Deal has been/needs to be re bunkered to suit all players. A number of short bunkers have been removed as the course is pretty hard for weaker players and a few short bunkers were an unnecessary punishment and expensive to maintain.
Deal holds up pretty well when we have control of the pin positioning. Given a forecast 20mph prevailing wind the new back tee on the 18th is unplayable and not used, but any links courses requires a little wind to protect it.
If Deal was to hold an Open again, many of what Mark says could be rectified.
1) #1 Tee could go back easily 40-60 yards
2) #2 Tee could go back to near the boundary fence bringing the bunkers into play.
3) To me #9 defends itself at the green, it is very hard to read, I find it confounding or maybe it is just me
4) Unless the SW is really blowing, hell the second set of cross bunkers on #13 can come into play.. Certainly I've hit into them on a Northerly... I'm not sure if many of the foreign members here have visited as I do in the winter and played that wind.. It was also blowing this past May when I was there..
5) #12 tee could go back over the road as originally intended and play as a cracking long par 4 for low markers.. The club owns the land as well.
6) I see no reason why #15 tee could not be placed 10-15 yards behind the current one. Also the blind approach and wonky lies on #15 fairway really are the hazard to me and holding that green can be difficult when slippery
David Dobby has always told me that Deal requires fine driving but also it defends itself with unlevel lies and the greens.. A few tee alterations are all that is needed.. Deal is never going to win a beauty contest but there is a reason after all of my travels I joined there..
Most people live on a placid island of ignorance when it comes to evaluation of golf courses, if it looks pretty or plays near a beautiful place it gets all the kudos in the world (a famous dead architect helps, I note Deal has potentially Dunn, Hunter, Alison, CK Hutchinson, Morrison, Braid, Campbell and Ebert as lineage). Our memories also make merciful deletions of the warts of any course.. That said, Deal is not pretty, Donald Steel said it reminded him of the Big Country (the novel, not the scottish rock band which was a one hit wonder) in that it required long hitting and was a cruel taskmaster.. Time and equipment changes have softened that view..
But I think Sir Peter Allen and Sir Guy Campbell are impeccable critics when it comes to golf courses and both said Deal was among the best in the world-- Sir Peter Allen singleing it out for a final round.. The only courses in the world (and my portfolio includes 80 of the top 100 which are as for fun to play for me as Deal are Yale (where I am also a member), Royal Melbourne and NGLA.. I'm talking fun, not championship experience (although Royal Mel is certainly full of that).
Sean-- North Berwick?-- Surely if one is to play the final round to a journey with an end, Berwick is not my place. Quirky yes, but my enthusiam flags for the course around the turn and I do think the Redan is gulp overrated although I love #16..
The Downs (the water area by Deal full of shipwrecks) on an October cobalt blue sky with the sun setting lending pregnant shadows on the course and the larks singing (there is NO place where the larks sing louder) and sit on the sea wall by the 6th green/7th tee.. The white cliffs of Ramsgate in the distance and the outline of the French coast.. Magic..