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Ran Morrissett

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May River Golf Club is posted...
« on: July 10, 2007, 09:27:07 AM »
…under Architecture Timeline and Courses by Country.

Because of this web site’s crummy  ::) search engine , I can’t find past discussion threads on this Nicklaus design. Some of you have played it - Michael Whitaker’s SC state raters group was there as well as a group of folks from Golf Week a few years ago – and I would very much like to hear people’s thoughts on this design.

Personally, I put forward May River as my favorite Nicklaus design in the U.S., mostly because it is the type design that I would like to play it all the time as it strikes the ideal balance between challenge and fun (though I haven’t seen it, I understand the same might apply to Mayacama Golf Club in Napa where Nicklaus, Lipe and Bowman again teamed up).

The lasting attribute at May River is that the golfer can always get his club on the ball  – short grass abounds and Green Keeper Chris Johnson  presents the course in a manner consistent with its (beautifully) rustic Lowcountry environs. Whether the golfer has the skill to play all the interesting shots around the green is another matter but the good news for its members is that they will never tire of learning the very shots required.

Golf Week doesn’t have May River in its modern top 100, which is a complete mystery. Of course, the same rating has the world class Ballyneal as #43  >:( so who knows what they are looking for ??? Like with most courses, what might raters miss who only run around a course once or twice? This could be especially true for courses in the Lowcountry where features that shriek for attention would be woefully out of place. For instance, only in talking with Jim Lipe did it become evident the thought and attention to detail that went into the fairway area around the central bunker on the 10th hole. Tee balls that just sneak past it on the right get an extra boost and push to the right, setting up the perfect angle into this par five green in two. Does one really pick up on the subtle several foot change in elevation within the fairway after just a round or two? I sure didn’t, especially as I headed left every time. Hopefully, our upcoming Feature Interview with Jim Lipe will shed further light on the subtleties of this design.

The May River Golf Club is a private club found within the 20,000 acres of the Palmetto Bluff. The good news is that guests of the luxe Inn at Palmetto Bluff can arrange to play a game at May River. Once again, we see that the golf riches in the Lowcountry (Ocean Course, Yeamans, Charleston CC, Harbour Town, Long Cove, Chechessee Creek) far and away exceed the coast here in the Tar Heel state where we have nothing remotely close in quality. The prospect of a Coore & Crenshaw course joining the Nicklaus course at May River in a few years makes me gnash my teeth all the more.

Cheers,

Doug Spets

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Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #1 on: July 10, 2007, 10:02:09 AM »
I agree with you, Ran.  May River is a wonderful golf course.  As un-Nicklaus as any Nicklaus course I've played.  I'm told there are plans for a total of 3 courses in May River...if they hold to this standard, they'll be doing well.

Mike Sweeney


Jerry Kluger

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Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #3 on: July 10, 2007, 10:08:51 AM »
May River looks like a whole lot of fun - JN is really doing some quality work and has become a master of his trade.

Mark Bourgeois

Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #4 on: July 10, 2007, 10:25:08 AM »
Old May River thread from Mark Brown:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=16067;start=0

How the hell did you find this, Mike! I used the site search function, Google, A9, Yahoo and Dogpile.  Search terms:
+site:golfclubatlas.com +"may river"

Your thread never came up.

Mark

EDIT: After reading that thread, perhaps the problem is that I had "moderately safe search" on.  Does that screen loathing?
« Last Edit: July 10, 2007, 10:43:48 AM by Mark Bourgeois »

Lynn_Shackelford

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Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2007, 11:06:35 AM »
Ran reviews a Nicklaus design.

Next up, Ran touts the best new balls for distance and spin.
Then Ran argues for 10' wide cart paths over 8'.
After that, Ran touts the best golf video games.
And finally on Golf Club Atlas, Ran rates best cart beverage girls and debates whether they perform better in gas or electric carts.
It must be kept in mind that the elusive charm of the game suffers as soon as any successful method of standardization is allowed to creep in.  A golf course should never pretend to be, nor is intended to be, an infallible tribunal.
               Tom Simpson

Scott_Burroughs

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Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2007, 11:28:24 AM »
Mark,

If you remember a thread or post started by someone, the search engine works far better when you 'search for posts started by' someone under the advanced search on GCA.  Althought Mark Brown passed away early last year, he still is a GCA member.


Oh, and Nicklaus' Pronghorn course (opened the same year as May River, 2004) also has a half-Punchbowl green (hole #6) like the one profiled for May River.  Land the approach short and it bounds onto the fallaway green.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2007, 11:31:06 AM by Scott_Burroughs »

Mark Bourgeois

Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2007, 11:35:46 AM »
Mark,

If you remember a thread or post started by someone, the search engine works far better when you 'search for posts started by' someone under the advanced search on GCA.  Althought Mark Brown passed away early last year, he still is a GCA member.


Oh my gosh, this is another "Plato's Cave" moment. May he live forever in this other world.

David Stamm

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2007, 12:43:11 PM »
This certainly looks more appealing than the typical Nicklaus courses that have tended to stick out in my mind for all the wrong reasons. I applaud the evolution of his design style.
"The object of golf architecture is to give an intelligent purpose to the striking of a golf ball."- Max Behr

Nick Church

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Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2007, 01:19:42 PM »
Thanks for the review of May River.

I really enjoyed learning the design strategy involved.  Well illustrated examples of how angles & risk-reward features were incorporated into individual holes.

I've played a few Nicklaus course, including Keene's Point & The Sagamore Club, but none of his "celebrated" designs.  May River appears to be a much better representation of Nicklaus' potential for thoughtful design.  (I'm guessing Sebonack, Dismal River, et al fall into that category as well).


cary lichtenstein

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Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #10 on: July 10, 2007, 03:33:45 PM »
My wife and I played May River a couple of years ago just after it opened. We thought it was an excellent piece of work by Jim Lipe along with his work at Mayacama.

