Why do Golf Week raters vote Whistling Straits #3 Modern?

[Ran Morrissett]

I post this question having read through several of the highly entertaining WS threads on the go at the moment.

I know several GW raters that give WS a score that places it outside the top 10 modern. Hence, it stands to reason that there are some who give it enough points to place it even higher than #3 modern.

How can that be? WS has many fine holes and its long views over the lake are certainly inspiring. It has wind going for it as well and its other attributes are detailed in some of these other threads.

However, WS is totally manufactured and isn't perfect with holes like 5, 9, and 18 still raising eyebrows. Plus, every single hole screams at you with Dye never giving your senses a break . I hate this part of his later work and whether it is for TV or not, I don't care - it is what it is. No doubt WS is quite a construction achievement (and the look/texture that the green keeping staff has cultivated is phenomenal) but voting it ahead of the real deals is a mystery to me.

PacDunes et al at the Bandon resort, Sand Hills, Ballyneal, even Dye's own Ocean Course at Kiawah are but the start of a list of courses that featured a better raw site from which to work than Whistling Straits (despite its long coastline).  Yet, the majority of these courses are rated below Whistling Straits. According to GW raters, Doak and Coore have only produced one course each worthy of higher marks than Whistling Straits, despite each of them having had several sites in this country that were better for golf. Indeed, are we all sure that Whistling Straits represents better golf than Harbour Town or The Golf Club or The Ocean Course at Kiawah? I'm not.

We are supposedly in another Golden Age, marked by a return of using natural landforms to create arresting, unique golf courses. How can a totally manufactured course with 900 bunkers be ranked at or near the top? In addition, as Pat Mucci points out, it is maintenance intensive. While the big picture is grand, are the subtleties there? Yet the raters of Golf Week put it forward as a poster child of great modern design. How can a course with 900 hazards be among the handful of best courses built since 1960? If hazards/difficulty are the measuring sticks, where is PGA West in GW's modern rankings?

I pose the question(s) with a well known bias toward courses like Woking with a parsimonious amount of hazards strategically placed (indeed, a quick glance at my own personal course rankings gratifyingly shows Woking rated ahead of Whistling Straits). Is Dye's work here really that exceptional (i.e that the handiwork of man can trump nature)?

Many Golf Week raters post in this Discussion Group - perhaps one of them can share his/her insight into giving marks that place it #3 modern? It is very, very difficult and that will treat us to some lurid viewing this afternoon but is it really #3 modern?

Cheers,

[Dan Herrmann]

I couldn't agree more.  I've not been there in person, but in beautiful HD, the playing experience looks downright fatiguing.

Funny you mention Dye's working being seen as trumping nature.  Ironically, his course quote on Bulle Rock is ""I did not undo God's work."     - Pete Dye, Bulle Rock Golf Course Designer

Or, perhaps Golf World has the wrong people rating?  (how's that for frank discussion?)

[Phil McDade]

Ran:

All fair points, although worrying about ratings is akin to buying into the arms race that is, it seems, the antithesis of what led to the development of Sand Hills, Ballyneal, and the Bandon complex.

My one quibble -- are you sure WStraits maintenance requirements are any more intensive than this course:

http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/kirtland-country-club

or this one:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,36505.0/

both of which appear to be kept fairly lush, have lots of trees, flashy bunkers, and contentious rivers to deal with?

[Tim Bert]

Ran - I agree. This, for me at least, goes hand in hand with the "how can Kingsley be so low on that same list" discussion. Some of the raters have chimed in that we are splitting hairs because all of the courses in the top 20 modern are fabulous and not separated by that much. I can buy that for many of the top 20 but not Whistling Straits. I prefer Pacific Dunes, Sand Hills, Ballyneal, Chambers Bay, Kingsley, MPCC Shore, Old Macdonald, Bandon Dunes, Bandon Trails. I'd just as eagerly play Spanish Bay again.

Can someone explain how long a rater's submission remains valid in the various lists. If I rate a course today and don't submit an update for the same course does it remain valid indefinitely or does my rating expire after a period of time if I haven't updated it?  Just trying to figure out how much inertia exists in these lists. 

