[Brent Hutto]

I'm surprised we haven't seen a writeup with photos and gory match-play details from any of the guys who attended one of the side trips to Ganton before or after the Buda Cup. Even though my own itenerary had omitted a trip there, as it turned out I was able to spend a little while visiting and even got to play the first seven holes and the tee shot on the eight before continuing on my journey home.

I often hear the phrase "second-shot golf course" to describe courses with interesting and demanding approach shots. Some times that's a backhanded complement implying that the tee shots lack interest, at least in comparison with shots to the green. Based on my very limited experience on Ganton front nine I came away fantastically impressed with the tee shot challenges on offer. I hate to coin the phrase "first-shot golf course" because there is certainly no lack of interest offered by Ganton's approaches (the long shot to the fourth green with a fairway wood was a splendid example). But at least for a player of modest length and skill the bunkering, subtle doglegs and modest but meaningful slopes that must be taken into account off every tee are the equal of any course I've played.

I did not find the bunkers that I encountered to be as fearsome as their appearance or reputation would lead one to expect. Then again, many of the famous examples are on the later holes I haven't played yet. But they are deep enough to demand avoidance off the tee and they are numerous enough and visible enough to make playing Ganton a bracing exercise in visualizing and executing tee shots with very few of the "aim for the middle and hit it" type of unexciting first shot that even many fabulous courses offer on occasion.

So come on guys. I just had an appetizer. Let's hear what the real meal is like! It may be years until I return to play the course and I don't want to wait that long to know what awaits on the final ten holes. Of the holes I saw, the standouts were the short two-shot third with bunkers across the entire fairway at one distance or another, the longer fourth hole with a visually tricky tee shot and an all-world long approach and the deceptively difficult seventh. I also had a brief look at either the twelfth or fourteenth whilst walking back to the clubhouse with Mr. Douglas. Which of these has the enormous tree to be negociated on the tee shot, with strategy reinforced by a perfectly placed bunker just beyond the tree on the left?

P.S. And as for the eighth, I didn't stick around to see where my ball ended up off the tee but what a brilliant tee shot is on offer there. My favorite save only the third hole of the first shots I saw on Ganton's front nine.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Brent I did get the camera out but I’ve yet to go through them, so I will post them when I’ve more time.  But I would say, like Alwoodley it more than lived upto the very high expectations I had for it.   (Not wise to judge Moortown in the rain).

The thing that got me was it is often referred to as flat.  It may not be hilly but there’s enough movement to keep me interested.  It had that wonderful feeling that it is a club and course which is unique and worth the trip.  Best of the three?  



This little guy hung about the 1st green all day.

[Marty Bonnar]

Tony,
Sean W LOVED Ganton too. He was effusing enthusiastically last sunday evening to me, but currently can't post as he is packing up after his year in St A. Boy, did that go quickly!
He, and his lovely bride are staying with us tomorrow eve before the final European Tour part of their trip sees them in the deepest, darkest Balkans pre homeward flights.

How cool is it that a bloke from Oz ups sticks and spends a year in some rain-infested corner of the globe just, well, 'being' a golfer....Lucky bar'keeper'

FBD.

[Mark Pearce]

Tony,

I said several times at Alwoodley that great though Alwoodley was, Ganton is clearly better.  I don't think I can quite put my finger on it as to why and I'll admit I've played Ganton more often but I think it is a great course, probably the best inland course I have played.

Brent,

You're right.  Ganton really does demand a lot of your tee shots.  Interestingly you formed this view without getting into the most demanding part of the course.  Of the holes you saw (1 to 7, as I read it), 1 is a fairly gentle introduction (but don't lose it left, or catch the rhs trap), 2 is reasonably generous (but don't get too close to the left side that you really want to hug), 3 looks straightforward (but catch that prevailing wind), 4 requires a shot further left than it looks can possibly be right, 5 is a tricky par 3 and 7 is a really tough tee shot.  On the Tuesday the only way to hit driver was over the rhs bunkers or run out of fairway.  Only 6 (and to an extent 1 and 5) is a really straightforward tee shot in the first 7.

However, it gets even better.  9 is a hole where the tee shot is actually easier than it looks.  A par 5 through a funnel of trees, the fairway in the landing zone is wider than it looks.  However, that landing zone is blind and that confuses where it shouldn't.  10 is a par three that looks straightforward but is a small and well protected area.  

I used to know how to play 11.  Long and left did the job, getting the ball up to, and if you were lucky, over a ridge running across the fairway.  When I played there last year I hit what I thought was a perfect drive, only to discover that some b*&%ard had put a bunker in the ideal driving position.  Checking my stroke saver proved that it was a new bunker.  A tough drive.

