Courses which grow on you with time and many plays

[Ally Mcintosh]

A well covered topic…

Some courses give you an instant hit and then your love for them diminishes over repeat plays.
Some courses you can appreciate straight away and that never leaves you.
Some courses do not make a huge impact straight away but over repeat plays, the genius reveals itself.

It is this last grouping that I’m interested in… And please don’t just list every course that you’ve played a bunch of times… Pick one or two where you really think this applies (a comment on the Walton Heath Matchplay thread made me start this one)…

Ally

[Sean_A]

Ally

For me its often about getting past how courses are presented.  This usually means looking past poor cut lines, too many trees and sometimes poor drainage.  It is odd that I can go either way - meaning sometimes I love a course but grow tired of it because of the above issues and sometimes I learn to like a course despite the issues.  Edgbaston stands out as a course I learned to really respect because of the underlying great design, but I recognize it has serious issues with trees and drainage.  Beau Desert took me a while to see its merits because of rough and trees, but recently these issues are getting harder to look past. It took me some time to really appreciate Little Aston and I think my admiration will continue to increase.  I have been able to get over the hump about Deal and now I consider it one of the very best courses in GB&I even though its not one of my favourites.

The one course which took me a good 6-8 plays before the light bulb switched on is Kington.  In many ways, accepting this course for what it is changed how I view architecture.  There is no point in dreaming about the perfect course with perfect conditions and presented perfectly - that course doesn't exist.  Accepting this basic (and obvious premise) has allowed me to really cherish the wee courses because of their idiosyncraticness (jeepers - there can't be such a word).  Looking back now, I can't understand how I took to Pennard immediately, but shied away from Kington - daft.   

Ciao

[Niall C]

I'd have to say that it took me a while to fall for North Berwick and even then I think some of the praise is over the top. Forfar on the other hand...........

Niall

[Paul Gray]

Blackmoor. First felt, although I appreciated what Colt had done strategically, that it just didn't really get going at any point. Further appraisal now leads me to think that its brilliantly subtle with some excellent par 3s thrown in to boot.

[Jon Wiggett]

For me TOC is definitely the best example of this. Also Lytham & St. Annes and Birkdale.

Jon

[Ally Mcintosh]

I always imagine Hoylake as one of these growers...

[Greg Tallman]

Though it NLE Doak's Bay of Dreams northeast of Cabo qualifies for me.

After one play I thought it was OK, nothing special, but after a few more plays  I came to appreciate it far more. It had some really good holes and, as one would expect, some exciting green contours, though 16 green might have been a bit much.

A few holes that I thought average or not that good after one play that I came to appreciate and really like were:

#5 - A flat, relatively featureless hole through a cactus forest with a slightly raised green that pitched away from you. Best miss was definitely just long and just short made for a very tough up and in.

#17 - Amazingly wide fairway with no bunkering then an uphill approach to a somewhat crowned green, very hard to hold and no truly good spot to miss it (maybe long left??). No eye candy(plenty of that on the next hole), just good golf

more later...

[Jason Topp]

In college, I played Fred Enke in Tucson a lot.  http://www.tucsoncitygolf.com/fred-enke-golf-course.html

It has softened over the years but when it opened it was a brutal target style course where a disasterous score lurked on every hole.  I played it because it tended to be less crowded than the other municipal courses and I was on a muni course budget. 

At first I hated it.  I had played Division III golf as a freshman and broke 80 a reasonable percentage of the time.  However, I failed to break 100 on Fred Enke several times.  I would hit driver off the tee into the junk a few times, get rattled and then start missing all of my shots. 

Eventually, I learned that if I just played super-conservative golf, I could score as well or better than I did on other courses.  I found conquering the demons very satisfying even if I still hated taking the wimpy option every time.

I would never recommend Fred Enke to others (unless you would get a kick out of seeing a bunch of old airplanes sitting in a boneyard) but it did grow on me and I would not at all mind returning one day. 

[Bill_McBride]

I always imagine Hoylake as one of these growers...

Hoylake had me from the moment I stepped on the property.  Once you got away from the flat area I loved it even more. 

[Ally Mcintosh]

I always imagine Hoylake as one of these growers...

Hoylake had me from the moment I stepped on the property.  Once you got away from the flat area I loved it even more. 

Really is a course I need to see soon... I've a feeling I'd love it

[Tim Leahy]

Torrey Pines South. First time you expect Pebble and can be extremely disappointed. However when I lived in San Diego and could play there every week for the resident rate I came to appreciate the subtle greens and great holes that dont incorporate ocean views.

[Matthew Petersen]

In college, I played Fred Enke in Tucson a lot.  http://www.tucsoncitygolf.com/fred-enke-golf-course.html

It has softened over the years but when it opened it was a brutal target style course where a disasterous score lurked on every hole.  I played it because it tended to be less crowded than the other municipal courses and I was on a muni course budget. 

