[Mike Hendren]

There seems to be an inherent opinion among the cognoscenti (then and now - you define them) that linksland is superior to parkland for hosting a golf course.  I don't disagree, but find photos such as the one below compelling:



Questions for our friends across the pond:  

Are such photographs appealing?

Do they whet your appetite to play golf?

Do you feel you're missing out on something if you don't venture over to play a few of these relatively simple courses?

Just wondering.

Mike

[Tony_Muldoon]

Bogey I think this will go by the individuals preference and people on here would not necessarily be typical of GB&I golfers.  I would say the majority of Golfers over here, that I’ve discussed this with, think of the heavily wooded Wentworth as a ‘really outstanding’ golf course.  Two caddy members of North Berwick and a poster on here have said just that to me.  I look at your picture and sure it’s lovely but for me Heaths, Coasts/Estuaries and  wild moorland scenery are far more attractive.  (are there any great Moorland courses? Anyone know about Colt’s Dartmoor NLE?)

There’s also the attraction of the golf itself. Mark Rowlinson posted a thread recently asking where the great Parkland courses in GB&I are?  The list was very short.

I’m curious if you’re wondering why the traffic on this group is all in our direction.  In reality it’s not.  Every winter lots of GB&I golfers head for Florida, Myrtle Beach etc.  

That looks like an attractive place to play golf.  My eye is drawn to the elevation change and fall off at the back of the green (is it really that square).  I’ve got a huge appetite to see and play more courses but I also enjoy lots of things in your country and have yet to make a golf trip there.  I’m sure I will but I will probably choose seaside courses and the older ones – just as I would anywhere else. I play a simple tree lined home course with friends every week so that might not be enough to get me to travel?

Last week I played John O’Gaunt which offers great golf and has some fabulous trees - will post pictures soon. This picture is of Thorndon Park which has 700 year old oaks.  Both are great places to play but neither would make my list of screensavers or top 25 places to play.  They are the only two interesting parkland courses I’ve seen.


Does this ramble help?

[Marty Bonnar]

Monsewer Beaujay,
thing is see, that that pic of that course (apart maybe from the squareoidal green) COULD be of just about any inland British parkland course.
On the other foot, there's nowt like Pine Valley, CPC or Augusta over here, so (just like you fine fellows) we want to travel to see/play SOMETHING ELSE!!!
Horror of horrors, but even the 'Links' become tiresome eventually.
The lure of the unfamiliar, the attraction of the unknown, call it what you will, but it is plainly human nature to want to experience all the ("great big golf architecture" - thanks, TEP) world has to offer.

FBD.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I played a number of parkland courses in the US last summer - Yale, Creek, Ridgewood, Gulph Mills, Rolling Green, Four Streams, Winged Foot (plus a walk over NGLA - herdly parkland, but included for completeness).  I enjoyed myself to the extent that I'm hoping that a chum and I might venture to the US again next year for another engaging golfing experience.  I also greatly enjoyed Pasatiempo, Meadow Club and Olympic (Lake and Par-3) on previous visits.  They are all fascinating to me as something special, a marvellous corpus of varied architecture.  I think my standpoint is that I can usually find something positive to interest me in most courses, other than the really bad.  I was lucky enough to see Beverly and Chicago in the snow - obviously I didn't play, but I could still get a sense of why these are important courses.  I hope I'm not being sacreligious, but neither is visually outstanding, but when you come to look at the subtlety of the courses you see something very different.  

For me it is the variety of nature of golf courses which is so fascinating.  I am lucky.  I am a member of a links course - though I only play there two or threee times a year.  I'm 45 minutes from Hoylake, Wallasey and an hour or so from West Lancs, Formby, S & A, Hillside, Royal Birkdale, and under two hours to Lytham, Silloth....  I am also within an hour and a half (or a little more, if the traffic is bad) of Alwoodley, Moortown, Sand Moor and other MacKenzie courses around Leeds - 2 hours to Ganton, Notts, Beau Desert (it should be 70 minutes, but rarely is with the dreadful M6 and its consequences).  We have Reddish Vale (mad MacKenzie), Cavendish (MacKenzie on Speed), Prestbury (superior parkland, Colt), Delamere Forest (is it parkland? Fowler), and a host of courses as yet little recognised on GCA - Halifax (rugged!), Huddersfield (mountainous, but full of interest), Sandiway (Ray/Colt, nothing world-class, but a very solid course, nonetheless), and perhaps 100 parkland courses within 45 minutes' drive, none of which is worth travelling 3,000 miles to play, yet each gives oodles of pleasure without ever threatening to activate the GCA radar.  I'm sure we could equal the picture shown above at Romiley, Dunham Forest, Crewe or Warrington.  No, don't book your flight just yet - but we do have lots of good parkland holes.

[Tommy Williamsen]

While I live on the west side of the pond, I do play quite a bit on the other side.  I think I like a good heathland course almost as much as a links course.  Walton Heath, Sunningdale, The Berskshire and lesser lights like Beau Desert and Delamere Forest make me salivate.

[Mark Pearce]

I enjoy many parkland layouts but there's no doubt that the best courses I've played and the ones I have enjoyed most are links or heath land.

As to the picture posted, well, as Martin says, it could be just about any British parkland course (though the elevation is unusual).  I'm sorry but I look at it and don't feel any particular desire to play it, over and above anywhere else.  It looks good, but doesn't make my juices run the way the pictures recently posted of New Zealand, Burnham and Berrow or Royal Ashdown Forest do.

I've played a bit in the States (nowhere of particular note) and hope to again.  The recently posted pictures of Merion West were interesting and made me want to play, as have many recent pictures of US courses.  Since we're about to move house, I suspect that any golfing trip to the US is some years away, sadly, unless combined with business.

[Padraig Dooley]

Mike

The first time I played golf in the US, a group of us started at San Francisco and worked our way down to Santa Barbara.
We played The San Francisco Club, The Meadow Club, Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, Cypress Point and The Valley Club of Montecito.

I definitely felt I had been missing out when I played those. They really wet my appetite, not only for golf but for architecture as well.

I would say neither parkland or linksland is superior it's what is done with the land that counts. They are plenty of poor links courses.

It's hard to tell what a golf course is like just from one photograph alone but the blue sky is very appealing.

I definitely want to venture to the North East and play some of the classic courses, Winged Foot, NGLA, Merion, Pine Valley, Shinnecock Hills, the list goes on.

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