Hey Rich,
First of all, I am more than willing to stand up as the one who said Sand Hills was a Doak 5 the first evening of The Yucca. At the time, a) I couldn't recite the Doak Scale verbatim and b) it was mostly to wind you up!
But upon closer examination of The Doak Scale per this article:
http://www.linksmagazine.com/best_of_golf/features/the_doak_scale.aspx I truly do rate it around a
6 or 6.5 as Spaulding mentioned more rationally later on in the thread. (Btw, I heard Blue Moon added an extra shift over the weekend due to record demand for its product on Saturday afternoon).
If we are considering 'the region' to include Ballyneal, I think BN stands head-and-shoulders above SH.
I don't mind being called a moron -- everyone on here has his or her own opinions. I think Rich offered a terrific summary of my overall feelings about the place with a couple of exceptions:
-
The course is too soft with too severe false fronts
and repellent, rather than inviting, contours to allow a ground game
-It looks like a links course, but it is just a facade.
-Raised tee, drive to a lower fairway, hit approach to a raised green
with a false front. Rinse and repeat.
-It is over-rated because it was the first to start the modern renaissance, but it has been surpassed by many since.
The conditioning at Sand Hills was outstanding...the course played plenty fast...I just found the contours far too difficult to encourage me to hit run-up shots when the aerial game worked just as well, or better, thanks to the elevated Bent greens.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to have played Sand Hills but find its consistent position in the Top 10 in the country/world (especially ahead of Ballyneal?) to be curious. There are a handful of world-class holes (4, 8, 11, 16) but in general I found the course repetitive--an opinion that was readily confirmed by the variety @ Ballyneal. I found the course to be an extremely difficult walk, especially in the typical 90+ degree heat, and was downright shocked to see the number of carts in use.
While I would not say that Tetherow has any world-class holes like those I mentioned above, on balance I found the experience there to be comparable, and Tetherow is much closer to my house.
Courses w/similar topography and playing conditions that I've played where the architecture is either more interesting or more fun to play --
Royal Aberdeen
Ballybunion
Lahinch
Cruden Bay
Carne
Ballyneal
Pacific Dunes
Cypress Point (not a true links course, but some architectural similarities as I discussed with Spaulding)
I would also like to point out that my favorite course on the Bandon property (though I have not yet played OM) is Trails, so this criticism is in no way intended to impugn C&C -- just to say that the hype around Sand Hills seems excessive in my own personal assessment.
And I completely agree with JC Jones that 99% of Florida courses are 0's.