12 provides light relief, being a short par 4, dog-leg left to right.  Only a long iron or fairway wood will run out of fairway (and may find gorse) unless you hit it over the trees on the inside of the dogleg or hit a big fade.

13 is a par 5 but the landing area for driver narrows down with trees left and bunkers and gorse right.

14 is a great short par 4.  Hit 6 or 5 iron to a wide fairway and wedge to the green?  Sounds easy but that fairway is partly hidden, the view of the green is obscured and you don't know where, exactly, you want to be.  That doubt is corrosive.  Driver is too much and can run into gorse back right, particularly as that's where the green falls to.  I made par (and arguably with a sound short game should have made birdie) on Tuesday afternoon by hitting 3 wood over the big fairway bunker left and running down (it was f&f) pin high left but that's the first time in 12 attempts I think I've played that hole well.

15 is a slight breather, though not into the prevailing wind.  16 is another graet hole.  A long par 4 distance is required if you want to get home.  The famous cross bunker isn't in play to a decent player but does hide the fairway.  Again the driving area is tight but you want to hit it far enough to catch a downslope and gain extra yards which can turn a 3 iron approach into a 6 iron.  Once again the semi blind element plays havoc.

17 is a 230 yard uphill par three.  Tough.

18 looks easy on paper but is, again, a blind tee shot to a dogleg.  The road at 270/280 crosses the fairway and is  OOB.  Not an easy drive to finish.

Like you say, a really strong driving course.

[Steve Lang]

 

Heck, I missed my train in York to play there.. Sept 1996..

why only 7 holes..?

[Brent Hutto]

Steve,

Long story. I hadn't planned to play at Ganton but I knew Andy and Mark would be there all day so I stopped by on my way from Great Ayton to Manchester (plane home the next morning) to see how they were getting on. By total happenstance they were teeing off on the seventeenth right as I was passing by on the entrance road.

While waiting for them in the pro shop I bumped into a guy I had played with at Royal Birkdale on Monday who was also playing at Ganton that day. He and I decided to meet up in Manchester that evening for dinner. When I found Mark and Andy they were eating Ganton Cake and hanging out with club historian Ian Douglas. Around 4.00-ish they talked Ian into accompanying them for the first few holes of their afternoon round so what the heck I joined in. After seven holes (plus a tee shot on the eighth) he was walking in so I returned to my car and high-tailed it for Manchester. On the way we stopped off at several of the more interesting back nine holes and got a pretty good sense of some of the tee shots.

So not bad for a bonus stop that wasn't on my itenerary at all. But it has really whetted my appetite to play the whole course one day. Just a super-solid, well thought out course is fine playing condition. I'd say Ganton from the visitors tees is easily the equal of Alwoodley from the white competition tees (they are actually two very different types of courses in fundamental ways but I mean similar in difficulty and interest). A player of my meagre gifts could enjoy either of those courses equally well but I can see why stronger players would love Ganton.

I suspect from the next longer set of tees in a similar (15-20mph) breeze Ganton would be too much of a challenge for my game, that was nearly the case the one round I played from the whites at Alwoodley. Plus most of those fairway bunkers would move out of my range and I think at Ganton that would spoil the fun much moreso than at some other courses. The bunkering, particularly fairway bunkering, is as integral to play there as at any course in my limited experience.

[Jon Wiggett]

I suspect from the next longer set of tees in a similar (15-20mph) breeze Ganton would be too much of a challenge for my game, that was nearly the case the one round I played from the whites at Alwoodley. Plus most of those fairway bunkers would move out of my range and I think at Ganton that would spoil the fun much moreso than at some other courses.

Brent,

actually that is one of the great things about Ganton. Even in a strong wind it is still very playable if you can keep the ball low and know the course well enough to use the contours. Clearly the course is 3 to 4 shots harder in a 20mph wind but it is not because it is any less playable. I would suggest that Alwoodley is less playable in wind.

[Mark Pearce]

Brent,

I agree with Jon.  On the Tuesday Giles, Conrad and I played from the whites at Ganton in the afternoon.  I don't think it changed the difficulty of the course that much.  The blues, however, looked a bit scary......

Alwoodley off the whites was interesting.  A coupleof long and difficult par 4s became short par 5s and some of the different angles (I'm thinking particularly of 6 where the blind tee shot off the yellows bacame a clear view from the whites) actually made holes easier in my book.  

[Brent Hutto]

You know, it never even occurred to me that some holes at Alwoodley were Par 5's on the card when we moved back to the whites. We were playing match-play and in general longer holes are a disadvantage to me relative to just about any opponent so the course felt much harder from back there. But that was really just harder to win a hole while it would perhaps be easier to shoot a medal score relative to par.