Certainly should be in Golfweek's top 100.

We seriously considered buying a piece of property there as we heard there would be 4 courses there, Doak, Coore and Crenshaw + 1 other.

I haven't kept up to date so I don't know what future plans are now with the nationwide housing downturn.
Live Jupiter, Fl, was  4 handicap, played top 100 US, top 75 World. Great memories, no longer play, 4 back surgeries. I don't miss a lot of things about golf, life is simpler with out it. I miss my 60 degree wedge shots, don't miss nasty weather, icing, back spasms. Last course I played was Augusta

Greg Tallman

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Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #11 on: July 10, 2007, 04:17:34 PM »
Geez, this Lipe/Bowman lovefest is too much! ;)

I had the good fortune to play May River a few months ago and was duly impressed.

The green complexes seemed a departure form the Nicklaus norm and are something Jim and Kurt are quite fond of. While you would have to stop short of labeling the surfaces Rossesque, it is apparent they sought to incorporate something similar on most greens.

Favorite holes were the par 3 sixth(thought it far more thought provoking and pcturesque than the "signature" 14th); par 5 tenth and par 4 twelfth.

Felt the par 3 11th(water fronting green) and par 5 18th(lake left from tee & right on approach) were representative of previous Nicklaus work and somewhat out of character with the rest of the course though with the back right pin at 11 strategy was required given the sharp run off into a chipping area some 15-18 feet left of the flag.

Look forward to the Feature Interview with Jim Lipe... just be sure to ask him about his unofficial title as one of the "Greatest Offensive Minds In The World"



« Last Edit: July 10, 2007, 05:53:42 PM by Greg Tallman »

Joe Perches

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Re:May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #12 on: July 10, 2007, 05:06:41 PM »
used the site search function, Google, A9, Yahoo and Dogpile.  Search terms:
+site:golfclubatlas.com +"may river"

Good try Mark.  Full points for effort.

Jester Thomas of Huckaby will probably be delighted to know that Yahoo and Google are now just as good in search performance for GCA!
Unfortunately, both are equally bad.

I use a shortcut to search the GCA site itself using the advanced function.
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?action=search;advanced=1

Advanced GCA searches probably shouldn't be used very often as they seem to use quite a lot of the performance capability of GCA website host.

The default "Match all words" option definitely doesn't work well.  I suggest using the "Match as phrase" option.  Useful options are to set the "Max age since last post" to a high number like 9999 and the "Display how many results?" to something like 500.

Mozilla Firefox and other browsers can make this advanced searching easier.  I have a "GCA" shortcut saved for the options I generally use.

GCA Quicksearch

In the browser address bar I just type: GCA something with no quotes.

If you are using Firefox, the steps to save and use this advanced search are unfortunately a bit complicated.  Right click the "GCA Quicksearch" link above, select "Bookmark This Link...", select "Create in": "Quick Searches", then select Add.  From the Firefox menus, select "Bookmarks" and "Organize Bookmarks...".  In the QuickSearches group, find the GCA Quicksearch, right click it and choose "Properties", enter the keyword "GCA" and select OK.  Then close the Bookmarks Manager and try it out.  Using Patrick Mucci as the search phrase shows you are a glutton.

Bill Gayne

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Re: May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #13 on: December 29, 2008, 08:01:06 PM »
I played this course yesterday for the first time and it's really good. So if you have the opportunity make a point to stop and play. I like the five par three and five par five routing.  Favorite holes would be the eighth, tenth, and fifteen (all par fives). The punch bowl green at 15 is really cool.

The pictures in Ran's write-up were summer time and shows a very lush course. The course yesterday was somewhat dormant and had different hues of brown.


Carl Nichols

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Re: May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #14 on: December 29, 2008, 08:12:44 PM »
What if anything has happened with the other possible courses (C&C, Doak) mentioned in this thread in 2007? 

Chuck Brown

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Re: May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #15 on: December 29, 2008, 08:22:08 PM »
I've played it and enjoyed it very much.  The setting is as nice as there is in the low country.  Palmetto Bluff is out-of-this-world nice.  I will definitely, absolutely go back there again.  It has to be one of the nicest places to stay in the entire Savannah-Hilton Head area.

I won't second guess any part of this review, but before I pronounce May River as the nicest Nicklaus Design Co. design I've seen, I still want to see the Colleton River course, which as far as I can tell was built on a superior bit of land for a course.

One of the (many) nice things about Palmetto Bluff and the May River Club is that they are blessed with such a grand expanse of real estate.  Still, it all feels very much 'inland.'

Bill Gayne

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Re: May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #16 on: December 29, 2008, 08:23:36 PM »
Carl.

I don't think much of anything has been done in planning a course. I asked the caddie and bartender and neither of them gave me any indication of adding a second course. Although caddies and bartenders generally are not included in planning sessions. They will do about 9,000 rounds this year (golf rounds not rounds served by the bartender).

Joel Zuckerman

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Re: May River Golf Club is posted...
« Reply #17 on: December 29, 2008, 10:20:07 PM »
I've had the good fortune of playing and writing about all the fine courses in greater HH over the last decade-plus, and I rank May River neck-and-neck with the Nicklaus Course at Colleton River, which scores major points with it's slam-bang waterside finish.  But IMO they are the chart-toppers in this region---a step above the other well-known venues, be they big-time resort (Harbour Town as bellwether) or private (Haig Point, Long Cove, Belfair....take your pick of the top dozen)