Top Ten you can play

[Craig Van Egmond]

Golf magazine just released the Top Ten courses open to the public for 2001.  They excluded Pacific Dunes because it was a given. In no order:

Grande Dunes - Myrtle Beach - Roger Rulewich
Lochenheath - Williamsburg, MI - Steve Smyers
Bear Trace at Ross Creek - Clifton, TN - Jack Nicklaus
Barona Creek - Lakeside, CA - Gary Roger Baird/Todd E.
Glen Mills - Glen Mills, PA - Bobby Weed
The Glen Club - Glenview, IL - Tom Fazio
Bay Creek - Cape Charles, VA - Palmer Design
Redlands Mesa - Grand Junction, CO - Jim Engh
Pinehills - Plymouth, MA - Rees Jones
Lost Canyons (Shadow) - Pete Dye

About half of the architects are the usual suspects.  Anybody play any of these courses?

Some honorable mentions: Cowboys Golf Club (Brauer), The Architects Golf Club (Kay, Whitten), Black Gold (Hills).

A couple of names I haven't heard before are Eric Bergstol, Kevin Aldridge, John Sanford, Tom Jackson and Gary Koch.

Anybody play any Craig Schreiner courses? He got two courses mentioned..

[ChipOat]

Craig:

Don't mean to sound obnoxious but Gary Koch is not a familiar name to you??

Former tour winner  - acknowledged peer of Crenshaw with the flat stick on Bermuda grass (nickname = "one putt");
U of FL All-American in the Crenshaw, Kite, Andy Bean era
Walker Cupper

I know I'm dating myself with the above but he's currently an announcer a la Bobby Clampett on one of the 3 major networks and has been for 3 or 4 years, at least.

If he's not making too much money doing other stuff (including designing golf courses), he ought to have some success on the senior tour.

[Slag_Bandoon]

Craig, That statement that Pacific Dunes is not on the list because it's a given... cracks me up.  Reminds me of when Kramer vs. Kramer won Best Picture Oscar because "Apocalypse Now" was just TOO good.  An historic travesty that great theatrical cinema gets relegated to also-ran by fluff.  Much like "A Clockwork Orange" in...

 I just got back from playing Pacific Dunes in glorious sunny calm weather for $60.  It was too good.  I wanted to share it with the world.  I did get to share it with a friend who was quite moved by the whole event.  "So", he said, "this is what it feels like to be a millionaire."  

  Great to see Barona Creek on the list. Todd Eckinrode rules!!
  Lost Canyon?  Doesn't that require two caddies and a cart cheuffer?  Not very "That You Can Play" .

  

  

[Bill_McBride]

I think Tom Jackson has designed a whole bunch of courses in Myrtle Beach and other Carolina venues.

Did they exclude both Bandon and Pacific Dunes?

[Craig Van Egmond]

Sorry Chipoat,

      I don't have the golf channel and if I do watch golf on tv, its usually with the sound off.  I don't know much about U of Florida golf, went to school at Oklahoma State. Want to talk about Tripp Davis? Scott Verplank?  Bob Tway? David Eichelberger?  I will keep on eye/ear out for Gary.  Played any of his courses?

Slag,

      The actually quote was: "FYI: Pacific Dunes in Bandon, Oregon, though richly deserving, was omitted from the Top 10 roster - it has been sufficiently celebrated in these pages"

Bill,
      Bandon was on the list 2 years ago. Apparently it was too celebrated.

[Craig Van Egmond]

err, that was supposed to be wasn't too celebrated.

[Tim_Weiman]

Craig,

I like what Golf Magazine did about Pacific Dunes.  It takes a damn good course to win such an honor!

[Dan Grossman]

Slag,

I was up at Pac Dunes in beautiful weather on the 2nd and 3rd of February.  They have really cheap all-inclusive deals right now - what a bargain.  The weather was just great - what a fantastic setting.  It might be one of my favorite golf "retreats" in the US.

