Have you ever been so wrong?

[Ira Fishman]

As I mentioned on another thread, I played Pinehurst 2 in 2005 the week after the US Open. Even as a Ross fan, I thought it was a good course but over hyped. Most of the holes seemed flat and strategically not that interesting—hit it in the fairway and hope your next shot holds the green. We played it twice this week, and I realized (a) I was an idiot 15 years ago and (b) in my defense, the restoration has revitalized the course.


Any times where you made such a mistake?


Ira

[Tommy Williamsen]

I first played Peachtree about 20 years ago. I walked off the course not liking it at all. I didn't understand it, even though I played well. I thought, "If it hadn't been Bobby's course it wouldn't be in the top 500." I was in Georgia last year and had a tee time at a course in northern Georgia. A friend called and asked if I'd like to play Peachtree. I said "No thanks." He climbed all over me, so I relented. After the round I thought, "What a knucklehead I was." The terrain and the routing in that terrain are brilliant. The green complexes are outstanding and the shots into and around the greens are just fun and the player needs imagination and touch. I could play it every day.

[Peter Flory]

As I mentioned on another thread, I played Pinehurst 2 in 2005 the week after the US Open. Even as a Ross fan, I thought it was a good course but over hyped. Most of the holes seemed flat and strategically not that interesting—hit it in the fairway and hope your next shot holds the green. We played it twice this week, and I realized (a) I was an idiot 15 years ago and (b) in my defense, the restoration has revitalized the course.

I don't think that you made a mistake.  It's just way better now. 

[Mike_Young]

I first played Peachtree about 20 years ago. I walked off the course not liking it at all. I didn't understand it, even though I played well. I thought, "If it hadn't been Bobby's course it would be in the top 500." I was in Georgia last year and had a tee time at a course in northern Georgia. A friend called and asked if I'd like to play Peachtree. I said "No thanks." He climbed all over me, so I relented. After the round I thought, "What a knucklehead I was." The terrain and the routing in that terrain are brilliant. The green complexes are outstanding and the shots into and around the greens are just fun and the player needs imagination and touch. I could play it every day.

I think it is the best in Ga...

[Peter Pallotta]

What’s striking to me about Tommy’s story is that 20 years ago he played Peachtree well — so he must’ve possessed (back then) the very imagination and touch that he (now) realizes a player needs there. Which means that either Tommy (back then) took his imagination & touch for granted, and so was unable to see/appreciate what Peachtree was asking of him and ‘rated’ it accordingly, or that Tommy (now) is relying more than ever on said imagination and touch and so is ‘rating’ it accordingly higher....or both!  

[Tommy Williamsen]

Peter, I think there is a third option; I was blind. The first time I didn't appreciate the significant elevation changes or the slope in the greens. I hadn't seen enough courses, good and bad, to really pass judgement intelligently. There are so many different kinds of courses out there that to fully appreciate them one has to see as big variety on many different landscapes as is possible.
I spoke with a very good player who just returned from Philly Cricket Wissahicken. He told me that it didn't have enough trees. "They cut down way too many." He only knows tree-lined parkland courses. I felt sad for him and his "arrested development."


The more courses I see the more I appreciate courses that don't fit the mold.

[Bill Brightly]

I don't think that you made a mistake.  It's just way better now.

+1

[Mike Hendren]

Apparently I’m wrong right now since I have Augusta National superior to Peachtree by at least 2 points on any scale.

[David Wuthrich]

I think that with all of the renovations that are taking place that there might be quite a few courses that we didn't like 20 to 30 years ago that we would see in a much different light today.


I also agree with Tommy that our appreciation changes over time as we see more and more great courses.

[A.G._Crockett]

I first played Peachtree about 20 years ago. I walked off the course not liking it at all. I didn't understand it, even though I played well. I thought, "If it hadn't been Bobby's course it would be in the top 500." I was in Georgia last year and had a tee time at a course in northern Georgia. A friend called and asked if I'd like to play Peachtree. I said "No thanks." He climbed all over me, so I relented. After the round I thought, "What a knucklehead I was." The terrain and the routing in that terrain are brilliant. The green complexes are outstanding and the shots into and around the greens are just fun and the player needs imagination and touch. I could play it every day.