At first I hated it.  I had played Division III golf as a freshman and broke 80 a reasonable percentage of the time.  However, I failed to break 100 on Fred Enke several times.  I would hit driver off the tee into the junk a few times, get rattled and then start missing all of my shots. 

Eventually, I learned that if I just played super-conservative golf, I could score as well or better than I did on other courses.  I found conquering the demons very satisfying even if I still hated taking the wimpy option every time.

I would never recommend Fred Enke to others (unless you would get a kick out of seeing a bunch of old airplanes sitting in a boneyard) but it did grow on me and I would not at all mind returning one day. 

Very interesting.

I LOVED Fred Enke the first time I played it. Didn't get out to that side of town too often, but I think my feelings for t diminished pretty much every subsequent round. And for many of the same reasons you cite for having the opposite reaction. I think in my first round I knocked it all over the place, cut corners, etc ... and got away with it and found it all great fun. More plays revealed that I had just been lucky the first time. It's not really a good risk/reward course and there's not enough interest in the greens or variety of shots to make conservative play very interesting.

Part of the issue is, as you say the condition. If they haven't cut the desert vegetation back in a while it gets nasty. When the vegetation is a little more open you can see a bit more and are more likely to find your ball and have a shot when you do get off the grass.

[Alex Miller]

Torrey Pines South. First time you expect Pebble and can be extremely disappointed. However when I lived in San Diego and could play there every week for the resident rate I came to appreciate the subtle greens and great holes that dont incorporate ocean views.

You must have your compass upside-down! The South had the reverse effect for me and the North grew over time far more than the South. The North has subtle greens while the South has typical Rees-fashioned tiers and slopes.

[Paul Jones]

The Old Course
Pinehurst No 2
Seminole

[Rees Milikin]

Palatka Golf Club

[Luke Eipper]

While many of you ladies and gents play your golf overseas, I would advocate that there are few courses in Melbourne Australia that really grow on you the more you play them. In no particular order:
- Port Fairy golf links
- Peterbourough golf links
- Commonwealth golf club

The first two suggestions are links courses located 3 hrs from Melbourne cut into the cliff tops and sand dunes. It is the conditions these course throw up that makes these courses so hard to figure out. Depending of the time of year the holes play completely differently as the approaches into the greens are either soft or hard. Couple this with wind and rain, players really get stumped on what the best way to attack each tee shot and approach (run it along the ground, high and drop it from the sky etc.). Really fun golf.

As for Commonwealth (my own club) has so many subtle dangers in its greens that trying to understand where to come into a green from (the best angle of attac) is is so hard to gauge on 1-2 plays. Comm IMO is far tougher for the mid handicapper than all the other Melbourne Sandbelt clubs not because it is longer, but it demands only the best approach shots. Anything else is shouldered off the green into a bunker or shortgrass. This is what sets its apart fromcourses like Royal Melbouren and Kingston Heath which might leave a player with their ball on the green, but little do they know that they may have hit their ball into an impossible spot to two putt from. Comm sort of fast tracks that issue, but the player still can't simply go "oh. I should have hit it there, not there" as there isn't a lot of obvious lines of play.

[Mark Chaplin]

TOC played it twice this week and it's great to understand it a little more.

Deal needs a few laps to understand the subtlety of the links.

[Graylyn Loomis]

As mentioned before, The Old Course certainly falls in this category. I've been in St Andrews just under four years now, and my view of the Old has changed drastically from my first rounds in 2010.

The same holds true for other Scottish links - Prestwick being another example.

[Mark_F]

...but isn't Birkdale one of those courses that makes a big impact straight out of the box?

No. 

This is what sets its apart from courses like Royal Melbouren and Kingston Heath

What sets Commonwealth apart from Kingston Heath is that it is actually an interesting course to play more than once. 

[cary lichtenstein]

My first trip to Scotland, I played all the great course 5 times. 2 1/2 days each. Amazing what I learned. Each course revealed more of herself with repeated play

[Jon Wiggett]

For me TOC is definitely the best example of this. Also Lytham & St. Annes and Birkdale.

Jon

I'll take people's word for it about Lytham being a grower (it certainly isn't high impact) but isn't Birkdale one of those courses that makes a big impact straight out of the box?

Brian,

at Birkdale most people are struck by the size of the dunes first time they play it but it takes multiple plays to really appreciate the strategy of the course.

Jon

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

...but isn't Birkdale one of those courses that makes a big impact straight out of the box?

No. 

+1

[Joe Bausch]

The more I play the Robert White Berkleigh CC, the more I love it.  If there is a public access course in the Philly area with a better set of par 5's, please let me know.  :-)