Is torrey pines the worst course to host a US open in recent memory?

[Mark_Fine]

Torrey Pines set up for The U.S. Open is long, hard, and one dimemsional boring golf.  Maybe Mike Davis will add a twist here and there but he has to do a lot more than that to get my attention regarding Open setups.  On the Doak scale, The South course is about a 5 which is way down there for any Open course I can think of. 

Jeff,
I just played The Black and I'm not sure how you think The South Course is harder than that one?  If anything it is one dimensionally harder, I will give it that?  Not a lot of thought going on playing The South - hit it down the middle as far as you can and then repeat the process.  We all have our opinions but one thing I am pretty sure of and that is I give The Black a much higher overall rating than a 5

[John_Conley]

I'm not a Hazeltine fan, but I always find myself defending it.

For a normal golfer, the courses at Interlachen, Minikahda, White Bear, Golden Valley, Somerset, Woodhill, Oak Ridge, and Minneapolis are more interesting.  But Hazeltine wasn't created for a normal golfer.  From Day One the express purpose was to hold championhips.  And oh my how it has done.

Tony Jacklin won the US Open.
Hollis Stacy won the women's US Open (one of her THREE)
they played a US Senior Open
Payne Stewart won the second Open
Rich Beem won the PGA
It will host another PGA
The Ryder Cup will soon be there

Toss in an NCAA (right?), several State Ams, and even the US Am (right?)...PLUS the US Mid-Am and US State Team and it is easily as prolific a tournament venue as anything other than Pebble Beach.  They've held so much crap I can't remember it all.

Now for the Hill comments.  Understand when this thing was built it was WAAAAAYYYYYY out in the boondocks.  Lee Trevino called it the hardest course in the world (Dan King needed for the quote, but I remember reading it) a year before the Open arrived.  Supposedly Don January was on the 1st tee of a practice round and his caddy gave him an alignment target.  "Son, I don't aim at no cloud!" he remarked, so nondescript was the backdrop.  Yes, when Dave Hill spoke (he nearly won the event, so it wasn't sour grapes) it was in the middle of a cornfield.  Today it is in a normal suburb and sits just South of a vibrant business park.  Weren't LOTS of private clubs built in the sticks before cities grew out to them?

Hazeltine is primarily guilty of holding a US Open too soon after opening.  If it were another Bellerive I don't think they get so many things with all the competition for such events.

One thing most will agree to is that the clubhouse is really dated.  Not a huge fan of the golf course, it is nowhere near the track many people think just because it became fashionable to bash the place.

[John Kavanaugh]

Hazeltine is primarily guilty of holding a US Open too soon after opening.  If it were another Bellerive I don't think they get so many things with all the competition for such events.

Get your facts straight on Bellerive.  It has had plenty and will soon have more.

[John Moore II]

Does it really matter is Torrey is a weakish golf course? I think, given its age and market, this Open could allow it to become a very good golf course. Good/Great golf courses don't necessarily have to be architectural marvels to be good tests of golf, enjoyable to play, and well maintained.

[Bill Shamleffer]

Hazeltine is primarily guilty of holding a US Open too soon after opening.  If it were another Bellerive I don't think they get so many things with all the competition for such events.

Get your facts straight on Bellerive.  It has had plenty and will soon have more.

John is correct.  Bellerive hosted the very first USGA Men's Mid-Am; the 1992 PGA Championship; it was suposed to host a WGC event in 9/2001; hosted a USGA Senior Open; and now after last year's renovations will have the Western Open (I refuse to call this event by any other name) this coming September.

I have not seen the course since it was renovated and am very interested to see how it looks.

Although Bellerive lacks character and charisma such as one will find at St. Louis C.C., Bellerive is a very hard but fair test.  Forgetting all the other logistics, and looking only at the course, if I were going to have a mens professional championship in St. Louis my first 2 courses to consider would be St. Louis C.C. and Bellerive.  (With Fox Run in 3rd.  I have not played Boone Valley or St. Albans.)

[Dan Kelly]

Hazeltine is primarily guilty of holding a US Open too soon after opening.

I respectfully but intensely disagree.

Hazeltine is primarily guilty of letting the USGA browbeat it into removing much of the *character* that Robert Trent Jones designed into it.

[John_Conley]

But Dan, most of the criticism lingers from 1970.  Changes, no changes...doesn't matter.  THe course wasn't going to get past the perception any more without the Rees-do and prior RTJ changes.  We probably agree more than you know.