I think it is the best in Ga...

Mike, I would agree completely.  I don't have enough superlatives for that golf course.

[Dan_Callahan]

The first time I played Yale, I thought the 18th hole was the worst I had ever seen. Not one of the worst, but THE worst.


What I failed to realize was that the design of the hole is actually pretty cool. The maintenance of it (or lack thereof) simply made its merits difficult to see.

[John Kirk]

For me it's Crystal Downs.  I've played it three or four times.  The first time I thought it was nice but not that great.  I thought I liked Kingsley Club better, and spent much oif the evening ranting about the Downs being overrated.

By the third time, I was walking up the second fairway thinking I was on hallowed ground.  As an aside, I find the back nine just as enjoyable and interesting as the more admired first "eight plus one".  And I still think #17 is more weird than great.

Another example is the Dunes Club, which I finally played a second time a couple falls ago.  The first time I was pretty tired and worn out, and did not regard it as extraordinary.  It felt far more special the second time.  A great place, though I do have reservations about placing nine hole courses on national top 100 lists.

 

[Wayne Wiggins, Jr.]

And, how about in the other direction? Those courses you thought were great and then after repeated play or two, thought... eh, kinda overrated.


W

[Ira Fishman]

And, how about in the other direction? Those courses you thought were great and then after repeated play or two, thought... eh, kinda overrated.


W

The first time I played Congressional in the 1980s I thought it was a home run. But on subsequent plays I realized that it’s aura (and ranking) had led me astray. Certainly it is a very good course with several excellent holes (4, 5, 11, and 14 come to mind), but mostly it is just big shoulder course with not a ton of variety or intrigue.


Ira

[Peter Pallotta]

For me it's Crystal Downs.  I've played it three or four times.  The first time I thought it was nice but not that great.  I thought I liked Kingsley Club better, and spent much oif the evening ranting about the Downs being overrated.

By the third time, I was walking up the second fairway thinking I was on hallowed ground.  As an aside, I find the back nine just as enjoyable and interesting as the more admired first "eight plus one".  And I still think #17 is more weird than great.

I’ve had the first part of that experience but not yet the 2nd and 3rd parts. Which is to say: if I ever play the course again, I fully expect to realize that I was ‘so wrong’; but as of this moment, I remain blind to my mistake. Besides the wonderful 8th, my favourites are the Par 3 holes; and I think the ‘architecture’ on many of the famed Par 4s obvious and overdone/precious.

[John Kirk]

I’ve had the first part of that experience but not yet the 2nd and 3rd parts. Which is to say: if I ever play the course again, I fully expect to realize that I was ‘so wrong’; but as of this moment, I remain blind to my mistake. Besides the wonderful 8th, my favourites are the Par 3 holes; and I think the ‘architecture’ on many of the famed Par 4s obvious and overdone/precious.

Among the par 3s, I especially like #3.  My next favorite would be #14, which has some beautiful views as well.  The 9th hole is clearly the best par 3 of its kind, that kind being a par 3 added to the routing after the architect realized he'd designed a 17 hole course.  #11 is beautiful and challenging, its green extremely tilted yet hard to sense.  Overall, it's a very hard set of par 3s, since a long to middle iron shot is required for three of the four.

[Tom_Doak]

I think the ‘architecture’ on many of the famed Par 4s obvious and overdone/precious.

I'm genuinely curious how you are defining 'architecture' here.  Guys do that all the time here and I am never certain how (or why) they are trying to separate 'architecture' from other factors.


It stood out in this instance because a lot of Crystal Downs is very natural.  Sure, the greens contours are built, but that applies to the par-3 holes just ss much as the others.  A lot of the longer holes don't even have fairway bunkers, just mowing lines and a few old trees outside the corridors of play.


