How good does the course you play most have to be?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Like most folks on this site I love to play a great course.  Royal County Down, Pine Valley, and Cypress Point have all been great experiences.  But I don’t play that quality of course every day.  I will retire in March and will move to a small resort in the Virginia Mountains.  The golf is passable but certainly not great.  In fact it is just between good and decent.  I will keep my memberships at the clubs to which I belong now but will not get there as much as I used to.  I have been asking myself, “Do I play golf because I love to hit a golf ball? Or Do I need an excellent course to make the round enjoyable?”  I don’t really know the answer yet.

[Sean_A]

Because all know the scale, for me the approximation of a Doak 5 works fine.  An interesting course of this level does the job.  Of course, being a member somewhere compared to visiting means there are 5s and there are 5s - if you know what I mean.

Ciao  

[Steve Kline]

It doesn't have to be that good. My home course isn't. It has way too many trees and the greens are generally flat and lacking interest. The bunkers on the front nine were recently redone and they were completely flattened and almost always sit above grade level. They were completely ruined imo. But, the course is very close to home and work and has a good practice facility. It is easy to walk. And, it is the most affordable private club reasonably close to my house. I would prefer a better course but it's not an option. So, I get my architectural kicks when I travel.

[Mark Pearce]

Because all know the scale, for me the approximation of a Doak 5 works fine.  An interesting course of this level does the job.  Of course, being a member somewhere compared to visiting means there are 5s and there are 5s - if you know what I mean.

Ciao  

That's a fairly high bar.  To be honest, better than average would do me fine, so probably a 4, so long as the membership was good and I could playe elsewhere as a visitor or guest from time to time.

[Adam Clayman]

It's the people that matter. If the course is fun enough, you can enjoy playing alone, if not, who you play with is more important than where.

[David Davis]

I don't think this matters in the least to be honest. Fun and perhaps challenging depending on your level are most likely fine. I started at a flat boring public course 10 minutes from my house here in NL. I know a lot of low single hcp'ers that really enjoy it on a daily basis, enjoy the group of people there etc. It's a mud hole during the winter months or when it rains and otherwise hard as rock due to the clay based ground. If it were a choice of no golf or golf there I would choose golf there any day even when I've not played a round in the last 4 years.

These days I'm spoiled rotten, with great golf at an annual fee of 1300 USD but it would be really hard to duplicate that if I ever move away from this country. I already notice living half the time in Munich and playing down there that the better courses in the area are just very very poor in every aspect except perhaps view (since many look out at the alps). Turf quality, architecture, fun factor is all much lower than home here in NL. However, if push came to shove as long as you are out there having fun on a course close to home I think you should be happy.

[Adam Warren]

I don't think it has to be outstanding.  If you can, that is great and recommended, but in many cases the big thing is being able to hit the golf ball and hit as many different shots as possible.  As someone else said it is great to get your kicks when you travel, and it may also make you appreciate what you are seeing that much more.  I also agree that a big part is the people.  I enjoy always having someone to go play with that can play a little bit.  I'm not sure I would get that if I were to join a less convenient club, with a less active membership.

[Tommy Williamsen]

A few of you have mentioned that a course doesn't necessarily have to be great as long as it is fun.  Can a course really be fun if the quality is lacking architecturally?  It seems to me that one of the hallmarks of a good course is interesting strategy that requires thought and well executed shotmaking.  That is fun for me.  To stand on a tee and see the obligatory fairway bunker and two bunkers fronting a green just doesn't do it for me.  I lose concentration and by the 13th hole can't wait for the round to be finished.

[Jason Topp]

If all the other factors (people, cost, logistics) are good, I bet you will find that the quality of the course does not impact your enjoyment of the game much, if at all.  

[Brent Hutto]

Well there isn't a Doak 5 (or for that matter a Doak 3) within 100 miles of me that I can afford to play more than once in a blue moon. Yet I play 110 or so rounds a year. Fortunately, my enjoyment of playing golf is not predicated on access to stupendously good golf courses.

Traveling somewhere and playing a really top-notch course is a treat. I enjoy it. In fact, those rounds are more fun than a typical Saturday round at my club. But the occasional treat does nothing to sour me my workaday golf experience. Hope it never does.

