Shinnecock (pictures)

[Philip Gawith]

What a memorable place!

The scale of the course is very arresting - the wide fairways with their wonderful rolling contours have a real power and majesty. I am not sure I have encountered their equal. I suppose the next strongest impression concerns the greens. Getting there is not TOO much bother, but getting the ball in the hole is a serious challenge such is the contour and speed!

 We were playing in a very strong wind so chose to play the course at 6,300 rather than the 6,800 yards, but this was still plenty challenge enough even for a group of quite low handicap players. The 7th is justly famous, and the 10th sticks equally in the mind (almost impossible with a 30+mph wind behind us), as well as the closing stretch from 14. I don't think 15 is that much discussed, but it is a fabulously visual hole. The short holes also stick much in the mind, not just 7.

The look of the course is hugely distinctive and attractive - the rolling fairways allied to the beatiful native grasses - watched over by the famous clubhouse.





The opening tee shot




Approach to number one, a relatively gentle start.



The respite is short lived! The 200 yarde + second hole, heavily blunkered and semi-blind.



The third



 A look from behind the green at the fourth....



And from behind the 5th - this shot captures a bit of the scary run-offs which many of the greens have.



The approach to the pond hole - a very meaty two-shotter, the stroke 1 hole



A side view of the green on the Pond hole



The real deal! Hole 7 - Redan - say no more! I love the clubhouse in the background. The observant among you may have noticed the flag standing to attention!



 A slightly closer up view -



This view from behind,  near the 8th tee.

The pictures do a reasonable job of capturing the dramatic slope on the green - certainly a lot a more dramatic than the original at North Berwick and neighbouring NGLA. I hit a great tee shot to be about 15 feet straight behind the flag (not above the hole) and two putts was a relief!



I like the scenery!



This is out of place - a side view of the 2nd from near the 8th green



A view from behind 8 - a short two shotter, but a perilous green with huge slope.



Homeward bound...and the first inkling of how elevated the green is



Here you can just see the flag on the right edge of the bunker. A hint of what the next hole holds in store!



 A fabulous backward look over the sweep of the course -from the 9th green, but that is the18th fairway mostly in view


second nine to follow....

[Philip Gawith]

second nine...



The blind drive on 10 - a tough start to a really memorable hole.



The view from the brow - you can see why playing your second from up here may be preferred to the chilly-dipping territory down below.


 
This shot, from c 100 yards, gives some sense of the elevation change - and the approach that confronts you.



The short 11th - formidable with the wind howling from the left.



Tee shot on 12



Green on 12



View from the 13th tee giving you a feel for the space of the course.



The drive on 14



14th green



Approach to 15 - the hole has dropped sharply to this point.



Looking back up the hill at 15



The swerving uphill 16th - a view from the right elbow. The bunkering complexes on the left are very striking.



The green at 16



The short 17th





Men going about serious business!



A farewell glance over 18 and beyond. Golf days don't come much better!

[Anthony_Nysse]

WOW...that's all I got...

Tony Nysse
Pine Tree GC
Boynton Beach, FL

[Joe Hancock]

WOW...that's all I got...

Tony Nysse
Pine Tree GC
Boynton Beach, FL

Ditto!

[Dan Dingman]

Philip,

Nice job. Last time I was there was 2001 and I know they have been removing trees from the interior of the property. The picture you took of the Redan hole #7 is drastically more open from when I was there last.

Very cool stuff!

DD

[JC Jones]

me 3 for WOW.

Looks like a great day on a phenomenal golf course.  Congrats.

[Scott Warren]

Great pics, Philip. Thanks for posting them.

So that's Sandwich, Hoylake, Birkdale and Shinnecock for you in a month? That's some month!

[David_Tepper]

Philip -

As always, thanks for the wonderful pics.
What course in GB&I does Shinnecock most remind you of? Royal St. Georges?

DT

[Philip Gawith]

Yes David - RSG is probably closest, though of course they are very different! I have not played any inland course of similar scale or impact.

You are right Scott, I had a month of lots of high quality golf courses - more accident than design the way it turned out! It will give me something to think about as the winter months draw in!

[David Stamm]

Thank you for posting these, Philip. Stunning! Did you find the course difficult?

[Steve Kline]

Wow indeed! What an amazing looking golf course - the colors, the openness, the movement, the short grass (!) around the greens...

[Jay Flemma]

Beautiful Job, Phil.  And congratulations on a great Buda Cup too.  I see you got sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiightly better weather than I got in Southampton.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

This course flat deserves it place in the top 5 in the world. It is a shame the USGA brought controversy to the course do to the maintenance practices during the last Open there. I have seen it in muliple winds and weather conditions and one thing is constant, Greatness. On a side note. My grandfather gave me a copy of Tommy N's favorite bible on golf architecture long before I had a clue what golf architecture was some 40 years ago. I also had a shinny open shirt given to me 30 years ago or so before I ever layed eyes much less a made a shot on it. I treasured it yes I was clueless as to its greatness.