[John Kavanaugh]

The Country Club because it is an unplayable bastard mongrel of a course.  Wasn't there some thought of pulling an extra hole off of one of the other Bethpage courses to make an even better composite course?

[Dan Kelly]

John Conley --

Maybe we agree. I don't know.

Here's what I believe: The criticism was unwarranted in 1970, and should have been ignored.

The USGA and Hazeltine knuckled under to a bunch of whiner pros, griping about the difficulty of alignment on some holes where it was not, as they like to say, ALL RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

The original Hazeltine was a wild, adventuresome course.

The USGA civilized it -- and not to its benefit, if you ask me.

I may be a party of one there. C'est la vie!


Dan

[Mike_Cirba]

While Torrey Pines has never had interesting internal features, either pre or post Rees Jones, I would like to come to its defense;

In the bastardized words of Linus of "Charley Brown" fame, "it's not a bad little routing, is it?"   I've gone over the routing in my mind several times and I think the Bell's did a splendid job in maximizing the property, contrary to popular belief that expects a Pebble Beach adrenaline-pumping experience on a course where the ocean is as removed from the golf course as the tanned bodies of Black's Beach, nearly invisible to the naked eye below.

And despite his Reesification of the bunkers, and his bludgeon-subtle remake of the greens, I do think Rees hit some high notes with his moves of several greens and tees that bring the canyons more into play.

[John Kavanaugh]

To quote Doak..."My own thought is that when you have a setting like this it would be stupid to build anything which attempts to compete with that setting."

[Mike_Cirba]

To quote Doak..."My own thought is that when you have a setting like this it would be stupid to build anything which attempts to compete with that setting."

John,

If we are actually in agreement here, I'm going to pop a bottle of champagne, have a snort, and head happily to bed.

[Dan Kelly]

To quote Doak..."My own thought is that when you have a setting like this it would be stupid to build anything which attempts to compete with that setting."

John,

If we are actually in agreement here, I'm going to pop a bottle of champagne, have a snort, and head happily to bed.

I'll bet you say that to all the ... oh, never mind.

[Bill Shamleffer]

The Country Club because it is an unplayable bastard mongrel of a course.  Wasn't there some thought of pulling an extra hole off of one of the other Bethpage courses to make an even better composite course?

I do not care if it is a composite course rarely played in its championsip form, The Country Club is the finest US Open course I have every walked.

[Phil_the_Author]

John,

You asked, "Wasn't there some thought of pulling an extra hole off of one of the other Bethpage courses to make an even better composite course?"

No. Not even a glimmer of a thought was given to that...

[Jeff Evagues]

Jeff E:

I can appreciate your opinion but you have not explained in any great detail how you see Torrey Pines / South being that much tougher than Bethpage Black. A bit more meat on the bone in regards to your thinking would be really helpful.
[/quote]
The main difference to me was fairway width. I'm a 2.3 index and miss maybe 2 fairways a round. It is almost impossible for me to miss one at Bethpage but the last time I played Torrey I felt I had to hit my best drivers to stay in the fairways.

[Rick Shefchik]

I doubt that anyone here who named Hazeltine as the worst Open course has played it. (Matt doesn't particularly like it, but he didn't call it the worst Open course.)

I've played Hazeltine many times, and I like it very much. The only other modern Open venue I've played is Pebble Beach. Pebble Beach is a better course. That's all I'm qualified to say.

That should be the standard when criticizing golf courses.

[Matt_Ward]

Jeff E:

Thanks for your singular comment.

What about the scale of the properties and the diversity of the holesd presented. You should re-read what Mark Fine provided to you because Torrey Pine / South is really very one-dimensional and quite boring from the archiectural side of things.

[John Kavanaugh]

Torrey sure did look Bandon this morning on the Golf Channel.  They were using a camera angle that showed irregular shaped dunes.  I do not remember it being that beautiful.  I also like the commentary on how this is not the same course they play in the spring because of the "maintenance meld".

I can't wait for the poo poohers to get PO'ed when the media catches up with me in calling this the greatest US Open in modern times.

[David Kelly]

I can't wait for the poo poohers to get PO'ed when the media catches up with me in calling this the greatest US Open in modern times.

Since you can see in the future, what is oil going to be at this time next year?  If you could tell me it would really help me out.

