North Berwick profile updated

[Ran Morrissett]

http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/scotland/northberwick1/

Over the past twenty years, Seth Raynor's stock has risen more than that of any Golden Age architect, even more than Flynn’s, at least to me. What course has risen the most?  Excluding Old Town, The Cal Club, LA North, and all those courses where transformational work has taken place, I nominate North Berwick, a course that save for the usual tweaks is largely as it was in ~1996. If not, it is running a very tight race with (what else) Fishers Island. Today these exuberant designs are so much ‘better’ than what we were told was 'great' only two decades ago.

Architectural tastes have shifted and evolved at a more rapid clip over the past two decades than at any time in the history of the sport. The reason? Surely it is tied to the internet, social media, and how quickly we interact with so many and can view so much. As to what constitutes great architecture, Ron Whitten noted in his February 2000 Feature Interview on this site that ‘the only true influential course I can think of is the Old Course at St. Andrews. Everything in golf architecture is pretty much either a reaction to it, or a reaction against it.’ But mention blind shots, quirk, stone walls, bad bounces, out of bounds, "unfair" bunkers in the middle of fairways, severe greens and are we talking about The Old Course or its prettier kissing cousin North Berwick?! Both are idiosyncratic and then some. Yet, because North Berwick never hosted an Open and because it tips out at 6500y (which, as an aside, is what TOC measured in the 1950s), the design is seemingly only now getting its proper recognition as one of the game’s elite.

Growing up, my 'bible' for good taste was Following the Fairways edited by the wonderful Nick Edmunds. In the 9th edition, published 1996, North Berwick placed 36th among the UK and Ireland's top 50 links. Well - times they be a changing! Witness GOLF Magazine where the course has surged to #68 in the world - and I know at least five panelists that rank it higher than 36th in the world, let alone GB&I. How wonderful it is to see golfers these days embrace something unique like North Berwick. That patently was NOT true in the 1960-1990s when so many of the best received courses fit a certain 'championship' mold. Sand Hills forever repudiated that concept, punctuating the countercurrent Pete Dye began.

In March I posted that being a member of Royal Melbourne might be the ultimate for those that enjoy the juxtaposition of city life with nature. I stand by that sentiment BUT since a landscape of Edinburgh’s famous buildings is what wraps around my wedding band, I must say that the northern hemisphere equivalent of enjoying big city life while being able to quickly immerse yourself in nature might be the potent Auld Reekie/North Berwick combo. LACC and TCC fans harrumph all you want but neither the charms of North Berwick or Edinburgh are easily replicated elsewhere. One minute you can be battling the elements along the Firth of Forth and the next, down a close and snuggled in a pub watching fencers go at it outside in a courtyard! 

A tip of the hat to all those that live in Edinburgh and play golf at North Berwick – I am not sure life gets any better.

Best,

[Sam Krume]

After reading your latest review of the West Links at NB, I would just like to add that I had the great pleasure of playing the course last month with David. I can honestly say, hand on heart, it was the most fun I've ever had on a golf course. After playing Renaissance on the previous day (a big, bold and thoroughly enjoyable golf course), to play the West Links with all of its beguiling eccentricities, holes that I know of no where else, brought a smile to my face like no other course has and maybe will and I managed to hold 16 and make birdie....

[Jay Mickle]

As Mid Pines  stands as the perfect fun counterpoint to Number 2, so also North Berwick is the perfect count fun counter point to The Old Course.
NB is a course I could play everyday and never tire of it.

[Thomas Dai]

Many thanks for this updated profile. Nice to see photos taken from angles outwith the norm.


What is the prevailing wind direction?


Atb

[Ian Galbraith]

Many thanks for this updated profile. Nice to see photos taken from angles outwith the norm.


What is the prevailing wind direction?


Atb

Mostly a westerly, but that pattern has been broken somewhat over the past year with quite a few days of easterly winds. An east wind certainly is the tougher of the two to contend with.,

[Sean_A]

Ran

Tidy review.  A few questions comments.

1. Why no love for #11?

2. Doak's well known comments are now irrelevant.  Did anybody offer reasons why the 12th has now become a bunker mess when previously it was an elegant hole with two guiding bunkers?  The 12th is an early leader for one of the biggest architectural crimes of the 21st century.

3. It is interesting, now with the 12th no longer being cleverly bunkered, that the bunkers on 8 (2nd shot) and 9 (drive) make up a significant percentage of the best placed bunkers on the course.  Is there some truth that flat par 5s need a bit of spice? If so...why so little love for these holes?

