[Mike Hendren]

From a recent trip to Philly:

The 5th green at Lehigh - very narrow that almost dictates that the player cut the corner of the dogleg to approach with a short iron

The punchbowl at Lulu
The twin shoulder pads at the front of Lulu's 3rd green and the way they repel off-line approaches
The short 16th at LuLu which requires a dicey pitch over a front bunker from a downhill fairway lie

The 1st green at Lederach - if KBM is channeling TOC greens, he really gets it here
The alternate sunken fairway at Lederach's 3rd - excellent example of modest shaping

The 10th at Glen Mills - massive green with a couple of very small bunkers looked very old school

Props to redanman.

Mike

[JSPayne]

Finally getting to play Monarch Dunes in Nipomo, CA.......had an absolute blast and is definetely in my top 10 of course I've ever played. I could go on and on, but I already have. 

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,35666.msg721580.html#msg721580

[Mike_Cirba]

I'm still hoping to see it, perhaps this coming week, but I've got some really good contenders in the bag already. 

[RJ_Daley]

I've been lucky enough to see a number of the courses and features mentioned.  In Kingsley and BallyNeal's cases, I saw them in the dirt being built.  I guess that shows I have been one of the intrepid GCAers, 'seeking out new courese and new civilizations, to go where no golfer has gone before...'  

But, for 2008, I'd have to say I haven't gone or seen anything cool and new that I haven't seen before.  Given that the interest is still there, but travel is much more difficult from both a hassle point of view including extra charges and rigamorole with golf bags, to the obvious and relavant (at least to me) extra costs of travelling, I ask:  Is this a bellweather sign for the golf industry in terms of the golf market?

[Gary Slatter]

coolest....through the front window of St. Andrews Golf Club,  Robert Trent Jones Jr. walking in a white suit, from the R&A to have lunch with his brother.

[Kalen Braley]

If I had to go with a OT runner up, it would be this....reallly good movie!

[Tom Yost]

Chambers Bay.

Not any one feature or hole in particular, but the whole package was just such a delightfully different experience for me as I play most of my golf in the Arizona desert.

I'm hoping that courses like Chambers represent the beginning of a paradigm shift in American public golf.

[Bill_McBride]

It was the back nine at Pasa. At least it was as we were teeing off on #10. I think it may have actually been "most fun 9" instead of "best 9."

Aha!  Yeah, that's right.  Silly me, forget the obvious answer. 

Curious if people make a distinction between best and most fun... I sure don't... but that's a matter for another thread, for sure.

TH

Tom and Tim, it's both for me.  With TOC a very close second.

[Bill Brightly]

[John Mayhugh]

Sean Arble,
Great pics.  It must be fun seeing such a variety of courses.

For me, the coolest thing was going from this


To this in just a few miles.  I've never seen such a transition of land inland.  Those chop hills are beautiful land for golf. 


Then a few days later and 400 miles away, I got to see this masterpiece.


While these are two very different courses, each shows the possibilities that good land & a bit of genius offers.  If I were going to try to explain my love of GCA to someone,  I couldn't think of a much better way than Ballyneal & Prairie Dunes back to back. 

[Michael Mimran]

Walking from the second hole to the third at Royal Dornoch.  Once I got over that ridge past the 18th tee, it was my defining moment on what was an amazing trip.  Also the 7th and 17th holes at RD.

Dornoch
Machrihanish
Western Gailes
Troon
Prestwick
Turnberry
Old Course
Kingsbarns

[Tim Leahy]

The Grand Canyon.

Oh shoot, missed that "on a golf course, architecturally" part.  Darn it.  I have nothing to offer there.

But on second thought... has anyone here played King City Municipal Golf Course?

It's in the middle of our great state, it's a 2900 yard par 35 9-holer, one can see parts of it from 101 as one slows down through the speed trap that is King City.  There's little reason to stop and play that course.

BUT... the 3rd and 9th holes there are as cool as anything yet mentioned in this thread.  And I do mean anything.

