Best, Most Fun, and Favorite Courses

[Tim Bert]

Is the most fun course you've ever played also your favorite?  Is your most fun course or your favorite course (if they are two different things) also the best course you've played?

Are these three designations synonymous in your opinion?  Discuss with examples please.

[Tim Bert]

Don't feel obliged to speak in superlatives here.

The same questions apply for courses in the middle. Does more fun course equal better course  equal more favored course?

[Tom Huckaby]

Best/most fun are synonymous in my mind.  I can't see how they can be anything but for anyone whose aim in playing this game at all is to have fun.   The best course will always be the one on which one can have the most fun.  And that is Sand Hills as I see things.

Favorite to me has a different meaning - that connotes sentimentality.  And although Sand Hills - and several others - score well there also, none will ever match Studio City Golf and Tennis, a 9 hole par 3 where I grew up playing the game.

I'd say it works the same in the middle, also.  More fun = better.  Favorite remains different.

TH

[Tom_Doak]

Tim:

When I am asked to pick my favorite courses (like my list for the Gourmet's Choice), they tend to be the courses and places where I've had the most fun.

However, when I am asked to nominate what I think are the best courses (for some ranking or interview), I feel compelled to consider how I think OTHER people might enjoy them -- everyone from Tiger Woods to long hitters to seniors to ladies.  And that is usually a somewhat different list than my own list of favorites.  There are some courses which overlap both lists, however.

[Tim Bert]

My initial thoughts are the same as Tom D. Most fun more likely equals favorite than best though I think Huck presents an interesting and different take on the matter.

It is certainly possible for all three to be the same for some people.

I could see how some of the very best in the world could accomplish this task.

That's why I backed off the superlative approach. In the middle there are many instances where something if more fun to me and I prefer it more though I'm not convinced it is "better."

[Mike Hendren]

Best:  Shinnecock
Favorite:  The Old Course
Fun:  North Berwick / LuLu (I'm in love!)

BTW Tim, let me know if you have an opening in your group this weekend or if you otherwise want to tee it up.

Mike

[Tim Bert]

Mike thanks for asking about this weekend. Actually I am the opening in my group this week. My wife and oldest are gone for a few days so I am spending an extended weekend of 1-1 QT with the youngest.

[Tom Huckaby]

Well, for me it's just logic.  The aim of the game is to have fun.  So how can the most fun course NOT also be the best?

Fun can be obtained in many ways, also.  Shinnecock is a painful golf course in terms of trying to achieve success, but good lord is the attempt fun as all hell.  So it ought to score very high no matter how one defines one's own personal fun.

In the end, I guess I am just parsing words.  I can't get past the logic to make a distinction between best and most fun.  But I get that others will, as they see fun differently, or define "best" in a design way or something.

Favorite I will always see differently, as it is necessarily personal.  The others don't have to be, and in fact shouldn't be (as Doak clarifies).

TH

[Richard Hetzel]

Most Fun would be Arcadia Bluffs or Tobacco Road GC.

The best (I cannot select a best I have yet to play) is close, but (And I am sure I'll get lfamed) Hyde Park CC followed closely by The Camargo Club.

My favorite, Fort Jackson GC where I first picked up the game seriously.

[Lester George]

Cavalier is an awful lot of fun.  6200 yards Banks design with great holes.

Lester

[Matt OBrien]

Best: Pine Valley
Favorite: Merion or Pacific Dunes
Most fun: Huntingdon Valley (when its F&F) and LuLu

[Ronald Montesano]

Wait, golf is fun?  Who says?

Best Course:  In terms of balance, of the one's that I have played, I am going to go with Kebo Valley.  It is the best for all players and would be closely followed by Taconic.  Kebo has a more exciting landscape, which slides it ahead of Taconic in my book.  If my New England bias is showing, so be it.  It's not so much a bias as it is a dearth of courses played in the southwest, northwest, north-central, plains states, and Ozarks.

Favorite Course:  Right now, it's True Blue.  However, since I'm always up for a Mike Strantz, it could be any Strantz course.  I'm on a mission to play as many as possible (Tobacco and Tot Hill on the list for 2009) of his designs.

Fun Course:  Any links or links-style, and any course where I'm not missing four-footers for par and three-putting from twelve feet.  I'd put the three Bandon Dunes courses, the two Straits courses, Arcadia Bluffs, St. Andrews Old and New, and True Blue (a stretch) in the links/links-style category.  I'd also put a good par-three course (Threetops and the par three at Turning Stone) in there for fun golf.

[Jon Heise]

Best:  Likely Pinehurst No. 2, maybe even Tanglewood Park or Forest Dunes.  Great strategic designs.  I think there has to be some history or significance for me to consider it a best course.

Most Fun:  Greywalls, any of the 3 Strantz courses I've played.  Obvious reasons there...

Favorites:  Greywalls, Tobacco, Caledonia.  Anything with variation and charm in every direction you look.  Id say Faves and Fun align pretty closely. 

