RTJ; Specifically, Duke and Tanglewood

[Tim Gavrich]

I've played both courses, and while I find Duke a more varied and pretty course, I almost like the Championship course at Tanglewood better.  I played it in Mid-March, and the brown, dormant/dead rough made for very interesting, off-fairway adventures, usually involving the clay-sanded red-brown-orange bunkers.  A very striking contrast in colors.

It appears to me that there is mostly negative sentiment towards Robert Trent Jones, Sr's courses, but the aforementioned are two courses I enjoy very much.

Why no love for RTJ?

[A.G._Crockett]

Tim,
Duke today is not the course that RTJ built.  Rees reworked the course a number of years ago, and much, much for the better!  It's a very good golf course now; it was just not much fun in its original design.

[Brian_Marion]

Why no love for RTJ?

I think it falls to the fact that he's just "out of fashion" today. Partly due to:

1. newer courses being built, and having to play the "latest" design by a more "famous name" architect, RTJ courses have been around a while
2. Golfers wanting to play "the classics" and a lot of RTJ courses are not old enough to be named such
3. The RTJ Golf Trail- A lot of golfers I know who have traveled down to play the Trail think they have played an RTJ designed course and as such, don't really seek out his courses.


I hold a biased view though having grown up playing Tanglewood. Even though I'm a member at another course just across the river, Tanglewood is still a wonderful facility and will test all but the very best and could test them if a little redesign were to take place (lengthening, arrgh!). It's a shame that, at the very least, the Nationwide Tour doesn't hold an event here.


Brian

[Mike_Sweeney]

Tim,

Rotating between Cornell Golf Course and Montauk Downs for a few years as my "home" courses, it was RTJ courses that started my appreciation for architecture. I then played Duke, Colgate, Fox Hill and some others and you start to see patterns that are very similar in very different settings. In the Bell Curve of life, probably 90% of his courses would be a 4 or a 5 on the Doak scale. While consistency is good, Spyglass and Ballybunion New, which seem to create polarizing views of appreciation, seem to be the exception in the RTJ portfolio.

[Andy Troeger]

I haven't played enough RTJ courses to comment too thorougly, but the two I've played I think showed the good and the bad...although I'd say more good. Easily the better of the two in my opinion is Point O'Woods in Michigan, one of my favorite courses anywhere. The other course which I didn't find nearly as memorable is Otter Creek in Indiana. It wasn't bad, I just can't remember much about it a couple of years later

I joke with friends that have played the Point that it doesn't get enought credit due to the fact that its fairly straightforward. The middle of the fairway and the middle of the greens make pretty good targets all day long (although some greens are huge, making things somewhat more complex there). There's a nice variety of lengths with the fours and fives, and #9 is my favorite par three anywhere. I think the course does a great job of rewarding good play and penalizing (but not ridiculously so) poor play. Its not a course where one would expect to lose a lot of golf balls, but one should expect to be challenged.

[Jason Blasberg]

No love for RTJ is b/c, at least in my book, his runway strip tees which created a new way of thinking about teeing options and at the same time dumbed down the focus on playing angles by presuming that the same angle of play is necessarily good from up to 100 yards or so of distance change.  

I also don't remember playing an RTJ green that wasn't elevated and I don't remember playing an RTJ green with a significant front to back tilt.  

While I'm sure there are examples of both (in fact 8 at Fox Hill may run away from the player a bit) the above if you play several of his courses one criticism that's also always emerged for me is how similar many 4 pars on the same course often play and I don't recall too many drivable par 4s.  I would say that my favorite RTJ course is Fox Hill in Baiting Hollow, NY and while a couple 4 pars resemble one another (5 and 12, and 6 and 13 both sets have very similar orientation and play in the exact same direction) the course makes you hit every club in the bag.  



   

[Michael Moore]

I really liked the Duke course.

On just about every tee box you stand there knowing that you have to nut your drive in order to get a good score.

This is exciting, very different from the excitement of watching your ball roll around on the links, but very stimulating and satisfying nevertheless.

I cannot resist mentioning that I came within a foot of albatrossing the shit out of the ninth hole. Fifty or so patrons lunching on the patio burst into applause at this feat and again when I tapped in, by far my finest moment on the course.

[Zack Kelly]

I love Tanglewood, it is  a great track, with alot of character.  And I beleive it costs something like $30, what a deal.  Course is usually in pretty good shape, and a real treat for anyone that hasn't played it.  The setting is great to, no houses just golf and a few horses here and there.  The one draw back is the fee to drive in, not a lot of places have a setup like that.