[Pete_Pittock]

Its hard to believe this list has been out for three days without comment.
modify -(mea culpa to Jeff Doerr)
http://www.golfweeksbest.com/GolfweeksBest/article.asp?ID=1072

1.  Mountaintop                  Cashiers, NC     Fazio
2.  Cornertone                    Montrose,  CO   Norman
3.  Chambers Bay               Tacoma, WA      RT Jones Jr
4.  Golf Club of Cape Cod   Cape Cod, MA   Rees Jones
5.  Cougar Canyon Links    Trinidad CO       Nicklaus
6.  The Preserve                 Vancleave MS    Pate
7.  Tetherow                       Bend, OR          Kidd
8.  Colorado GC                  Parker, CO        Coore/Crenshaw
9.  Irish Creek                     Kannapolis NC  Love
10. Sugarloaf Mountain       Minneola FL      Coore/Crenshaw

[Rob Rigg]

There has been some great discussion about Chambers and Tetherow on the site.

Has anyone played any of the others (maybe I just missed the threads)

Based on the very positive reviews of Chambers it is interesting that the pundits put it third behind Mountaintop and Cornerstone.

Is that justified in the treehouse's opinion?

[Matt MacIver]

Irish Creek is plain awesome - undulating greens, lots of fairway slope, they opened up the river so more holes are exposed to the breeze.   Very fun place.  Some won't like finishing with a 200 yard par 3 though. 

[Sean Leary]

Irish Creek sounds like my kinda place.

[Andy Troeger]

Cougar Canyon in Trinidad is very nice, comparable to Colorado GC in quality I think. I think I have Colorado GC a little bit ahead, but not by that much.

[Ed Oden]

I concur on Irish Creek.  Here is a prior thread discussing the work there:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,32910.0.html

Its well worth a visit if you are coming to NC.

Ed

[Pete_Pittock]

Apologies to Jeff Doerr who already had started a thread. I searched "Golfweek" and came up with nothing.

[PThomas]

boy, if all those courses are better than Sugarloaf Mtn, they must be pretty damn good, cause SM sure is

[John Mayhugh]

I concur on Irish Creek.  Here is a prior thread discussing the work there:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,32910.0.html

Its well worth a visit if you are coming to NC.

Ed

I've only played one Davis Love course (Barefoot), but he shows a lot of promise.  Gotta love a PGA tour player who appreciates some subtlety.

[W.H. Cosgrove]

John Harbottle was at my home course today doing some minor consulting, which we appreciate.  He must be very pleased with Palouse Ridge and Timilick Tahoe so high on the list. 

It will be very interesting to see how they and others fair as they transit the honeymoon period and then settle into thheir longer term spots.

What courses do others think are over/under rated?

[Andy Troeger]

From seeing the rest of the list on the other thread, I liked Adam's Mountain better than the average. I thought it was as good as Colorado GC and Cougar Canyon which both made the top ten. I definitely liked it better than Promontory's Nicklaus Course, which was too dang hard for my liking. At 8,100 yards its was missing a few sporty challenges that didn't require brute length (even at elevation)--and I didn't even play those tees.

[Wayne Freeman]

I've played 3 on the list.  Chambers is off the charts and when it matures a little should be a solid mainstay top 100 on anyone's list. Wonderful routing,  heroic par 4's, and incredible views.  Colorado Golf Club is very solid and has a lot of terrific holes.  I thought Sugarloaf Mountain was just ok,  certainly one of C and C's poorer efforts.  A bunch of long and somewhat boring holes in a rather untidy setting.

[David_Madison]

I've played Mountaintop, Colorado GC, and Irish Creek. The comments here about Colorado GC and Irish Creek are dead on. Irish Creek was I believe a renovation of some holes, mostly the front nine, and then mostly new holes on the back. The final six on the back are very good, and the earlier holes along the river are fine as well.

Colorado CC had a number of excellent holes as well and overall I thought the course deserving of mention as a top new course. At the same time, I had the perception that there was a bit more earth moved to build this course than other C&C courses I've played (Cuscowilla and Chechessee), that the course was more built than found.

Mountaintop was definitely my favorite new course this year, and earlier I've posted very complimentary comments on this site about the course. We played Mountaintop and Wade Hampton on the same day, and I thought Mountaintop the stronger, more difficult golf course tee to green, although I thought WH's greens could be more dangerous. MT's mountain views were spectacular as well, especially from some of the holes on the back nine. WH is wonderful, and I believe deserving of its high standing, but I think that if both courses opened on the same day and neither had any history, MT could very well be the course that got most of the buzz.

[Yannick Pilon]

Is it just me, or it seems absolutely ridiculous to list the top 50 new courses?

Do we really need to know which course is ranked 45th best new course in the US?  How about a Top 5, or 10 if we want to push it?

Even if I design courses for a living, I think I would prefer to believe that a course I worked on might have been in the top ten but never know for sure rather than know that it actually finished 40th best new, or possibly worse!!   

And what about the owners and developpers?  Isn't this a marketing nightmare?  "Hey we aimed at creating one of the best courses in the country to justify our crazy green fees, but we only ended up being ranked 40th best new course in the States for this year!!!"  Wow....

If we follow the same logic, why not publish the full ranking so that we can figure which course can be name "Worst New Course"??  Pretty soon, anyway, there might not even 50 new courses to list every year.....