[JMEvensky]

It's the people that matter. If the course is fun enough, you can enjoy playing alone, if not, who you play with is more important than where.

+1

If you need a good/great golf course to get excited about playing,you're playing for the wrong reasons,IMO.

[Brent Hutto]

It's the people that matter. If the course is fun enough, you can enjoy playing alone, if not, who you play with is more important than where.

+1

If you need a good/great golf course to get excited about playing,you're playing for the wrong reasons,IMO.

I would agree. Although I must say it could explain a lot about the incredible importance often assigned in this forum to what I'll charitably call "the finer distinctions" among quality courses.

There was an old Far Side cartoon showing a couple of apes sitting under a tree eating bananas. One of them says "I just LOVE bananas. I mean heck, we all do but for me it goes a lot deeper than that".

[Dan Byrnes]

To me the course is low compared to the conditions and the company I play with.  From a club perspective the quality and the love of the game of the membership come before the better course. 

Dan

[Brent Hutto]

Brian,

I think what Tommy was trying to get at was the (potential) cost of getting too emotionally and intellectually invested in the sort of thing this forum traffics in.

I'm pretty sure there are at least a few people on this forum who really struggle with that sort of issue. It's one thing to take a few minutes away from your everyday golf experience to come here and debate picky little aspects of great golf courses. But if the architecture-freak tail starts wagging the golf-playing dog that seems to me a pity.

Or maybe it goes without saying that nobody here requires a "Doak 5" or whatever to get it up. Maybe we're all well adjusted golfers and keep the Treehouse stuff compartmentalized. I don't THINK that's true but maybe I'm wrong...

[RJ_Daley]

It has to be a combination of things. Accessible and affordable, if it is your regular weekly to 2-3X or more place a week.  (Being retired helps in that regard   )

However, beyond accessible/affordable, it has to satisfy your golf I.Q. so to speak.  If it is boring, flat, unimaginative greens and surrounds (where so much of the game is creative) even affordable/accessible doesn't do it for me.  It has to be a serious golf course.  I can go beat balls at a range or practice putting almost anywhere, but it isn't golf.  

I wouldn't play anywhere that I couldn't walk on a regular basis.  

Of course it has to have a golf loving culture/membership/men's club or league structure.  While I'll play alone some occasional days to just get out and walk around and bat some shots around, it wouldn't be golf if not and opportunity for some games, competition and friendships.  

[Brent Hutto]

Myself and Mr. Daley probably have similar outlooks. Gotta be able to walk, really needs to have some interesting greens. Beyond that it's all good. I'd rather play a course that's interesting tee to green but it isn't totally necessary. Walking and fun greens are pretty much the only non-negotiables.

[JMEvensky]

But if the architecture-freak tail starts wagging the golf-playing dog that seems to me a pity.

Quoted for the "brevity is the soul of wit" quotient--and agreement.

[RJ_Daley]

Of course there is the other side of the equation for my personal tastes as well.  That is the notion of 'too much architecture' or stated another way, too much trickeration designed in, or a course so wrongly presented that it is an exercise in 'architorture'.  In that case, no matter how accessible and affordable it may be (even if by some folks standards that hard and tricky means 'good') that such a course would never be my regular every day.  

I think it is a fortunate benefit if one has choices and the means to pick and choose which golf club/course would be an everyday course, with no real consideration as to cost.  In that regard, one can really be discriminating and pick the course and club culture that suits their personal interests best.  And, I'm pretty sure that there are many different club.membership cultures as it relates to how the golf scene and social scene mesh.  I think we all know club cultures that are more highly keen on the architecture of their course, or an owner entity that puts design and presentation considerations first on a priority list, while others put much emphasis on activities surrounding the rest of the facility from club house amenities to other recreational activity (swimming, tennis, even horse riding and hunting).  It is all good, and to have the luxury of choice is a great thing.  

But, the question stands as to how good it has to be, and I am suggesting, not so 'good'  as a matter of some definitions of 'good as hard' that it is a shlog every darn day.  

[Brent Hutto]

I guess I'll come clean with a dirty little secret. I found my way to this site because I'd played at Pine Needles (many years before the redo) and thought it was about the most fun one could have on a golf course. Found Ran's writeup, then delved into a few forum discussions touching on the course. It was just a few years after I took up the game and was the first "Doak non-zero" I ever set foot on.

