Having thought about it all a bit more at work and on the way home, I disagree that Huntercombe is "top tier in England", but that's no slight on it.
My barometer in England (indeed, in the world) is Royal St George's. Is Huntercombe as good as George's? No. Is it in the same league? No. Is it still a brilliant golf course. Absolutely.
Having abandoned sequential ratings because they are generally quite perplexing (see above for an example), I'm embracing the whole Rihcelin Scale line of thinking and am trying to think of my own way of classing what is better than what, but on the second tier of my still-being-formed scale I have the likes of Deal, Swinley, Woking, Rye etc and Huntercombe, IMO, sits comfortably in that company.
Some things that are crystalising the more I think about it:
The 1st is a great way to start, albeit with a green that must be hell if you hit the first swing of the day onto the wrong side of the hog's back in summer. Easy bogey! But with the trees behind the green cleared, I think it would leap forward in quality even more. That flag fluttering away in front of miles of clear air would be wonderful.
The 2nd through 4th holes introduce the variety of greens you will encounter really well: a steadyish slope (2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18) ; a jumble of angles, slopes and ridges that can confound you from 10ft away (1, 3, 7); and finally two very flat tiers separated by a decent slope (4, 8, 16, 17). I guess the other class is bowls (13, 15).
The centreline hazards are what make several holes, IMO, and I for the life of me can't work out why modern architects won't embrace them. They were the standout feature of Huntercombe, just as they were at Woking.
The grass bunkers are awesome, and must be such a low-cost hazard when compared to sand bunkers and the work involved in maintaining them. It also seemed the hazards could be deper with grass lining them than if they were sand, for instance the fairway hazard on #16 that is a good 10ft deep 200-odd yards out from the green. I have always admired the grass bunkers at Colt courses, but thinking last night how Colt remodelled some Park courses in his early days (Wimbledon, Sunningdale... others?), I wonder if perhaps he got some of his inspiration from the man whose work he was changing?
The severity of the man-made humps at #7 made the hole, IMO. I wonder if more modern architects abandoned any pretence of their mounds trying to look natural they might be able to finish with something as eye-catchingly abstract and dramatic. I recall reading how haphazardly the shapers at The Castle Course moved dirt to form "dunes" and it looks to me from those pics that a similar degree of success was had. Pretty savvy of Park, too, to source the fill he needed to build his greens by digging out his hazards, and would ensure a uniformity of the native soil type across the greensite as well, I guess.
The tongue that sticks out of the slope in the 8th green is brilliant. I had a 30ft putt from centre right at the bottom of the slope to centre left at the bottom and there was no way to get it within 8ft due to that tongue, and after a few minutes of trying different putts, Giles and I found the way to get closest was to accept your fate at the start and deliberately hit your first putt low - abandoning any chance of making it. I love that.
Put me in the category of loving #17. Yes, there is no ground route to access the green, but that green is brilliant, with the fronting bunkers forcing the strategy to change depending how far back the pin is. To me the brillaince of the hole is the combination of the zany green and the humble length, with the step in the green making you ensure if you're not on the correct tier you're at least putting straight up or down the slope.
There are a few holes that have less interest than they could, but none I would call "poor".
Above all, Huntercombe was perhaps the most subtle golf course I have played, despite having many dramatic elements. The uniformity in colour between the fairways and most of the "hazard" areas made you concentrate 100%, as there was no "street map of bunkers" (was it Sean who coined that? I like it.) to give an obvious guide as to what is where.
The greens take some learning, for sure. I shot 88 in the morning and 75 in the afternoon despite hitting only two more GIR in the afternoon. Even removing the four extra shots for two drives OOB in the morning (which is down to me, not the course), that is a nine-shot swing for only two extra GIR. The first go around you've got about as much chance with those greens as you do with a Greek physics textbook.
I'd love to head back in summer and see it playing F&F. Any architect building a course on average to poor land should as an Act of Parliament have to play Huntercombe and New Zealand beforehand.
Thanks Giles for having me and not taking the score to 3-and-0 in the afternoon!