I can see the point about Ganton being playable in the wind. From pictures and descriptions of the course I had expected it to be much tighter but in reality the fairway areas were quite generous, tempered of course by the need to avoid the cunningly placed bunkers. A big difference was the fairly playable roughs at Ganton versus the 50/50 chance of a horrible lie in the heather at Alwoodley. The wind or a wind-aided bad lateral bounce at Alwoodley can cost you a full stroke whereas bounding into the rough at Ganton seemed to result in maybe laying up to wedge distance or even going for the green anyway. And let's don't even talk about the roughs at Seaton Carew the day before, a badly pulled or sliced shot there was almost always a stroke lost at best and a ball lost quite often.

An additional difference in the courses are the elevation changes at Alwoodley. It seemed to expose you to the wind off elevated tees or play uphill on holes into the wind quite often. At least the front nine at Ganton lets you hug the ground and/or utilize the trees at wind breaks to a certain extent. Truth be told, I found the wind at all the courses I played added a lot to the experience. But at Ganton it seemed to add some excitement to the shots without really beating up your score too badly.

[Mark Pearce]

Truth be told, I found the wind at all the courses I played added a lot to the experience. But at Ganton it seemed to add some excitement to the shots without really beating up your score too badly.

Just like good links golf a round at Alwoodley or Ganton will be more fun, more interesting and more challenging in a decent wind (at least when f&f).  If the wind didn't beat you up at Ganton I can only assume it wasn't blowing hard in your face down 15 and into and across on 17 (which I think is prevailing).  That wind killed me last year but what fun.

[Brent Hutto]

...more fun, more interesting and more challenging in a decent wind (at least when f&f).

I've though a lot about this since returning home Monday and I think the f&f is necessary. With soft conditions, some holes play longer into the wind, some shorter with the wind and you have to aim to one side or another if the wind is across. That's about it. But when the course is f&f the downwind holes play much, much shorter because the wind adds carry and it adds roll. And into the wind you can try to hit a running shot and use the ground to get back a lot of the carry distance you lost to the wind. Most importantly, on crosswind shots you have to either aim way, way to the side or else put sidespin on the ball (which I can't do) because the ball will keep going sideways after it's on the ground.

If the wind didn't beat you up at Ganton I can only assume it wasn't blowing hard in your face down 15 and into and across on 17 (which I think is prevailing).  That wind killed me last year but what fun.

There I go making a classic error (no, not committing to a land war in Asia but the other one). I shouldn't have made a conclusive statement after just playing half the course.

[Jon Wiggett]

Just like good links golf a round at Alwoodley or Ganton will be more fun, more interesting and more challenging in a decent wind (at least when f&f).  If the wind didn't beat you up at Ganton I can only assume it wasn't blowing hard in your face down 15 and into and across on 17 (which I think is prevailing).  That wind killed me last year but what fun.

Mark,

you are of course right that wind is going to make a course more difficult but the point I was making is that of playability in the wind. For me Alwoodley loses some of its playability sooner in wind than Ganton. Having said that Alwoodley's 13-18 into a 25mph wind is one of the toughest finishes in golf

[Mark Pearce]

Just like good links golf a round at Alwoodley or Ganton will be more fun, more interesting and more challenging in a decent wind (at least when f&f).  If the wind didn't beat you up at Ganton I can only assume it wasn't blowing hard in your face down 15 and into and across on 17 (which I think is prevailing).  That wind killed me last year but what fun.

Mark,

you are of course right that wind is going to make a course more difficult but the point I was making is that of playability in the wind. For me Alwoodley loses some of its playability sooner in wind than Ganton. Having said that Alwoodley's 13-18 into a 25mph wind is one of the toughest finishes in golf

Jon,

I didn't intend to disagree with your suggestion.  Alwoodley's finish is a bear in the wind whilst at Ganton only 15 and 17 really get monstrous.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Off the white tees 17th at Ganton is a par 4, but there is nowhere safe to lay up off the tee. Or is it reckoned to be one-on and three putts?

[Mark Pearce]

There's a small dell cut as fairway on the left - I'd always asssumed that was the ladies' fairway and a possible lay up area.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Mark

Not quite.  The ladies tee in fact is just on the other side of the road. (It is worth noting two lady members are veterans of the Curtis Cup!)

That said, according to the club historian the 17th "fairway" is used as a layup, but more fascinating is this is the location of the tee for the original and NLE 17th hole, which played as a par 3 across the "Pandy" bunker. (Short for "Pandemonium," which it most certainly was -- God, the pictures of that thing!)

I will post on the course and what I learned from the historian (orally and via his written word), in particular the influence of MacKenzie and Colt, when I get a chance: good stuff.

Mark

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I found Ganton to be a great course. It make you think on every shot you play tee to green as well as great green complexes. Loved it and wished I had more than one round there.

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