My purpose in joining in the ongoing discussion was pretty simple. How do I identify the things that made playing at Pine Needles so much fun and how do I find other courses with as much or more of those same things?

So that's why I can go to Ganton and have a "mountaintop experience" for three days without even noticing things that apparently are blindingly obvious by the standards of this forum. I'm not ever looking to analyze (or god forbid "rate") what's wrong with a golf course or how it might better approach perfection. Somehow I never got infected by that disease in golf although it has certainly taken the joy out of other activities in my life in the past.

To a certain extent I feel like I'm in the wrong place on days when it seems every single discussion is populated by GCA'ers who think their brief is to nitpick every single bloody detail of every golf course in terms of how it falls short of the GCA ideal. It's like a whole forum of Brad Klein wannabes dishing high-minded insults that reify a particular, minority, self-justifying, narrow point of view as though it came down on the mountain with Moses (or was it MacKenzie?).

[Dan Kelly]

I don't know how good it has to be, on anyone's "scale" ... but I have to enjoy playing it (because of the shots allowed and/or required, the variety of hole locations, the pleasantness of the walk, the beauty of the surroundings -- not to mention the practice facilities) ... and it can't have any single hole that I HATE and dread playing every time I come to it.

I joined a club a year ago, for the first time, because it met all of those criteria, in spades, and -- unlike a few other Twin Cities courses that would meet all of those criteria, (1) it was convenient to home and office, and (2) I could afford it.

[Thomas Dai]

Generally speaking, a home course doesn't necessarily have to be that high in any ranking or even in any ranking at all to play regularly but if the greens are consistently poor it's difficult to play any serious competitive or even semi-competitive golf on the same course regularly, well it is IMO. Poor general conditioning can (just about) be tolerated, as long as there's a will within the club to try to improve, but I would struggle to keep playing on consistently poor greens,......unless that is I radically changed my plans/expectations when I probably could be happyish to just knock it around for fun and laughs maybe using low-spec/older age equipment.
If however, you already are a member/regular at a really top-notch course (lucky you) the thought of playing at other less quality courses can be a little discouraging, although when you get 'home' again you then maybe realise how good 'home' is.
Another factor, slightly OT, is the weather. Consistently poor weather isn't exactly encouraging.
All the best

[Peter Pallotta]

Every day - that's the wild card isn't it?

This isn't just about a home course, it's a about a home course after you're retired (though I don't assumi that Tommy will be doing nothing but playing golf.)

I can't afford to be snob about golf courses -- and I play a modestly pleasant course near my home quite often. Since I play because I like to walk and hit golf balls, I don't usually focus too much on the course's architecture or aesthetic and strategic charms -- but could I keep ignoring those every day? Even with a group of good fellows to enjoy the rounds with?

The same blandish greens, the same obvious strategies, the same uninspiring landscape, the same fairly damp conditions and uniform rough -- every day?

That would be tough for me -- and, from your couple of posts, Tommy, I'm sorry to say that I think it'll be tough for you too.

Peter

[Mike Schott]

Good enough to challenge my game and keep me interested. My home course is nothing fancy but on decent property with good conditioning and greens. I'm happy to play it regularly. Probably a Doak 3.

[Richard Choi]

I don't bother if it is not us open worthy...

[Brent Hutto]

Every day - that's the wild card isn't it?

This isn't just about a home course, it's a about a home course after you're retired (though I don't assumi that Tommy will be doing nothing but playing golf.)

I can't afford to be snob about golf courses -- and I play a modestly pleasant course near my home quite often. Since I play because I like to walk and hit golf balls, I don't usually focus too much on the course's architecture or aesthetic and strategic charms -- but could I keep ignoring those every day? Even with a group of good fellows to enjoy the rounds with?

I think that's exactly the answer Tommy was expecting to get from a lot of GCA'ers. If you feel like any substandard aspect of the golf course requires an active effort to "ignore" then I suppose playing there every day would be a burden.

Nobody has spoken up so far but I fully expect to hear from at least a few people who just don't play golf at all unless they're traveling to or invited to courses they think are better than what's at home. Which I suppose frees up a lot of time for keeping up Judge Judy.

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