Slapper,
What do you find overrated about Harbour Town? Shadow Creek? Muirfield? I would like to hear your reasoning.
You use GD 100 as the benchmark, but they do not rank international. Kingsbarns and Pacific Dunes both debuted in the top 50 world by Golf, you think they are underrated?
Ben,
Fair enough.
Each of my "over" picks strikes me as having great, mediocre, and questionable characterisitics. The great ones and the under-rated have little that is mediocre and near nothing questionable.
Harbor Town is clearly special and historic, making the most of a flat property. The original course looks like it much more challenging ( I played with a local who has seen/lived thru the green expansions and fairway widenings) and has been changed purely to accomodate the cash flow drivers. The condition was less than stellar when I played it and left there feeling the short holes were great, but the rest of the course, save 18, mediocre.
Having played Shadow Creek over 6X, I loved it when it opened and now no longer feel it it near worthy of its position. Simply put, so many great courses have been built since then...other than a few of the backside holes, and 1-2 of the front....it won't stand the test of time well enough to hold that lofty perch.
Muirfield Village just doesn't feel better than say Bethpage, Bandon Dunes, or LACC North, etc.. granted MV's conditioning (save for this year's debacle) is superb and its routing is excellent. The front side is decidedly weaker, save the 8th & 9th., than the back and I really feel a course so highly rated should have better balance. I belong to a Nicklaus track and am familiar with his work and agree that MV is among his greatest efforts. I.M.O. he is severely over-rated as a course designer.
P. Dunes belongs in the US top twenty and the world's 25 (almost there already). Kingsbarn belong's among that as well...both are spectacular treatments of spectacular properties...with negligable, if any flaws.
Just my opinion....always given with several grains of thought!
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