4. I am pleased you noted the 4th....this is a very cool hole. 

5. Given that the first at Machrihanish gets loads of glory for its opening sea hole, why do you think NB's 2nd gets so little press? If we forget about the fame of other holes and looked at NB afresh...I think the 2nd could well be the best hole on the course.  The combo of beach right and moghuls left is most cunning.

Cheers & Ciao

[Tony_Muldoon]

  The 12th is an early leader for one of the biggest architectural crimes of the 21st century.

Cheers & Ciao

Tee hee….
 
I don’t know why this twists your knickers so hard. 
 
They could have
 
1 Left it alone – problematic given how driving distances have changed and the hole plays most often down wind
2 Made it bigger- see above.
3 Added 3(?) around it to make it more formidable and harder to fly.
 
I agree it’s more of a ‘lighthouse’ and less understated these days. But given the hole plays as a slight dogleg around it, putting the thought of them into my mind has resulted in many a mishap. Just as was the intention.
 
 
If I could do anything on the course, I would soften the straight across the green, rise on the 4^th. That’s the most artificial feature on the course to me. The playing effect would be minimal - perhaps the right edge could funnel more balls to the bunker - but that’s what jars my eye.


But on the whole, leave well alone...

[Sean_A]

  The 12th is an early leader for one of the biggest architectural crimes of the 21st century.

Cheers & Ciao

Tee hee….
 
I don’t know why this twists your knickers so hard. 
 

Because like adding yards...clubs add bunkers in the hope of toughening a hole rather than creating interest.  The elegant original 2 bunker left fairway/right green concept of the hole was slowly tossed under the bus in favour of a hammer in the head penal strategy of driving and approaching between bunkers...boring.  The added extra few bunkers only add oil to the fire...ala Rees Jones style. I would have thought all would have learned from Trump Aberdeen that circular bunkers packed together isn't a look to be copied.

The powers that be should step back and think what was there all not that long ago and try to work using those guidelines rather than entirely altering the fabric of the hole.


Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

I defer to Ran on such matters, and even (to some extent) to the consensus opinion; but I've been on this board for almost a decade and I still have no clue what we think Ran's predecessors -- e.g. the aforementioned Nick Edmunds, or Pat Ward-Thomas for example -- didn't know or recognize or value or appreciate about a course like North Berwick that we, now, so clearly say we do. Were they less well travelled/experienced than current-day counterparts like Ran? less sophisticated? more prone to being duped by the "championship" ethos than we are? unduly influenced by  contemporary tastes and temperaments? less able to embrace the true spirit of the game? I just can't see/imagine that. We toss off terms like "changing tastes", but I don't think we really mean it -- especially when it comes to a course that we rate very highly. What we actually mean, I think, is that we are able to see the greatness that was always there, while those in the past couldn't.  What's that about? Do we actually think that's true?

[Tom_Doak]

I defer to Ran on such matters, and even (to some extent) to the consensus opinion; but I've been on this board for almost a decade and I still have no clue what we think Ran's predecessors -- e.g. the aforementioned Nick Edmunds, or Pat Ward-Thomas for example -- didn't know or recognize or value or appreciate about a course like North Berwick that we, now, so clearly say we do. Were they less well travelled/experienced than current-day counterparts like Ran? less sophisticated? more prone to being duped by the "championship" ethos than we are? unduly influenced by  contemporary tastes and temperaments? less able to embrace the true spirit of the game? I just can't see/imagine that. We toss off terms like "changing tastes", but I don't think we really mean it -- especially when it comes to a course that we rate very highly. What we actually mean, I think, is that we are able to see the greatness that was always there, while those in the past couldn't.  What's that about? Do we actually think that's true?

Peter:


I do think it's a matter of changing tastes - and maybe not having someone like Bernard Darwin around to remind everyone what was sacrosanct. 


North Berwick and Prestwick are the two courses which embody this most.  Both have a number of stunning holes, but they're also very short, quirky in the extreme, and they have blind holes, all of which went against the grain of "modern golf."  Quirk and blind holes met the same objection from good players as lack of length, being considered not a fair test of great play.


There's a brief aside in the foreword to The World Atlas of Golf, written by Alistair Cooke, chiding the authors for omitting Maidstone from the great triumvirate of Hamptons courses, in favor of places like Medinah #3 [which he described as "a claustrophobia of woods"].  Having not read Bernard Darwin yet, that was my first clue, at age 12 or 13, that all the experts of the day might be barking up the wrong tree.


