Golf Course Review Competition

[Stan Dodd]

This should be right up the alley for some of the talented writers here and the prizes are quite nice.
http://www.top100golfcourses.co.uk/htmlsite/story.asp?id=268

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Interesting to see Hanbury Manor there. It's a very curious course, rather like the curate's egg.




The close up is of the first hole which plays at 347 yards from the blues, 314 from the whites, 283 from the yellows and 255 from the ladies'. You can either play cautiously to the right and leave yourself a delicate chip or gamble on finding that isolated bit of fairway to the left and possibly trickling onto the putting surface. I didn't see the professionals play this hole when it was a tour venue, but I've watched society and corporate golfers here and vanity gets the better of almost all of them. With the hole playing under 283 yards from the tee of the day nearly all of them think they can drive it. You'll wait a long time to see it done and you'll have witnessed quite a few 7s and 8s as they insist on playing out the hole even though they will be playing a stableford competition. 

[Jamie Barber]

I quite like holes like that, good chance of a birdie/par/disaster without relying on brute force or overly penal hazards.

[Bob Jenkins]

It sort of looks like a reversed Riviera #10 with fewer bunkers.

[Ulrich Mayring]

Wow, that example review they posted there is... well, let's say... pretty darn remarkable.

Ulrich

[Tom_Doak]

That's a ridiculous hole that Mark pictured, in my view.  Clearly they were just stuck in a corner of the property with awkward dimensions, and tried to put lipstick on it with the alternate fairway.

I guess Jamie and I are never going to be partners. 

[Emil Weber]

So you don't like the 15th at World Woods PB then, Tom?

[Tom_Doak]

Emil:

This hole is more like putting an alternate fairway for the tenth hole at Merion over by the second tee.

[Ronald Montesano]

Don't be so quick to judge, middle-aged Tom!  You and Jamie might make the best of partners, since you would be aware of each other's preferences and dislikes; so long as there was respect, the partnership would flourish.  Shall we draw up the contracts?