# 9 at Yale - maybe #2 also.
One that nobody has mentioned that has to be top-5 most insane putting surfaces on the planet is #3 at Meadow Club.
If anybody has a picture, please post. Brother DeVries is a obviously a seriously disturbed maniac.
#3 at Maderas in Poway easily made my top-5 for maddening complexity, but the owner decided to destroy what he could not understand. I wrote this letter in 1999. It fell on tone-deaf ears.
Mr. Aaron Feldman
Sunroad Enterprises
1455 Frazee Road, #1000
San Diego, CA 92108
Dear Sir,
I recently had occasion to play your Maderas CC in Poway. The purpose of my visit was twofold, the first being to evaluate it pursuant to an assignment from a magazine panel. The second for the purpose of suggesting possible destinations for my readership at the ANG San Mateo County Times.
Needless to say, I found your golf course extremely well done - certainly some of the best work I have ever seen from Graves-Pascuzzo. To that end, I will suggest your course to my readers and fellow raters as a worthwhile design effort.
That said, I was rather disappointed to learn that you are planning on re-contouring several of the putting surfaces. Oddly enough, when I reviewed my notes, the greens you are planning on changing were the very ones I found the most compelling.
It is not my habit to pen presumptuous letters instructing a course owner on how best to present his course, but my sense is that you are making a serious mistake. Upon examination, your putting surfaces are specifically contoured in such a way as to reward approaches from particular angles - the same strategic element that gives Augusta National its character.
If, for whatever reason, you are convinced that the movement of the greens is too severe, you might consider slowing them down slightly. I have personally evaluated over 300 courses in North America and the United Kingdom, and found this irrational desire for Stimpmeter speed has been responsible for an astonishing amount of unnecessary and expensive emasculation of otherwise fine golf courses.
It brings to mind the 18th green at Sitwell Park in England. Built by Dr. Alister Mackenzie, the Green Chairman of the course was initially unhappy with the boldness of the contours and demanded it be changed.
Undaunted by controversy, Mackenzie convinced him to leave it for a year to give the membership time in which to become accustomed to it. Naturally, #18 eventually became acknowledged as one of the outstanding greens in the United Kingdom and a source of great pride amongst the members at Sitwell Park.
In short Sir, the clever putting surfaces on your golf course are its centerpiece - and what elevates it above the mundane and pedestrian architecture of your neighboring courses. Given time, the challenge of unlocking their secrets will bring your customers back again and again.
Sincerely,
Gilbert “Gib” Papazian II