Indeed, now that I think about it, the Depression and the War did not just grind the business of golf architecture to a halt ... it saw the dispatch of the majority of the people who cared about golf architecture the most. 


My favorite passage in the new "Simpson and Co." book was a quote from an interview Darwin did with Tom Simpson and Stuart Paton in 1938, regarding a couple of changes they had made to Woking.  [Stuart Paton was the member who had started changing Woking in the early 1900's, which got Simpson interested in golf architecture to begin with.]  Darwin reported that "they do not much like the new golf of full shots; they prefer the nice calculations, the varied artifice, even the pawkiness of the old; above all, they love a stroke that has something in it of ingenuity in which the player disdains the obvious attack and essays one of subtlety and control."  Simpson also, 'with solemn fervour, remarked: "I think that in fifty years I have had more fun out of my driving putter than out of any other club.'"


Which might be the first time the word "fun" was used by a golf architect in print. Darwin lived until 1961, and Tom Simpson until 1964, but their influence on golf had long since waned.  It's a good thing some of us can read.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Peter that’s a tough Question to answer.
 
I think it has something to do with…even though North Berwick was always one of a kind, people were unsure of how to rank it, when it was clearly a little different to ‘the norm’. Ellie would be another. In the last 20 years most famous links have tightened their courses, maybe tweaked a few greens and increased the challenge in a way that North Berwick really hasn’t. (Although I believe those who say it has got narrower the rough is more benign than at many courses and it remains playable even in in 53 knot winds!). So now at North Berwick you play with your head up, wondering what it will surprise you with next (yes even after 35+ plays). At other Championship links you play with your head down and concentrate hard because you know every errant shot will exact punishment.  i.e. the others are all wearing the same restrictive Uniform and NB’s unique charms are all the more evident and enticing.
 
 
Ran you state with certainty that the rear half of the 16^th green was added in 1895.   Can you remember where you read that?  One of the mysteries about the course is why Pat Ward Thomas, Darwin, Dickenson, Steele etc all wrote glowingly about the course without ever mentioning what I consider to be the most singular green in golf?

[BCrosby]

Good questions, Peter. I think you have bumped into the elephant in the room. TD hints at something similar in another thread.

Rankings are careful to protect their credibility. They will tend to defer to the common wisdom of a given time. I think that deference, more than the inherent quality of the courses themselves, accounts for why there is so little movement among the top 50 or so courses. Too much boat-rocking undermines your ratings in the eyes of a broad public who have expectations about certain courses. (I think that is why TD's GC in the mid-90's was such a bombshell.  He didn't worry overly much about the prevailing common wisdom.) 

The need for credibility was probably magnified for early raters like Edmunds or Ward-Thomas. It was important that they were seen as believable by golfing punters at the time. So there was an in-built reluctance to stray very far off the reservation. (And that reservation was the fact that they did ratings during and at the tail-end of the RTJ era.)

I'd guess that the ascendancy of North Berwick over the last couple of decades is a function of increased play of the course by American and UK tourists (plus TD's CG added for seasoning). They gradually changed the prevailing common wisdom about NB from a fun second tier course to a fun first tier course. With so many more people visiting and enjoying NB, it became less of a risk to the credibility of raters to rank it much higher. And so they did.


Bob

   

[JC Urbina]

Ran,


Your description of North Berwick sounds like a bit of Victorian Era ( romanticism and mysticism)  which this course certainly deserves.  I proudly wear my North Berwick Tie on special occasions to honor what this place stands for.  On my last visit to NB almost 6 years ago I played it in the morning and at the end of the day went back to shoot photos and enjoy the special land it sits on with the setting sun.


Although I agree with your assessments of the golf course I honestly believe that if more then one North Berwick existed it would not  be as highly regarded.  I have seen walls reconstructed to emulate the wall at NB and it was not greeted with such high regard.  If you built the 16th hole at NB today or recaptured the essence of its design you would be laughed out of the conversation by "Experts"
The 14th hole would be looked down upon because of its blind characteristics.   If you told people before  they had  a chance to see photos  that on this course some of the front nine had homes lining the fairways and that the finishing holes have a hotel and parking lot lining the 17th and 18th holes they would instantly cringe on its validity.


That being said, someday if I could include some of the same romanticism and mysticism thrown in on one of my new designs I would hope  you would  share they same thoughtful explanations of a modern design I was involved with. 


Wonderful profile, nothing else like NB and maybe nothing should ever be like it again.


