Winged Foot West vs. Winged Foot East

[PThomas]

the former  is #16 on Golfweek's Classic list, the latter is #35..

can those of you who have played both, share with those of us who haven't:

is the West better?
do you agree with where both courses are ranked?
are the courses similar?
could the East hold a PGA?
other insightful comments

thanks!

[Tom Huckaby]

I've played the West and 10 holes of the East - couldn't finish the rest due to broken hand.  So with that in mind, well it won't stop me from taking the first stab - just do take with an ocean of salt:

is the West better?
Yes, but not by all that much.

do you agree with where both courses are ranked?
Rankings are so trite and below me, but yes.

are the courses similar?
More similar than different - same landforms, same look and feel - if anything the East greens are wilder, and that's something considering the West has some of the wildest on earth.

could the East hold a PGA?
Sure - it might be a little short, but they'd find a way if they really wanted to.  I can't see why they'd try, though.

other insightful comments
No, other than a fully-fractured hook of hamate bone hurts like holy hell.

 

[Mike_Sweeney]

Neither. The best course at Winged Foot is 1-10 East, and then 10-18 West and you get to throw out your snowman hole.

To answer your question, one course has better greens, more diversity of hole lengths, more doglegs, it probably would been seen as short for the PGA, but it is more playable for the club golfer. Thus, I would prefer The East on a daily basis.

[SPDB]

west is better, east has better land. go figure.

[cary lichtenstein]

I thought Quaker Ridge was better

[Sean Leary]

Mike S,

Is is possible that the USGA would ever consider doing that? Or does the length on the scorecard/course not meet the USGA sniff test?

[PThomas]

interesting, pls keep them coming!

[Adam_Messix]

Winged Foot West, Winged Foot East, Quaker Ridge.....  thrown them in a hat and no matter what you pull out you'll be doing great.  

Amazingly, they are all so different from one another that you would miss something if you didn't play one or the other two.  Quaker Ridge is clearly on the best piece of property of the three.  QR is more of a ball strikers course in my mind, especially with some of the fairway slopes, I particularly like the reverse bank dog-leg on #6.  The rough area in the center of the 8th fairway is cool too.  The greens are not as interesting as either Winged Foot, the only two that were memorable to me were #1 (since redone) and 16.  I remember the rough being extra tough at QR, very comparable in lenght and density to Oakmont and Sand Ridge.

Winged Foot East is on more rolling land than it's brother.  I liked the East, particularly the swinging par five fourth, the par 3 sixth with it's severe green, and the 17th with it's bunkerless green complex.  I'm not a big fan of #8 on the East, a sharp dog-leg left short par five.  Excellent course though, and one of the few times I disagree with the Confidential Guide.

My first impression of the West Course was how flat it was given it's location.  The back nine is the stronger side, despite the excellent first and third holes.  The 10th hole is a good as advertised and so is #11, although the 12th (640 yards) is longer than both of them put together.  The 18th has an excellent green.  When the green speeds are up, the West course feels like one brutal hole after another.  Not quite Oakmont tough though.  In short, a great championship venue.  If I had to order them, I think it would be West, QR, then East.  

[Mark Brown]

The West is more difficult, a better Major Championship test, although a little boring -- birdies are hard to come by, deep greenside bunkers on both sides of raised greens. It's a beast.
Not one of my favorite courses for member or tournament play

East course is much more fun, more variety and elevation changes. I'd much rather play the East.

[Mike_Sweeney]

Mike S,

Is is possible that the USGA would ever consider doing that? Or does the length on the scorecard/course not meet the USGA sniff test?

As the WF Archivest is an occasional poster here, it might drive him nuts. Honestly, I would not want it that way. Too much history on both courses individually to now mix them up for a GCA fantasy. The West is a great course, I just need to practice more!!

[Tom_Doak]

The two Winged Foot courses are pretty interchangeable, the East just doesn't have the back tees and therefore the championship history -- apparently worth precisely twenty spots in the rankings.  If you picked a composite course from the 36 holes, I'd guess that the lesser course would contribute 7 or 8 holes.

However, if they keep working on the West course for tournaments, it's just a matter of time before the East course will wind up on top.

[Mike_Sweeney]

However, if they keep working on the West course for tournaments, it's just a matter of time before the East course will wind up on top.

Tom,

I think you would approve of some of the new work on the greens, specifically 18, which while not the size of Bobby Jones era, it is much deeper. Even Tommy N. approved of Fazio's bunker work.  