I haven't played any of the others, but I'd like to get down to Barona at some point.  With the exception of the course at Myrtle, none of them are in what I would consider a "destination".

[Scott_Burroughs]

I believe Gary Koch is on NBC Golf, home of Johnny Miller. I've played one of his courses several times, Mill Creek, in Mebane, NC.  It was on GD's best new list in 1995, I think.  It's not bad.

Correct about Tom Jackson, MB and the Carolinas.

Bergstol is kind of a Southern NJ golf kingpin.  Owner of several courses, I think.

I'm surprised Twisted Dune didn't make the list, considering Barona did.

Bandon Dunes opened in 1999.

Lost Canyons costs about $135-$145, with no required caddies.  Not cheap, but certainly not what it seems Slag made it out to be.

[John_McMillan]

There's one course local to me on the list.  I haven't yet played Lochenheath - and it's a little strange, but I haven't talked with many people around Traverse City who have.  I'd be curious to hear opinions of anyone who has played it - or any other Steve Smyers courses.

It's a little odd, but most of the courses on the list are "destination" courses - higher green fees / higher profile courses that one makes plans to travel to - which means that they might not be as heavily played by local golfers.  To me "top that you can play" denotes more the public / daily fee courses that I play most of my golf on - and I'd love to see more of the lists focus on this segment of architecture than the Pebble Beach / Pinehurst / Pacific Dunes type courses.

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Tom Jackson is based out of my home town of Greenville, SC and has actually been pretty prolific over the years around the Carolinas.  Quantity if not always quality.  A lot of his early work was somewhat no-frills projects.  But he has done some ok stuff as well.

Probably his most high profile course that most people will have seen is the Cliffs at Glassy Mountian.  If you see the par three hole on top of the mountian pictured in most of the Cliffs Communities advertisements in golf magazines (and they are in lots of them) that is the 13th at The Cliffs G & CC that Jackson did.  

His son Ridge Jackson has been working with him for sometime as well, and is starting to strike out on his own as well.

[Ran Morrissett]

I just be picked up this issue in the grocery store and Grande Dunes looks/sounds like the neatest course to open in a long time in the Carolinas - huge fairways, 9,000 square foot greens, wild and big bunkers though few in number, plays along 60 foot bluffs - in short, it sounds very interesting. Has anyone seen it?

[Steve Johnson]

Maybe this is the wrong place to post this but I'm very surprised about Barona.  The course is a nice course but nothing like a Maderas or a Torrey South in San Diego.  Good things are as follows:  Greens are true and fast.  Design is fair with nice mix of holes.  The Par 3's are pretty strong.  Bad things: conditioning is not that great with fairways often "scalped" down much too far.  First two Par 5's are too short.  I'm not a long hitter (260 yard drives) and can reach the Par 5's easily from the back tees.  Hole 4, par 4 is flawed.  The landing area is much too narrow.  If one plays out to the right, then the approach is around 200 yards to a tough green.  Not a fair hole.  I like this course, but would put Maderas about 100 spots above Barona.

[Mike_Cirba]

Ran,

I'm not sure your enthusiasm about Grande Dunes is warranted.  I saw the property as it was being roughed out, and was amazed that it was all native sand along the Intercoastal Waterway.  I thought...oh my God!...what a great opportunity for someone to create something awesome!

I didn't get to play it when I was there last year, but they created a course that seems much different that what I imagined and hoped they'd do.  Instead of using the open sand stretches to create something really rough and raw, they essentially laid wall to wall sod so it looks more like a typical inland course.

Beyond that, the scale seems like typical RTJ Sr. (I'm sure some of the old man rubbed off on Rulewich over the years!)

From the tips, the course is 7,700 yards, at sea level.

The 9,000 square foot greens seem more a throwback to the Concord Monster or perhaps Peachtree than anything we generally admire.  

I shouldn't say more until I play it, and I must admit that I'm intrigued.  Still, having seen it during construction, and then afterward, I would also say that I would have loved to see what some other designers could have done with such a natural property.