YP

[Billsteele]

Yannick-Never underestimate the pull of shameless marketing. Undoubtedly, one (if not more) of the courses at the bottom end of the list will tout itself as " selected one of Golfweek's Best New Courses for 2008." By the way, since Golfweek does not distinguish based on private v. public or on the amount of the greens fee, it is a pretty diverse list and includes a broad spectrum of courses. When you realize that Golf Digest lists 30 courses in its "Best New" lists, there is inevitably some chaff mixed in with the wheat at the lower end of these lists.

[Matt_Ward]

Where is Rock Creek ?

Where is Four Mile Ranch ?

I enjoyed Cougar Canyon but it's not close to the consistency of the two above.

W.H. Cosgrove:

Agree w you on John Harbottle. A good year indeed.

[Andy Troeger]

Matt,
Good to see that I'm not the only nut who thinks Cougar Canyon has some merit. Perhaps you need to re-visit it on your next trip 

Four Mile Ranch does belong on the list, but I would guess its too new. I would also guess some panelists won't like all the blind shots, so it will be interesting to see where it falls.

[Mike_Cirba]

I've played 3 on the list.  Chambers is off the charts and when it matures a little should be a solid mainstay top 100 on anyone's list. Wonderful routing,  heroic par 4's, and incredible views.  Colorado Golf Club is very solid and has a lot of terrific holes.  I thought Sugarloaf Mountain was just ok,  certainly one of C and C's poorer efforts.  A bunch of long and somewhat boring holes in a rather untidy setting.

Wayne,

You are hereby cast into the hell-fires of blasphemous damnation.

Didn't you get the memo?? 

Coore and Crenshaw have never built a "poor" hole, much less a poor course.

Please go back to re-education camp. 

[Matt_Ward]

Andy:

I don't need to "revisit" -- I was just there a few weeks back. The issue for me on Cougar Canyon has been stated several times. The course is brawny but it lack any real unique aspect on the design front. In fact, some of the holes -- notably the too narrow dog-leg right 7th needs a good bit of widening to be playable. The par-3 holes are also quite similar -- save for the 16th which I see as one of the best new holes I played in '08.

Four Mile Ranch is one of Engh's best layouts -- the blind shots are totally fair game and should anyone criticize them then they should apply such criticism to an equal situation with courses across the pond.

Four Mile Ranch is mucho fun for those who can really appreciate unique greens and holes that mandate a combo of sufficient power with proper control.

[Wayne Freeman]

Mike-   enlighten me.  Have you played Sugarloaf? 

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike-   enlighten me.  Have you played Sugarloaf? 

Hi Wayne,

My comment was completely tongue-in-cheek.

This is just a website that in the past has not been very accepting in the past of any realistic or critical commentary on courses designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and I haven't seen anything yet to change that belief.

[Andy Troeger]

Matt,
How are the par threes similar? The 2nd plays downhill with a short iron, the 9th and 11th are longer and play in opposite directions with totally different features. I like the 11th with the kick zone out right that can be used if one wants to flirt with the DEEP bunker. That hole is much more receptive than the 9th and its narrow opening in the front.

I do agree about the 7th, but they were in the process of widening the landing area when I was there, which was prior to your visit (hence the entire right side being cleared out). It certainly needed more work at the time, but it would appeared that issue would be corrected.

The more you write about the course the more I think you DO need a re-visit. You seem to have missed the subtleties of the place. The features at Four Mile certainly are on a grander scale, but I don't think that makes it a better course.

[Wayne Freeman]

Mike-  thanks,  good to hear from you.  I am a big fan of C and C and love what they have done ...... after I played Friar's Head the first time,  every hole was etched into my memory banks and there to stay.  That doesn't happen all that often with me.  Much the same for a bunch of their other courses.  Fortunately,  they get to pick fabulous properties and don't have to move much earth around.  I guess you just expect to get knocked out whenever you get to one of their courses,  and Sugarloaf was a bit of a let down.  Still worth playing with some very solid holes.

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike-  thanks,  good to hear from you.  I am a big fan of C and C and love what they have done ...... after I played Friar's Head the first time,  every hole was etched into my memory banks and there to stay.  That doesn't happen all that often with me.  Much the same for a bunch of their other courses.  Fortunately,  they get to pick fabulous properties and don't have to move much earth around.  I guess you just expect to get knocked out whenever you get to one of their courses,  and Sugarloaf was a bit of a let down.  Still worth playing with some very solid holes.

Wayne,

I agree...I love most of their courses I've played, but just have a bit of an issue with the fact that it's difficult to engage in critical discussion on their work generally.

The fact that they are such wonderful architects makes it even more important that we try to really understand what works so well...and what doesn't.

Best Regards,
Mike

[Matt_Ward]

Mike C:

Amen.


Andy:

The formula at Cougar Canyon par-3 holes (save for the 16th) is a fairly basic one -- huge green with pedestrian bunkers providing scant coverage worth noting.

The two long par-3 holes are almost carbon copies of each other.

Andy, I see very well and Cougar Canyon is simply a big muscle layout with plenty of width but little in terms of memorability. The actual land has little movement and as I said before save for a few holes of note the totality of what is there doesn't make me think I need to revisit.

I'm glad to hear about the 7th hole because the possibilities in that hole being much better can be accomplished with the widening that's in the works.

It's also more than just the features at Four Mile Canyon -- to borrow you advice to me -- I think it's YOU who need to "revisit" them -- especially Four Mile Ranch.

Engh has provided a wider range of shot selections than you find at Cougar Canyon. The width at Cougar Canyon is nice but irrelevant from the standpoint of which side is preferable. At FMR being on the correct side does set up the appropriate approach angle. Compare any of the grouping of holes by their par designation and how they fall on the card -- FMR is the better choices and frankly it's not really close in my mind. We agree to disagree.

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