[RSLivingston_III]

I too never made it there, the stories of its artificiality having kept me away. And I have been in the area a few times going to Lawsonia.
I was actually a bit intriged after viewing it in the tournament. From ground level, it didn't seem so bad. It is the aerial shots that push that over-the-top impression. I question the need to install a bunker in every hollow and depression out there.
I am curious how the hazard placement would work out for me, if it offers sufficient stratiegic challenges.

I shouldn't think about it anymore and generate more bad preconceptions.

[Sean Leary]

Tim,

I was going to ask the same question about how long ratings are valid for.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Golfweek Ran, not Golf Week. 

Great question and have no idea the answer.

JC

[Phil_the_Author]

Ran,

I don't necessarily disagree with your premise, but I do with your reasoning. You said, "However, WS is totally manufactured and isn't perfect with holes like 5, 9, and 18 still raising eyebrows. Plus, every single hole screams at you with Dye never giving your senses a break..."

Pine Valley was totally manufactured as was August National and many of the greatest courses in the world, classic or modern. Being manufactured shouldn't be a detraction; to the contrary, a course that has been created  in a way that invovled tremendous earhtmoving and landscaping to bring about very desirable final features is a greater accomplishment in my mind then one where very little work that was done. Now, by that, I am NOT saying that expensive monstrous construction creations of golf courses are preferable to one that was routed and built with minimal landform changes. It isn't, and for the most part they make better golf courses. I just disagree with your blanket judgment that a course is lesser because more work had to be done to create it, whether the final product is good or bad.

"Isn't perfect with holes like 5, 9 & 18..." Name me one course that has 18 "perfect holes" or even 15 for that matter, which you seem to be implying that Whistling Straights has by that comment.

I think you're being a bit too quick to see the bad in the course rather than the good. Have you ever played it or walked it?

[Mike Policano]

D

[Ryan Farrow]

Without being on the maintenance staff, it is hard to comment on how difficult it is to maintain. In fact it may be quite a breeze with so much of the course covered with Low Maintenance Fescue grasses and bunkers that don't get raked?


I would also contended that your argument for the course not being natural and man-made is a bad thing. NGLA is certainly not natural, not in look or creation. And you can argue that W.S. looks more natural than most courses out there anyway, would you call the look at Okamont, natural? I don't think, but its still great.

So the question is, why is it not #3. I am not saying it is, but you have to come up with a more substantial argument.

[archie_struthers]

 

although it was a good event this week  ......imho,,,,,,  Bayonne is much better and of similar genre.......it has an ebb and flow...

[jim_lewis]

Ran:

As you know, I am a GW rater, but I have no idea how WS got its ranking. I have never played the course. I make it a policy never to comment on a course I have not played, no matter how many times I have seen it on TV. I'll just say this. I have no interest in playing the course. I have seen enough of Pete Dye's goofy bunkers on other courses.

Jim

[Matt_Ward]

Glad to see Ran add his thoughts -- as many already know -- I questioned The Straits position as #3 on GW's modern list a short time ago. I love it when people rate a course that high and then no one can make a plausible case why it's there.

Ryan - check out the other Dye courses that I and others mentioned that are rated lower -- in some cases -- far lower than The Straits. Throw a major around the neck of just about any course and you will see it rated higher than it would otherwise.

Too many raters are chasing "start" courses and not paying attention to those that provide much more but will never host a major championship. I would have thought GW, more than any other magazine, would have raters who understand that.

[MikeJones]

Ranking golf courses is much like ranking music, pointless apart from marketing materials for the concerned courses. While people most certainly have personal preferences, how much is related to the architectural merits of the course in question is open to debate.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I do not see it as top 10 modern much less top 3, but that is one Tigers opinion.

[Tom_Doak]

Ran:

The only flaw in your reasoning is that nobody has to think the course is #3 for it to be rated that highly.  If all the others below it have a few people who rate them low, and Whistling Straits is in nearly everybody's top ten, then it would score higher overall whether anyone thought it should be #1 or not.

And we all know that Ballyneal, Kingsley, Chambers Bay, Bandon Dunes et al. each have their share of detractors.

[Tim Bert]

Ran:

The only flaw in your reasoning is that nobody has to think the course is #3 for it to be rated that highly.  If all the others below it have a few people who rate them low, and Whistling Straits is in nearly everybody's top ten, then it would score higher overall whether anyone thought it should be #1 or not.