#3 is a 400 yard par 4 that twists between trees and heavy kikuyu rough on the left and a wash/hazard on the right, with a berm crossing 75 yards short of the green at an angle... I swear if you close your eyes to the other holes, it looks like freakin' Prairie Dunes to me.  I do not have a picture but I swear that is what it reminded me of.  At the end is a smallish, beastily-sloped green... I just stood there in awe at this GREAT hole out in the middle of nowhere on this little 9 hole muni.

Then we have #9, 238 dead into the prevaling wind, with 200 yards of carry over a hazard on the right, with a little fairway to the left... what does that description also fit?  Yup, this was King City's version of 16 Cypress.  And in terms of the shot required, it was almost as tough.  Talk about a hard-earned 3... or 4.... just very very cool.

TH

ps - curious - what is McBride's favorite 9?  PG Muni back?

Tom, I have driven past that course about a 100 times and never saw anything that made me want to play it. Now I have a reason. Have you ever played Fore Bay on the way to Monterey from the 5 at Los Banos? Another nine holer that I have driven by and always wondered if it was worth the time to play it.

My choice for coolest thing this summer is the 15th hole at Yoche De He at Cache Creek Casino. Creek right down the middle of the hole forces you to choose a side:

http://www.yocha-de-hegolfclub.com/courses.php?CourseID=553f714f7784dc7e90f6a50e23d14475&HoleNumber=15

[Tom Huckaby]

Tim:

I have indeed played Fore Bay out on I-5.  While I can have fun anywhere, well... let's just say this taxed my statement.  I think the place can best be summed up in the words of a fellow NCGA rater, who when asked for the required positives about the course, said "well, the hamburgers are good."  And they are.   

Heck, it's a little course with very little money devoted to it, so one shouldn't denigrate it.  But let's just say it's not worth seeking out as a destination.

Having now finally played King City, I do believe it is worth a stop.  Oh heck, I won't advise all my friends to drive 100 miles to play it, but if one has the time in that area, I don't think one will be disappointed.

TH

[Brad Tufts]

1.  Saint Mark's square.

2.  Watching the rehearsal of an opera from my dinner table outside my hotel in Split, Croatia....from backstage, and the stage was a circular vestibule building that was originally inside the private chambers of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, built 1700 years ago.  Wow.

3.  The city walls of Kotor, Montenegro.  One side cris-crosses a near-vertical cliff that rises above the town, and you can climb up about 700 feet above the town to get a panoramic view of Kotor Bay (said to look like a fjord).


...a 68 at the end of my card on my home course for the first time. 

[Tom_Doak]

It took me a while to think of any ... my short-term memory is really not what it used to be.  But, on reflection (and a check of my day timer) there have been a few.  The coolest ...

1)  The little suspension bridge they built for me on the 13th hole at Rock Creek, to make the course an easier walk, and

2)  For a whole course, the coolest was the Ohshima Course at Kawana in Japan, which predates Alison's Fuji course by several years.  I don't think it was even 5000 yards long, but it is severely hilly, and there are 4-5 holes which hug the coastline ... the last of which is a short par-3 with a suspension bridge to get you across to the green and back from the next tee. 

[Mike_Cirba]

I'm hoping this gets "topped" still this year, but the thing that stands out most in my mind as cool...

..is the uber volcano green of the par five fourth hole at Berwick Golf Club in Berwick PA, designed by J Franklin Meehan.

It's a par five, where if you kill a drive you get a turbo boost down a hill.   It's reachable on the second shot, but instead of there being water, or wetlands or bunkers or woods...

..instead you have a green...rising up a SKINNY ribbon of fairway above 35 feet about the lowest point.   On the left side the green falls off about 60s feet, and on the right it's about 40 feet.   Behind...a mere 50 feet.

Yes...go for the green in two.

If you miss sideways, or long...you'll find your ball.

Only then you'll have to play it.   Again and again.

This is followed by a drive out of a quarry that is sort of like a mini-18th hole at Merion from the tee, only which rises more abruptly.

I could happily spend a few hours down in that hollow trying all sorts of shorts, and the weird part is, I'm betting that the majority of folks who play those holes for the first time are thinking, "man...someone should blow up these holes!" 