[Philip Gawith]

David, as I suggested in my earlier post, there is quite a lot of room off the tee, but it gets very challenging around the green - and the short holes were pretty tough. Of course the wind had much to do with this. Maybe it is a poor analogy, but I had a similar recollection when I played at Pebble Beach, albeit the greens and their surrounds are a very different type of challenge between the two courses.

As I said, we only played the course at 6300 yards, but that was mainly because the wind was so strong - so i can hardly say I played the course at its toughest. Maybe the best way to summarise is that i found it pretty playable, but it is not difficult to see that if the greens were a bit quicker (and they were not slow) and we played the course 600 yards longer - it would be very difficult!

Jay - yes, I played four days on Long Island and the weather was good/excellent on all of them. I was very fortunate.

[Jim Tang]

Philip -

Wow, the scale of the place is amazing, and I am sure the pictures you took cannot fully capture the size of the course.

What do you feel is the primary defense of the golf course?  The wind?  The greens?  Something else?

[Philip Gawith]

Jim maybe Tiger or others who have played the course in different conditions should weigh in. My view would be the greens. There is room off the tee, in general and the openness allows you to feel that you can swing - but the greens have quite a bit of internal undulation, and the run off areas are quite a big part of play. So you need to have an assured short-game otherwise you will struggle round this course.

[Jeff Doerr]

Philip,

I can't imagine a much more perfect day. In my mind there is nothing better than playing a great course, with great weather, and a great wind!

Thanks for the journey.

[Jordan Wall]

Philip,

Thanks for posting those.  Such intricate pictures really bring out the different aspects that appear to make the course great, such as the scale of the bunkers to little things such as maintaanence around the greens and the tightly mown chipping areas.

Have you played national and if so how would you compare the two?

How would you compare Shinnecock to the other golf courses on Long Island?

What specific features make Shinneock better than any other inland golf course you've seen?

Sounds like you had a really great day.  Thanks for taking the time to share!

Cheers,
Jordan

[Ash Towe]

Philllip,
Thanks for the pics.  These are the best set of photos I have seen of this wonderful course.

[Philip Gawith]

Jordan, yes I played the National the day before. They are not 100% like for like comparisons because I played the National twice, so I had the full experience including the lunch. Also, the weather was more benign at the National so we played the course at 6,900 yards. Excuses aside, if I had only one more round to play and the choice was between the two, I would choose the National. And that is not a purely golfing/GCA call - I just found the whole ambience to be probably the most intense and pleasurable golf experience i have had. I will post some pictures in due course and comment a bit more then. I found the experience of going round the National to be genuinely exciting - the holes felt so perfect in conception and delivery and the look and feel of the course was like nothing else i had experienced. Shinnecock is a magnificent course and club, but I suppose the experience was just a little less intense.

The other Long Island courses i played were The Creek and Maidstone. I thought both were fantastic courses in their own way, but both clearly lack the championship scale and ambience that Shinnecock has, and are not the same golfing challenge. You might argue that the National also falls into this category, but it is unquestionably a very special course - in a category of one in my experience. There are many others who can give a much more complete ranking than this obviously!

As for what features made it better vs other inland courses...well, the best inland courses i have played are probably Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath, and the UK courses like Sunningdale, Walton Heath, Woodhall Spa, Loch Lomond. Of these I suspect Royal Melbourne is probably the one that has the most great holes on (probably comparable to Shinnecock?)  but when I think about it, I
suppose even Royal Melbourne falls short by comparison. Why? I think it is a combination of the scale of the property, the power and the beauty of the course - these vast, wide rolling fairways - allied to the challenge of the green complexes, laced in with some very memorable holes. I am sure people like Tom Doak/Mike Clayton and others can give a more GCA literate answer, and maybe they will disagree. But too me it has a certain majesty that derives from the scale, the power, the beauty, the history, the challenge which help it stand apart - rather than some analysis based on a hole-by-hole comparisons, short holes vs two shotters etc.

For different reasons, the National also stands apart. I think the Royal Melbourne/Kingston Heath combination gives Shinnecock/The National a pretty good run, but I think I would probably choose Long Island if I had to.

[Jordan Wall]

Philip,

Sounds like quite an experience.  Thank you for sharing, it's wonderful to hear of your experiences.  Again, thanks for taking your time to share pictures and descriptions of the golf courses.

Cheers,
Jordan

[Lyne Morrison]

Thanks for taking the time to post these images Philip - classic and gracious, just wonderful!

Looking forward to your snap shot of the National.

Cheers - Lyne

[Jim Tang]

Philip -

Thanks for replying to my earlier post.  How does the courst play?  Are you able to bounce shots into greens and use the ground to your advantage?  Was the turf firm, and thus, allow for this type of play?

Thanks.

[Mark McKeever]

It looks incredible!  Thanks for sharing!

Mark

[PThomas]

nice job Philip...hard to beat a great course on a nice fall day