And we all know that Ballyneal, Kingsley, Chambers Bay, Bandon Dunes et al. each have their share of detractors.

I guess I'm just surprised that Whistling Straits doesn't have its equal share of detractors.  Talk about a polarizing golf course... this one is certainly right there with the others you mentioned in my opinion.

I found Jim Lewis's comment to be an interesting one when he said "I have no interest in playing the course."  Could it actually be higher than some of the others because the panelists more inclined not to like it simply aren't visiting?  Note: I fully realize this is a theory based on a sample size of one!

[Michael Whitaker]

Ran - maybe this will help you understand the WS ranking:

http://www.golfweek.com/news/2010/aug/05/raters-notebook-whistling-straits/

[Tom_Doak]

Michael:

Because Brad told them so?

Funny to read his take on the naturalness of the setting.

[Garland Bayley]

Perhaps it is because all this ranking courses stuff got started with Golf Digest identifying the 100 or 200 most difficult courses. With that as your genesis, there still has to be some undue awards made for difficulty. Kind of a blast from the past.

[Rob Rigg]

For the people who have played WS -

How much of it is "marketing" and how much of it is a really "all world" experience?

Does the setting get the course the rating?

If we remove the manufactured nature of the course from the matter (because there are other great manufactured course - too bad The Lido isn't around) - the rather ridiculous amount of bunkers (read the LOCAL rules sheet DJ) - etc. - is WS a kick ass course in a brilliant location or just a great marketing campaign?

Are most raters "sticks"? That is the other reason I find it strange that the course rates so high - it looks like it would absolutely gobble up a 15 handicap - or ever a 5 handicap. Does that actually help the rating? ie) raters can't really "play/enjoy" the course so they relent that it is great because the views are cool and there are Majors played there?

"I lost a dozen balls and the views were awesome - I guess it's a top 5 modern" ?

Even in the public realm how can that course be ranked above any of the venues at Bandon?

[JC Jones]

Funny to read his take on the naturalness of the setting.

Good catch, I also had a laugh at this:

3.) Natural setting and overall land plan: 10

Two miles of lakefront along a bluff, towering dunes, distant barns and silos, along with a country manor-style clubhouse and first-rate practice grounds.

The towering dunes are completely unnatural given the surrounding land.  The barns and silos are reflective of the completely flat nature of the land in the area, because it is/was all farmland.

The country manor style clubhouse goes how with the barns and the silos and the rest of the area or Wisconsin, generally?

The practice grounds add to the natural setting?  Huh?

The whole rating is confusing and, I agree, is not what is generally expected from Golfweek.

[Noel Freeman]

What about the Irish Course?

I mean if Whistling Straits is viewed that good, than logic or mine would say the Irish Course should be ranked and it is not.. Why? Because its horrid, thats why.

I have played 4 rounds on Whistling Straits and other than Lake Michigan and the par 3s I can't recall much except that ugly pond on #5 due to what Ran says about the tons of visual stimulation.

There are at least a 20 modern courses I'd rather play before I'd go back to Kohler.  Heck, I like Blackwolf River better..

[cary lichtenstein]

I think Whistling Straits shows how brilliant of an architect Pete Dye is. Ask yourself if anyone else could create something like it. Where does it say in life that in order to be good, it has to be natural.  I guess alot of plastic surgeons would be out of jobs if the majority of the public followed that rule.

Is it number 3? I don't pretend to know, but it certainly belongs in the top 10 of modern and a must play for everyone.

WS challenges your sand wedge creativity as much as any course. Maybe it is a better players course, but personally, from 6600 yards, I did not find it that difficult and I would be happy to go back and play it whereas I can't say that about alot of other courses.

It gets your heart pumping from the first tee to the diabolitical 18th which I think it way out of character with the rest of the course, but so what.

It's a thrill a minute.

Personally, I think the work of Picasso is ugly, but the rest of the world disagrees with me based on the prices it fetches.

[Chris_Clouser]

Could it be because Golfweek raters fall for the same trap that all other raters fall into?  Whistling Straits is seen as the top modern championship course by many so it must then by default be the top modern course.  That seems to be a pretty simple explanation that works.  I believe I heard that on the Golf Channel at some point this week.