[Joey Smith]

Standing on the Bocce ball lawn (lawn bowling area?) looking over the practice putting green and the unlimited view over the first nine...Thinking to myself - This is going to be incredible...and it was!!!

Where was I???

Anyone? 

[Mark Bourgeois]

1. the combination of "linear" and "axial" offsets of the entire green complex of Cruden Bay 6th. Its so extreme you think you're playing to the wrong hole.

Factor in the burn and steep shaved bank and this becomes such a fantastic example of how to reward a proper angle, even on a short shot, while presenting a great challenge for someone who's going for it.  Makes one wonder if the "failure" of angles really comes down to the designer's desire for some type of symmetry or fairness.

2. The use of topographical distance regulators such as the half pipe at 7 Mimosa Hills. "regulator:" shortens long drives and lengthens short drives, both to preserve and protect the following shot.

3. The combination of wide playing corridors with angles off the tee at Quail Hollow. Lots of fun and doable or at least tryable for the rank amateur while presenting genuine shotmaking challenges for the world's best. Saw this at Sage Valley, too!

4. The massive landforms created short of greens at Chambers Bay, which given the choice of fescue (G-d I hope they have the courage to stick with it!) makes for wild runup shots and / or fun little up and overs. Also out there the use of green size on the short par 4 12th as a defense against par. I know this because I chopped my way to a par while my playing partner, a D 1-A golfer, 3 putted his way to a par. Funny one of us could walk off happy, the other extremely disappointed, with the same score!

5. The humps and hollows in the "cut" sides of the cut and fill green complexes at Palmetto, as well as the assymetrical bunkering, with the sole bunker appearing on the fill side. Works of art, those restored greens are.

6. The use of OB on 16 TOC. A shame the OB on modern courses is used almost solely as a penalty for really bad shots, instead of being embraced - ie  physically proximate to the ideal line of play - as a way to provide a thrill. Would have credited this to Hoylake but didn't play there this summer!

7. The way the top line of the bunker front of the 5th at Mount Mitchell mimics the mountain ridgeline off in the distance.

8. The ingenious use of slope and mounding on the 8th at Golf Club de Belgique. This par 4 turns sharply left around 210 yards. A shelf roughly 15 yards wide on the left falls off a good 10 yards to the outside of the dogleg.

The mounding provides the brilliance: a golfer who lands on the shelf has a clear view to the green, but the one who misses the shelf will face a second shot made blind by the mounds, which are only a few feet high but effective due to fall off off the fairway.

So the genius is not the generic use of mounds but the designer's conception of them as a solution to the problem of using this wonderful topography (which of course is the sign of someone who knew how to route a course) like a "POV hazard."

Ravenstein is a true hidden gem that you should try to see!

Mark

[Joe Hancock]

Mark,

Fun and thorough reply...Thanks!

Joe

[Pete Stankevich]

Without a doubt, Bayonne Golf Club. (Thank you Eric Bergstol for the invite).
Got to play there Sunday August 10th in an off and on rain, a twosome with a caddy.  After a lightning delay, from the 8th hole on, we were the only group on the course.
That place is all it's cracked up to be and more.
And the contrast to the surrounding areas just adds to the experience.
I'll have to start a link with some great pictures of the course, clubhouse, etc.

[Ryan Farrow]

Mike Stranz golf courses. Which includes, the entrance to Caledonia, those putting greens and some pretty creative bunkering.  Just the pure charm of Caledonia in general was probably one of the coolest golf experiences I have ever had.

[RJ_Daley]

Joey Smith, you were about 11.5 miles south of Holyoke CO.

[Craig Sweet]

The coolest?  #4...#7...#14....at Rock Creek...and the fully stocked refridgerator between #8 and #9 at RCCC

[Adam Clayman]

The seventh green at The Downs. This Boomerang is the mother of all boomers. Half of it is visible from the sixth tee and reminded me of the ninth green at CPC. It's sliver-like downhill aspect from a far was unmistakable. However, when one sees the other half of the green, it's nothing like the green at Cypress.

[Joey Smith]

Joey Smith, you were about 11.5 miles south of Holyoke CO.

You are correct RJ!!!

What a great view!!!

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