Accurate opinions of holes or courses you have never played...

[George Pazin]

Fair enough points, Tom, though the debater in me would argue that by changing any course's maintenance practices or setup, you're simply creating a new first impression.

[John Kavanaugh]

My pet peeve is when individuals pontificate about courses they have never seen nor played, regardless of pictures.

Go do some heavy lifting, get out and play the course and then comment.

HERE! HERE!

Jason and Cary,

I don't understand why you two would criticize me for not playing enough golf.  Why should people so fortunate to be members or who have access to great courses refuse to allow those who don't the fun of dreaming, thinking and forming an opinion of the same venues.  No matter who may anoint us or how we may chose to anoint ourselves we only have a given understanding of any one course depending on our talent for the subject.  Having never played a course is only one level, as is having played once or one hundred times.  If a monkey spits out a fine meal..it might just be the monkey, but then again it might be the meal...either way it is a valid opinion.

[cary lichtenstein]

John:

Get in your car, drive the miles we drove, play the good courses with the bad, sleep in a different hotel each night, then drive another 5 hours to the next stop.

If you think that is easy, especially as we get older, it's not.

You get to appreciate an awful lot more by doing this. You learn the architects range, both the good and the bad.

Take Mike Strantz's work, we played everything but the Va courses. The next to last one we played was Tobacco Road, unbelieveably wonderful is all I can say.

We then drove to Myrtle each and played Caldonia. Nice, but a major dissappointment in comparison...but still good work.

Wade Hampton has some holes out of character with Fazio, guess what, they were shaped by Strantz. Tough to learn this stuff without taking the time and energy to go do it.

Granted I'm blessed by being retired and having nothing better to do..........