Well, I'm one lucky guy. I saw Blue Mound at the tournament and was blown away by the outstanding examples of Seth Raynor pattern holes that exist there. Now, thanks to a GCA lurking reader, I had the opportunity to play the course. It is everything I was gushing about earlier in this thread. I wonder if Dave has played it since Bruce Hepner of Doak's Renassaince team has commenced some nips and tucks, setting a few tees on different lines of play, tree removal, green edge and fringe reclamation, and bunkering restore or rework. I think BM offers you a chance to be a good striker of the ball off the tee, and leaves you enough option to get the placement in the fairway correct, and then sets you up for creative approach shots. If you get a little wild off the tee (as I do all too often) you will really have some scrambling and shot invention to contend with. Although this is GCA sacrilege to some extent, I think that the over abundance of trees is a two sided argument more so at this course than most. I still think there are a few places to remove a few more trees, and open up some interesting angles at the spectacular and diverse manufactured greens, but the difficulty and challenge of inventing shots to get out of tree jail also has some merit in this case due to some shortish holes. But, I think use of trees as strategy should be found sparingly and not as much as currently demanded at BM with as many trees that still remain. And, there are some notable long par 4s lengthened by Hepner that will test even the long hitters. I'd like to explore if 9 tee can be backed up 50 yards (which would seemingly require a huge constuction of new teeing mound and a tough squeeze of angle to the LZ and teeing ground proximity problems to 8 green) to make that hole a very strong one.
What occurred to me during my round was that Blue Mound could be one of the very best LPGA stops if they would organise one. Even as a Women's open site, I think it may be better than Pine Needles, and way better than Waverly, or Merrit Club, no kidding!
I had a nice conversation with their pro Barry Linhart, and he truly is in tune with the efforts of Hepner, and the rediscovery by members of what a true gem of a classic golf course they have. In fact, they were having a members theme day later yesterday, playing with 7 clubs and some in period attire, in tribute to when Sarazen won there in 1930s. It seems to me that BM might become a real darling of the Seth Raynor society and Raynor followers, if more folks were able to experience this wonderful golf course.