Tom’s response on the subject of the routing of Cruden Bay, giving me a friendly reminder of his quote in his book about the merits of its routing, got me thinking.
For those that do not remember his quote (pg 37): “The genius of all this is that the golf course (Cruden Bay) is routed the way you might be inclined to wander the property if there were no golf course there ”.
Funny enough I remembered the quote slightly different namely I thought it included “wander the property the first time if there were no golf course”.
The current routing, including the climb over the hill at hole 9, in my view indeed is how one would walk the property the FIRST time one would walk it. However, it is NOT the way people who walk the property all the time actually walk it.
I noticed this during the time when I was building the spare hole at the back of Cruden Bay's site, and I ran in to many people walking the course with dogs or just by themselves. NO One would ever walk over the hill of hole 9; everybody went through the narrow of holes 14 and 15.
So my question to you all would be, is there a difference between basing a routing on how one would walk a property the first time or how one would walk it many times later. Is one a better routing for the first time/one time visitor, and the other the better routing for the everyday member player?