[Steve Lapper]

The two Winged Foot courses are pretty interchangeable, the East just doesn't have the back tees and therefore the championship history -- apparently worth precisely twenty spots in the rankings.  If you picked a composite course from the 36 holes, I'd guess that the lesser course would contribute 7 or 8 holes.

However, if they keep working on the West course for tournaments, it's just a matter of time before the East course will wind up on top.

Tom, et.al,

   Having grown up very nearby, playing both extensively, and losing my caddying virginity to these courses, I'd strongly beg to differ with the first half of your statement.

    The West has the more boring, flat land indeed, but it's green complexes are vastly more difficult to navigate. They are mostly smaller with more overt tilt and possess greater bunker defenses. Consequently, scoring there is usually tougher from any tee box. Certainly playing from the back tees makes it tougher, but holes like 6, 7 and 8 don't need length to protect them from par or better. Yes, the back 9 is better overall (and assumes a more QR-like feel), however, throw back in #'s 1 and 3 and you have one very good or great golf course that would handily eclipse the East.

   The luxury of picking up the best holes from the East would give it a quality found only in a place like Royal Melbourne (even there, the West deserves it's promience regardless of championship history). I don't feel as if the courses are interchangable...compatible and comparable quality surely, to some degree, but hardly so similar throughout that any more than 3-5 or 6 holes might migrate from East to West to improve the 18.

I will concede what I think your point was about the back tee difference on the West.....the East, without the room to stretch much, much farther back might never host a professional major (PGA or otherwise). It is viewed by the membership to be more benign and member-friendly (and often the roughs, especially of late, are usually at least a tad tamer).

  To your last point, no matter what the quality of the bunker work, that is the trend and historical mean they will gravitate towards....unless , of course, they let our man NR supervise

[mike_beene]

I have always been puzzled by the routing of the two courses.Does any one have any insight about the way the courses split each other for lack of a better term.Am I the only person who finds the routing strange?

[Mark Leo]

Heres something to ponder.  A number of holes of the East course (possibly up to nine) are being covered with gravel (yikes !!) to accomodate corporate tents for the Open this year.  Lets see how the East recovers.  Can you imagine that happening at any other top 100 course ?

[Tom_Doak]

I made the comments about the Winged Foot composite course off the top of my head.  Let me think about it out loud and see what I come up with:

Par 3's:  10 West, for sure; 6 East, for sure; toss-up for short 3 between 3E and 7W; toss-up for long 3 between 3W and 17E.  Let's say two of each.

Par 4's:  Certainly where the West shines.  You've got to pick 1W, 2W, 4W, 6W, 11W, 15W, 17W, 18W.  The only must-have on the East is 10 [and maybe not even that one anymore, without the elm].  There's probably another worthy four on the East but I can't remember which right now.

Par 5's:  I would take 9W and 4E without thinking.  I've never been a fan of either 5W or 12W, but I'm having trouble remembering the other 5's on the East.

So, Steve, you are right in your view that the West has several more great holes, the East only gets 4-6 holes out of the 18.  That means the East is rated too highly, I think.

[Patrick_Mucci]

I don't recall the back nine at WFW being flat.

Could someone more familiar with the course go over the back nine hole by hole and point out the flat parts ?

[Steve Lapper]

Pat,

   Sure Pat......You can do it!  Just use your infamous "green type."...

   TBTDYB (too busy to do your bidding)!

[Scott Stearns]

I think WFE would be a GREAT place for a PGA--all we need to do is change the format back to match play.

I think the East is a superior match play course to the west.  I wish the US Amateur match play could have been played over the East, and one of the highlights of my summer is watching some of the clubs four ball invitational, the Anderson.

Too short for the pros at stroke play though.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Having spent two days at Winged Foot with the 'occasional poster' all I can say is that they were two of the best days of my life despite my playing awfully.  What was so great was that we were not playing a match, but chucking balls down in different places to see what happens from here, there or wherever.  It gave me a considerable appreciation for the subtleties of what seemed at first galnce to my untrained eye as fairly unremarkable parkland.  Unfortunately it was during that hot spell last August when the greens everywhere were kept long and slow simply for survival, so some of the more outrageous putts (180-degrees to the target) were not possible.  The other terrific education was to explore the course with someone who had the designer's blue-prints in his head and could demonstrate exactly where the greens extended to originally, exactly how the bunkers tied in with thsi and so on.  Two of the best days of my life!