"Spread the word, golf is supposed to be fun"-   Jim Urbina

[Sean_A]

Does anybody really know how P W-T or NE ranked courses?  I have never seen or heard of personal rankings from these guys. Its not a good idea to assume that what is in a book is based on 100% personal preference.  We know, for instance, that later editions of the World Atlas of Golf had editorial pressure to include a broad spectrum of courses.  It could well be that P W-T had similar editorial demands.

Hell...Ran doesn't make his personal rankings known to the public...not so far as I know anyway.  Its quite rare for very prominent people in golf to publish personal rankings up to 100 courses.   

I think a huge reason why NB is seen as higher quality than previously is directly tied to the renaissance of the past 20 years.  A new breed of guys have taken over rankings, much of the time closely linked with the renaissance/minimalism movement. Sometimes, guys have even created their own rankings which have gauned credibility...ala Daruis Oliver. 

I strongly believe rank and file raters still see the likes of Prestwick (which ain't a short course anymore Tom) and NB as odd outliers that have to be "dealt" with somehow.  The real question to me is if raters will permit the non-famous outliers to punch lists.  Its really quite an easy decision to include Prestwick and NB because they are and always have been famous.

Ciao

[Dave McCollum]

I can’t remember whose account of NB put it on my bucket list.  When planning my one Scottish golf journey, I read a motley assortment descriptions—Darwin, Morrisett, Mackenzie, Dan Jenkins, Wind, and a bunch of stuff coughed up on the Internet.   However, it may have been Jim Finegan’s enthusiastic endorsement that did the trick: 

“Admittedly, it is old-fashioned and, on occasion, even odd.  But it is irresistibly old-fashioned and irresistibly odd.”

 When we finally got there, we planned on playing the West Links in the morning and the East course (The Glen?) in the afternoon.  As soon we as walked off 18, we made arrangements to go around again.  Unfortunately, it was our last day of golf.  Had we scheduled it at the beginning of the trip, we might have never left and missed out on playing some fabulous golf courses.

At the time, I didn’t know about this DG (did look at course reviews), wasn’t familiar with Tom’s CG or other guides, didn’t really give a hoot about ratings, and relied primarily on books for where I wanted to go.  Mostly old books that reveled in the experience, sense of place, a dab of history, and perhaps a dose of sentimentality that fell out of fashion in later years.  Finegan’s book wasn’t that old.  But he wrote like he was.

[Bill_McBride]

Good questions, Peter. I think you have bumped into the elephant in the room. TD hints at something similar in another thread.

Rankings are careful to protect their credibility. They will tend to defer to the common wisdom of a given time. I think that deference, more than the inherent quality of the courses themselves, accounts for why there is so little movement among the top 50 or so courses. Too much boat-rocking undermines your ratings in the eyes of a broad public who have expectations about certain courses. (I think that is why TD's GC in the mid-90's was such a bombshell.  He didn't worry overly much about the prevailing common wisdom.) 

The need for credibility was probably magnified for early raters like Edmunds or Ward-Thomas. It was important that they were seen as believable by golfing punters at the time. So there was an in-built reluctance to stray very far off the reservation. (And that reservation was the fact that they did ratings during and at the tail-end of the RTJ era.)

I'd guess that the ascendancy of North Berwick over the last couple of decades is a function of increased play of the course by American and UK tourists (plus TD's CG added for seasoning). They gradually changed the prevailing common wisdom about NB from a fun second tier course to a fun first tier course. With so many more people visiting and enjoying NB, it became less of a risk to the credibility of raters to rank it much higher. And so they did.


Bob

 

Didn't the same increase in popularity occur when Tom Watson fell in love with Ballybunion and Herbert Warren Wind wrote "North to Dornoch?"    Exposure led to curiosity and golf travel to far away destinations. 

[BCrosby]

Quite possibly, Bill. I'm curious, did Bally and RD make big moves up in rankings after they became better known?

An interesting aside: About 1900 someone wrote to Golf Illustrated asking about courses to play other than the usual TOC, Prestwick, Muirfield, etc. John Low responded saying that over the previous three summers he had played an excellent but little-known course north of Inverness - Dornoch.

Bob

[Tom_Doak]

Quite possibly, Bill. I'm curious, did Bally and RD make big moves up in rankings after they became better known?

An interesting aside: About 1900 someone wrote to Golf Illustrated asking about courses to play other than the usual TOC, Prestwick, Muirfield, etc. John Low responded saying that over the previous three summers he had played an excellent but little-known course north of Inverness - Dornoch.

