Single Golf Course Architectural Juxtaposition

[Mike Hendren]

I played yesterday at Indian Hills, a public course in Murfreesboro, Tennessee just outside of Nashville.   Part of a 1980's housing development, which explains the insane routing.  At least two 300 yards green to tee rides - yes, Melvyn rides - and another 200 yards ride to the tee of a 350 yards dead end par four where after holing out one backtracks the entire length of the hole plus 100 yards to the next tee.    So where's the juxtaposition, one might ask?  Not one, not two, but three genuine Biarritz green complexes, one fronted by water in a nod to Yale, a second at fairway level and a third totally elevated.  That and a par three that's a genuine dead ringer for the 16th at Carnoustie.  Go figure.

Where have you run across a course featuring the good, bad and ugly?

Bogey

[Jay Cox]

The Leo J. Martin Muni in the Boston suburbs has a couple of very good stout par 4s on the back nine and a really fantastic raised green (almost an eden?) on the par-3 3rd.  But several of the front nine holes were brutalized to expand the driving range, which makes most of the money, or by road construction, leaving a few very drab 300 yard par 4s and two of the worst holes I've ever seen:

- the 6th, a par 4 with about 25 yards of grass between the Charles River and the range, so that a perfectly reasonable play is to try to bank the drive off of the 60-foot high mesh fence that borders the range

- the 8th, a par 4 where your options are to hit two seven irons or to try to drive over some trees and a pretty busy public road to get near the green, which at least when I played in my youth was often fronted by a swamp of casual water.

[Bill_McBride]

I am a big fan of the Robert Trent Jones courses at Auburn/Opelika (Grand National), lovely setting with a better variety of holes than some RTJ courses, but there are a couple of 1,000-yard plus cart rides on wooden bridges.  Almost makes you dream of a fire.