Learning About Golf Courses That You're Never Gonna Play

[Adam_F_Collins]

Jordan Wall's thread about Pine Valley got me wondering...

Everyone knows that playing a course (several times in different weather) is the only REAL way to learn the merits of a golf course, but how should those who cannot play a course learn about it?

For some courses, it will surely remain next to impossible, but what about the true classics? Pine Valley is considered by many to be the best in the world but what information is out there which might give those of us who haven't played it a more thurough understanding of its merits?

What can be done? What types of material have you, as aficianadoes longed for but have not found? I don't know if any of you ever went throw the GolfVR Web tours of Bethpage and Olympia Fields which were put online during US Opens. The provided 360 VR panoramas from all the tees, 200, 150 and greens of the par 5's, tees, 150 and greens of the par 4's and tees and greens of the par 3's. Accompanying each view was a recorded audio commentary from the club pro about what you were seeing and how it should or could be played. I found that it gave me an amazing sense of having walked the courses.

I'd like to see more of these done for some of the great courses.

I'd also like to see more of the hole break-downs like the one done here a while back on Riviera's 10th. Careful commentary, combined with illustrations and photos can be very instructive and interesting as well.

In the way of 'great courses', I have played only Thompson's St. George's and Highlandslinks. But just those two have given me a lot to go on, and certainly given me enough information to ask reasonable questions. But there are always going to be courses that we just CANNOT get to play.

So how can we learn from them? Or can we?

[TEPaul]

Adam:

You can learn everything imaginable about a golf course without ever seeing it or particularly playing it and most every time, particularly if it's a great one, you go there and play it and so much about what you thought about it and visualized and imagined about it is different.

Basically, nobody can really understand a golf course or its architecure without at least going there. That's one of the truly neat things about the game, in my opinion. That is why I'll never take a guy like Tom MacWood and his in-depth architectural critiques about some courses seriously if he hasn't at least be there and looked at a course in person.

[Eric Franzen]

If walking or playing is not an option maybe computer games could be one way to soak in a bit of the general character, and some of the strategic nuances, of a course.

I found it quite fun to mess around with Links 2003 during a recent battle with the flu. There is a quite good selection of courses out there (Merion East, ANGC, Bethpage Black etc.) available for download.  

[Tom_Doak]

Adam:

I know the party line here is that you cannot learn about a golf course without playing it, and I would agree, in the sense that you are never going to understand everything you don't know.  The best example of that is Augusta National.  You see it on TV all the time, you've heard a million descriptions of it, and yet to walk out there for the first time and see the tenth fairway dropping down that hill is just amazingly unexpected.  So, even video and TV have their limitations.

However, good writing can go a long way.  I read the World Atlas of Golf over and over again when I was 13-14 years old (actually more like 13-20), and that gave me a great idea of what to look for when I went to all those great courses for the first time.  It wasn't the same as going, but it was a great head start ... and I dare say that some people would learn more from reading that book than from going to those places, if they don't understand about architecture fairly well already.  Some club histories do a pretty nice job as well.

[rjsimper]

Walk the course - there are many access-prohibitive courses out there that have other ways through which one can gain access to walk the grounds - Crump Cup, Masters Practice Rounds, US Am Tickets, etc.

Or practice your ass off and qualify for a tournament held at the site (though once you got there I'd hope you were more focused on playing well than studying the fairway bunkers or pondering the existence of that mound long left of the green)

[cary lichtenstein]

Adam:

It's kind of got my ears wet reading and rereading "The Golf Course" by Geoffrey Cornish and Ron Whitten. I have the 1981 copy and it is beat up from all the readings.

That is my favorite book.

I need to read it again, tracing the history of the architects, who they worked for, whose style the adopted, how they evolved, etc.

I wonder if it has been updated and if so, When?

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