There weren't really any international rankings of courses when Herb Wind wrote about Ballybunion in 1971, or even when Tom Watson first visited.  The GOLF Magazine ranking of 1979 was about the first, and it wasn't paid much attention to until 1983 or 1985.  But it certainly did help establish Dornoch and Ballybunion in everyone's idea of the world's top 10-20.


Dornoch was not unknown a hundred years ago, because several wealthy families from around London made it up there each summer; in addition to John Low there were the Wethereds and Sir Ernest Holderness.  [The same could be said of North Berwick.  Those big homes along the course didn't belong to the Scots.]  But by 1980 Dornoch was back to being unsung.  When I was headed up there from St. Andrews for the first time, I asked Walter Woods what he thought of it and he said "I've heard it's very good."  He had never been that far north ... it was a six or seven hour drive!

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks gents, fine posts.

What seems clear to me is that with courses like NB there are now qualities being seen, and seen as highly desirable, that weren't seen that same way before.  This suggests to me that seeing is perhaps more a matter of consciousness than of the senses, and more based on the will than on the optic nerves.  And that in turn suggests a distinct possibility, ie that we rate courses highly not based primarily on the golf holes we (physically) see and play, but instead on an overall feeling and impression of quality that a golf course somehow manages to generate in us -- a Quality that then our consciousness and will projects out ("sees") and makes manifest in and through the individual golf holes. In other words, maybe we have always had this rating business totally backwards, but have not yet realized it; we praise a course for the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, and so miss the fact that we're not primarily "seeing" either the parts or the sum of the parts -- only the Quality of the Whole, which we then (often immediately/spontaneously) feel compelled to break down into parts and analyze piece by piece in order to justify/objectify our deeper vision to the outside world. It could well be, in my view, that the perceived greatness of a course like Sand Hills or Pacific Dunes - or of other courses that look like they've been here for a thousand years - has much to do with what they "generate in our consciousness" and thus have us "seeing" throughout the course and in/through the individual holes. And perhaps what such courses manage to generate is the deeply felt and profoundly satisfying sense of Permanence (in an ever-fleeting world) and the beneficence and beauty of Nature's Unmatched Quality (in a secular world without God). If so, it is no wonder that we think of such courses as 10s: they give us both, at one and the same time, the Heaven and the Earth, the Game and the game, the Field of play and its fields of Play -- and thereby satisfy both ways of human seeing! How could we perceive a poor/boring golf hole or an uninspired vista or a less than interesting golf shot when the overall and dominant experience these great courses provide is one of such complete Engagement?   

Peter

PS - I think there's a Max Behr-type essay in there someplace, related to how the (obvious) hand of man on a golf course engenders only one type of seeing, i.e. the physical kind, and thus makes of the golfer merely a Perceiver instead of a Participant.

[hhuffines]

Referring back to the 13th hole at NB, the slope left of the green was covered by deep rough.  Is that an environmental issue, a maintenance choice or part of the challenge of the hole itself?  Several other slopes on the course were more closely mowed and allowed a fortunate bounce. 

[Tim Gallant]

Referring back to the 13th hole at NB, the slope left of the green was covered by deep rough.  Is that an environmental issue, a maintenance choice or part of the challenge of the hole itself?  Several other slopes on the course were more closely mowed and allowed a fortunate bounce.

Others will know better, but I believe that bank used to be shaved. However, they have grown it up a bit to ensure the player who wants a shot close to the pin challenges the wall. Deep rough is a bit of an exaggeration as I have never seen anyone lose a ball on that bank, and 5 times out of 10, it will kick onto the green. Just a bit more unpredictable now.

[Ian Galbraith]

I also think having it as light rough is important to give a bit of piquancy to the knee trembling chip if you don't  clear the wall with your approach. If the bank were shaved it would be a no brainer to toss it anywhere on the bank and have it run back down.

[Jay Mickle]

The discussion reminded me of this article that I picked up somewhere. I know I have seen it on the wall at Tobacco Road where one surely needs to be able to appreciate Rembrandt, DaVinci, Picasso, each for its own merits.

[hhuffines]

I don't know how to post a photo but that rough was sufficiently deep when I walked through it in early Oct.  Perhaps they were leaving it for the winter. 


Good find Jay!  Almost very course I played there this year either gave me or sold a yardage book.  I asked for one at NB and was advised they don't have those or pin sheets at NB, because it is "a proper links course."  I hope to play it enough to develop a clear image of what lays ahead!

[JJShanley]

Perhaps I've misunderstood hhuffines' conversation with someone at NB, but I have a yardage book for the course back in Edinburgh.  I bought it in March 2015, when I walked it with Papa Shanley during a team match he played there for Craigielaw.