conditions and with any sort of a trailing wind, the green is virtually impossible to find with your approach, meaning that the dead zone over the green gets a LOT of play...

Cheers,
Darren

[Mike_Cirba]

Where the hell is your guy's sense of adventure?  

I can't find a single thing wrong with the hole and the blind approach shot is EXHILERATING?  

I sense way too much of a card and pencil mentality in the criticisms of this hole.

And, I can guarantee you that some modern architects would build a hole like this...one who comes to mind is Gil Hanse.  

[Mike_Cirba]

By the way, the term "Perfection" doesn't mean that it's a perfect hole but simply that only a "perfect" shot gets rewarded.

Does luck play a part in that?  Yep...you bet.

[TEPaul]

Darren:

Neither the Road Hole nor "Perfection" would be in any way copied today but again, that's no indicaton of the hole's interest and quality to me, or for that matter weakness of unacceptability.

Again, I'm primarily interested in the hole for the reason that once upon a time holes like that were considered to be so interesting or frankly prized. Obviously the reasons were that all those traits that golfers and architects today say are unacceptable were more than acceptable back then---eg they were admired and prized. I just think that fact says so much that's interesting in the entire extent and spectrum of the EVOLUTION in golf course architecture.

Risk and reward in any type of scientific way in an architectural sense back when that hole was created was obviously nothing like it is today. That hole probably just fit into the sequence of the routing and was used for that reason as it was and is. If it was fluky or hard that alone may've made it admired and prized. I like that alot even if I recognize perhaps no one would think to or have the guts to copy it today. I doubt even the rest of the holes out there that're so interesting would be copied today for one reason or the other.

By the way, the 17th green and one of the 18th tees at North Berwick just could be about the most dangerous thing I've ever seen in golf--but so what really----it works somehow. Has anyone been seriously hurt or killed there? If so that's the way it goes. The law was probably very different back then too.  

I do remember playing "Perfection" and never having seen it or the course before it was hard to figure out what to do on the tee and the second shot but for whatever reason I did make a pretty standard four on it. Maybe I got real lucky (since I didn't exactly see my approach) and maybe I didn't. That fact alone makes the hole very cool to me.

[RSLivingston_III]

Question;
If you have only been around this course once, did you really play it?
Doesn't "play" imply "intent", and doesn't that require intimate knowledge of the hole(s)?

[Darren_Kilfara]

Ralph, I've played the West Course maybe a dozen times - I lived in North Berwick for a year-and-a-half (wasn't a member of the club, though, hence the low number) - and think I know it pretty well, in the event that your comment was directed at me...

Tom, is your most recent post a more loquacious way of saying what I said at the beginning of this thread - namely that North Berwick gets a free pass on account of being old and Scottish? I'll agree, even the stupid hole(s) at North Berwick are a fascinating museum about what the game used to be like...although, having said that, not too many courses in the world or even in Scotland have holes like the ones you find at North Berwick, so what exactly is the course a museum of? A testimony to its own quirkiness?

Mike, I *love* quirky golf course architecture. But can't you love quirk in general and also draw a distinction between quirk that works and quirk that irks? Nothing to do with the card-and-pencil mentality...I think "Perfection" is a bad hole on several levels, plain and simple.

Cheers,
Darren

[RSLivingston_III]

No Darren, it wasn't directed to you. It was really a general question that probably deserved it's own thread but seems appropriate for this course. I have played about a half dozen rounds there, the last being in 2001. Right now I feel like I would need a practice round before going out and "playing" the course. That is one of the holes I would need to see again to help visualize the shot required to score well on the hole.
I personally like quirky/funky in holes. This course and Cruden Bay were my favorites in the world until I played Royal County Down this year.

....I have to correct myself, since I haven't been around RCD a second time, I guess I have yet to play it.

[T_MacWood]

Dan is right. The hole that was originally called "Perfection" was altered...its not the same hole.

[TEPaul]

Interesting that "perfection" was changed. I never knew that and thank God I didn't. Otherwise I would have to debate with purists that for better or worse it should be put back the way it originally was on general principle.  

[T_MacWood]

TE
As Dan King wrote above, much of the original North Berwick was changed (including Perfection). Horace Hutchinson wrote in Badminton that North Berwick (Old version) was a fun little course, but you might as well leave your driver at home.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

Horace Hutchinson, Badminton, "Perfection" was changed in 1898, leave your driver at home et al. That's another litany of historic info from you-----so what?

What's your point?

[JAHogan]

Perfection seemed a "normal" hole after finishing Pit and then heading to 16 and experiencing the weird green!  The second shot at 14 is a little intimidating with the lack of visible target, waist-high fescue, whipping wind, and steep downhill lie at the end of the fairway (that killed my score on the hole).

I really enjoyed NB:   the views, the friendly members in the clubhouse, the bathers walking across the course, and the interesting holes.  Also, watching a lady member and her 12 year old daughter play through the slow group of guys in front of us was priceless.

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