[BVince]

Best: CPC, Winged Foot West
Favorite: Kinloch, Bethpage Black
Most Fun: SFGC, River Oaks
Most Fun (that will make people on this site cringe): Tour 18

[Chip Gaskins]

Most Fun: St. Andrews (or Tobacco Road)
Best: Pine Valley
Favorite: Royal County Down

[Tom Huckaby]

I am curious... for all of you who give different answers for most fun and best, how do you separate the two?

I'll pick on Chip (and I mean this in good fun):  why is St. Andrews the most fun but not the best?  Why is Pine Valley the best but not the most fun?

I think I know the answer, but I want to make sure.

TH

[BVince]

Tom,

Its kind of like Chambers Bay, its a cool course but not as much fun to watch the score sky rocket due to its difficulty.

[Pete_Pittock]

Fun: Pacific Dunes
Best: Cypress Point
Favorite: Prestwick

[Kirk Gill]

There's a clear demarcation between how fun a course is to play and whether or not I consider it one of the best I've played. Examples - I love a little Denver muni up in Evergreen, Colorado. It's short, with tiny greens that don't have a lot of slope, and I love playing it. There's a lot of quirky shots, a lot of short, funky holes, and I also have a personal history with it having played it for years.It's non-stop fun, as far as I'm concerned, but I understand that most would find it to be too short, not enough bunkers, not visually arresting, etc......

What's great, though, is when a course manages to be both a lot of fun AND good enough to brag about as one of the best.

I'd put two local courses in that last category, and they're very different courses. Pradera down in Parker, and the Denver Country Club. Both fun, both personal favorites, and both among the best courses I've played.

[Chip Gaskins]

I am curious... for all of you who give different answers for most fun and best, how do you separate the two?

I'll pick on Chip (and I mean this in good fun):  why is St. Andrews the most fun but not the best?  Why is Pine Valley the best but not the most fun?

I think I know the answer, but I want to make sure.

TH

I knew this question was coming to one of us

I have had the browser open and typed three different responses and deleted all of them because their logic fell apart or worse, blended together.  Long story short it is subjective and hard to empirically support.  I would say FUN courses have a lot of risk reward scenarios.  I would say the BEST courses have to the attributes to challenge the best players in the game without being setup tricky.  The BEST courses don't have to be hard, but they usually are.  Fun courses are rarely hard.

[Tom Huckaby]

Good stuff guys.  This is how I thought it would come out, and you all make a lot of sense.

In fact the more I think about it, the more my parsing of words is pretty stupid.

I like the way Chip defined it particularly.  That works very well.

And in this context, boy the ones that manage to be fun and fight for the best have to really be the best of all.

Sand Hills works in this.  It can be fun in terms of risk reward and just plain offering fun shots; it can also challenge the big boys from the tippy-tips for sure given any wind.  THus my king remains king.

TH

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

I'll take a stab at this......

First and foremost, when I think of fun on the course, I think almost entirely of shot values.  What shots can I play, risk/reward, heroic carries, variety, etc, etc.  If a course is located on a flat barren wasteland, but designed in such a way to bring these things out, then I'll pick this as the "funnest" course for me to play.

When I think of "best", that to me is all inclusive.  The location, the playability for everyone, (not just me), the eye candy, the views, as well as the above mentioned values of the course.  So its possible there could be a best course that sums up everything that course has to offer.  And this could be different from the funnest course, which is more on a personal level an in line with specific things that I like.

Others may get more enjoyment out of a difficult, long, penal course.  And in thier heart of hearts the challenge in scoring on that kind of course may be what turns thier crank. Which is perfectly fine by me.  But once again, I don't know if that is the "best" course.

In conclusion, fun is really just one of all the various criteria that go into deciding the best.

Ok fire away, but be gentle!!   

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom,

I'll take a stab at this......

First and foremost, when I think of fun on the course, I think almost entirely of shot values.  What shots can I play, risk/reward, heroic carries, variety, etc, etc.  If a course is located on a flat barren wasteland, but designed in such a way to bring these things out, then I'll pick this as the "funnest" course for me to play.

When I think of "best", that to me is all inclusive.  The location, the playability for everyone, (not just me), the eye candy, the views, as well as the above mentioned values of the course.  So its possible there could be a best course that sums up everything that course has to offer.  And this could be different from the funnest course, which is more on a personal level an in line with specific things that I like.

Others may get more enjoyment out of a difficult, long, penal course.  And in thier heart of hearts the challenge in scoring on that kind of course may be what turns thier crank. Which is perfectly fine by me.  But once again, I don't know if that is the "best" course.

In conclusion, fun is really just one of all the various criteria that go into deciding the best.

Ok fire away, but be gentle!!   

Nah Kalen, as you can see above, it was just me parsing words stating fun = best.  And the logic there does remain sound.  It's just stupid to be so narrow in one's definitions, so your description works great for me also.

TH

[wsmorrison]

Best:  Shinnecock Hills, closely followed by Merion and Pine Valley
Most Fun:  Pocantico Hills
Favorite:  Shinnecock Hills, closely followed by Merion and Pine Valley

[Tom Huckaby]

Wayne:

You new you wouldn't get away with that so easily. 
So why is Shinnecock not in your most fun list?

TH