Great fun golf course in great shape even if the greens were a little grainey. Great layout with super green complexes it really was s wonderful day thanks to all who made it
Great fun golf course in great shape even if the greens were a little grainey. Great layout with super green complexes it really was s wonderful day thanks to all who made it
MWP,
Thanks for putting this together. It was nice meeting new people and reacquainting with the others. The folks in Tyler, Frankston, and Pine Dunes were extremely friendly and helpful, which is pretty normal for those parts.
Two things were reinforced for me on Saturday. On the positive side, PD has a great collection of par 4s, three very interesting par 5s, and a good variety of par 3s. It is a challenging yet very playable course (not many lost balls). The routing is relatively tight- it is very walkable- and it flows well (#18 needs some help, maybe a super-risky sliver of fairway right of the fairway bunkers in what is now gunch). Without a doubt, PD is an architecturally significant course.
You alluded to the negative, grainy greens. The greens are full of interest and looked great, but, in my opinion, putted horribly. I am not a big fan of Bermuda to begin with, and few clubs seem to spend the money verticutting and rolling frequently enough to maintain the ultradwarfs so they perform like bent. You could literally hear the friction caused by the grain and the ball rolling on PD's TifEagle greens. Pitches and chips sometimes grabbed immediately, other times they rolled out. For a guy that hits the ball as poorly as me, if I can't score with my short game, golf is not fun.
Fortunately for PD, this is something that could be remedied with the will and some budget. Perhaps their target market doesn't value a good roll; I can't imagine the average golfer liking grain. I finally had to change my grip and go to a punch stroke, but even with that, I three putted my final hole (#4) after hitting two of my better shots of the day to get on the green.