[Peter Pallotta]

I was just on the US Open website, and I think it's going to be a very good tournament.  The course should let the top players shine while giving some of the tier-two fellas a chance to have a great week and thus add to the mix on Sunday afternoon. All in all, my guess is that on television it will be an exciting U.S. Open as played out on an American-style major championship venue. I'm thinking Furyk, Choi and Westwood will play well....oh, and Tiger and Phil too, with Retief hanging around the top.

Peter       

[Chris Cupit]

I caddied for the week for my father in the 1983 US Senior Open at Hazeltine.  Granted I was only 15 at the time but even then I had a curiousity about golf course architecture and had already read through Dave Hill's book "Teed Off" so I was primed to expect a true cornfield.

#1 was pretty much a cornfield but other than being surprised at how hot MN was in July (one competitor had a heart attack on the 6th hole and died during the championship )  I remember thinking that it seemed like a pretty good golf course.

#1, #9 and #18 were nothing special and I think #16 and #17 which were a par 3 and then a par 4 for the US Open in '70 had been changed to the current par 4 then par 3 configuration.

I actually liked #17 as a nice par 3 nestled into a hillside with the stream to the left.  I also thought #10 was a good hole.

I am not a fan of #16 though as I think the green jutting out into the lake and pitched pretty strongly  from back to front is a bit over done.

In fact, the artist Bud Chapman that drew those 18 "Crazy golf holes"--mythical holes like the Grand Canyon hole perched right on the rim of the cannyon and Niagarra Falls Club with an island green under the waterfall, did a drawing for the US Sr, Open that every competitor got to keep.  (I think he was also a fine amateur player and member of Hazeltine).

Anyway his surreal art rendering of #16 didn't seem to far off of the real thing to me--a very overdone golf hole with a forced carry over marsh, between more marsh and a creek to a contrived pennisula green.

BUT, overall the course must have matured a lot since the '70 Open or I think Dave Hill was just being a pain in the ass

[Lou_Duran]

I would love to see one of our expert gca analysts do a hole by hole comparison (par 3s to par 3s, 4s to 4s, etc.) of TPS and say Bethpage or Winged Foot.  I just don't understand the negativity on TPS.  From my perspective, it tests every facet of the game and has the beautiful Pacific for background as a bonus.  I only wish that I could get one of those magical resident cards.  Even with the price of gas at over $4.35/gal., I'd make the 150 mile RT every few weeks and fight the crowds.

[Thomas MacWood]

Lou
If its main golfing attribute is testing every fascet of the game I must day that does not sound particularly appealing. How much inginuity is required to design a hard golf course? I've watched that course on TV for several years now and I can honetly say none of the holes stand out in my memory...accept for 18, and not in a good way.

Seeing that they spent millions, and considering TP is a course for the public, first and foremost, you would have hoped they could have created an interesting, fun, thought-provoking, and memorable golf course.

[Lou_Duran]

TMac,

It is really nice to have you back.  Perhaps now you will post in some detail your thoughts on the Nicklaus renovated Scarlet course.  I've asked Bill Steele for an update, but he has not been out there since the work was completed. 

As to TPS, I gather that you have not played it and are opining from viewing it on the flat tube.  I have played it three times, before Rees and after, and I just don't get the negativity.  I am not a big fan of RTJ, so it is not that I am a fan of difficult, penal courses.  In fact, at the expense of commiting GCA heresy and being excommunicated, I think Winged Foot West is the second most overrated course I have ever played (I would also place Firestone South right up there).

I think that TPS will be a good test for the US Open contestants where, according to former USGA president Sandy Tatum, the objective is to identify the best player not to introduce them to the Redan, Biarritz, Short, Alps, etc. (though there might be a quasi-Cape or two on the course).  I also believe that the USGA is right-on in choosing some munis from time to time to conduct its most important tournament.

As to how the public management of the club spent the $3+ million, I could not see it but I am told that not a small part of it went underground for drainage and irrigation.  Unlike Augusta National, they didn't bulldoze the prior back tees, so the course can be played from pretty short to maybe 7200 yards (I understand that the public is seldom allowed to play the new back boxes).

I know that popular acclaim and critical analysis are two different things, but given the high green fee and difficulty in getting tee times, do you think that there might be tens of thousands who believe that TPS is "an interesting, fun, thought-provoking, and memorable golf course"?  I wonder what percentage of golfers would be proud to call TPS home?