Not trying to call you out here - I'd be fine with it if nobody but me loved Crystal Downs.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom -
I'm holding the course to very high standards indeed, unfairly high; those Par 4s on any other course would be standouts. But that said, and relatively (or better, 'relationally') speaking: for me, standing on the tees, the architecture / the design / the 'concept-thought behind the design' took the centre stage on the Par 4s in a way that it didn't on the Par 3s. 
I don't think I'm parsing out the 'architecture' from the 'golf hole', but I may be doing just that; all I can say is that it felt like, time and time again on the Par 4s, I 'saw' the architecture popping out from the total picture in a way that I didn't see with the Par 3s. With the Par 3s (and the 8th hole), the features, the playability, the challenge, the choices, the aesthetics and the 'concept-thought behind the design' all blended together seamlessly to my eyes; they were 'one' -- and there was no 'architecture' there.
There was a simplicity about the Par 3s that was very appealing, a kind of humbleness of idea & execution that engaged me very much and that felt like 'golf'. A poor widow quietly (and secretly) dropping two dollars into a Red Cross donation basket and a young billionaire announcing his $1 million on facebook and having a building named after him -- both are acts of 'charity', but the former is the heart of it while the latter is a display copy.
This may all be 'wrong', Tom, and one day I may be adding my mea cupla to this thread; but for what it's worth: these thoughts/feelings are not the product of years of reflection, but what I thought/felt literally moments after driving away from the course after my one play -- and I was semi-embarrassed by them even then.
I remember talking just a couple of days days later to Joe Hancock, who asked me what I thought of the course. I told him that besides the 8th I liked the Par 3s best. There was a pause, and then Joe said 'Ah, that's interesting. I don't think I've heard that from anyone before' -- and I thought 'Ah, geez, I must be an idiot, and Joe's just trying to be kind and say it nicely!"

Peter
PS - I remember as well not having the honesty or the heart to tell *you* the same thing a few days later, knowing of your love of the place and given the difference in the value of our opinions

[David_Elvins]

Interesting thoughts, Peter. 


I haven't been to Crystal Downs but I have played plenty of Mackenzie courses and my opinion would be that what you see from the tee on a par 4 hole is not the architecture. 

[Tom_Doak]

I haven't been to Crystal Downs but I have played plenty of Mackenzie courses and my opinion would be that what you see from the tee on a par 4 hole is not the architecture.

Yes, I'm still in the dark as to what he is calling architecture that he's seeing.  I think maybe it's just the definition of the holes provided by the native rough - which is of course a modern conceit.

[Peter Pallotta]

David, Tom -
Yes, difficult topic/discussion - in part because words can confuse as much as elucidate, in larger part because one person's 'experience' is just that, i.e. his own inner/subjective experience.
But let me try this as a way to share that experience. Not a great or even good way, but here goes:
From photos and readings and tv watching:
I can see the 'thinking' at Augusta National, but I can't see it at The Loop.
I can see it at Old Macdonald, but I can't see it at The Old Course.
I can see it at Merion but I can't see it at Ballyneal.
Pine Valley seems to me to hide the 'thinking' very well (but in an unusual way, almost by *not* hiding it), so I'm not sure if I see it or not.
I thought I could see the 'thinking' at the Par 4s at Crystal Downs, but not on the Par 3s or on the Par 5 8th -- which is remarkable for a Par 5 in my playing experience (and even in most photos of Par 5s, even ones designed by top architects past and present): that's why I love it and think it a great golf hole.
And by the 'thinking' I mean the designer's thoughts-concepts-ideas in creating the golf hole *as* a golf hole -- which is what I call 'the architecture'.
Peter

[Anthony Gholz]

Ira:


Responding to your original topic, but not using such "grand" courses as AN and Crystal. 


Part of the perceived issue has to do with age and education, ie. gca golden age education.  I first played my home course, Port Huron Golf Club, as a 13 yo and the routing is almost identical today as it was then.  However, in the early '60s the course was still maintained as it had been through the Depression and WWII.  Several back tees had been abandon, bunkers disappeared or overgrown, and the greens were mowed as circles.  All I assume for $ maintenance reasons.  As kids playing high school golf we saw the greens as repetitive and the "green side" bunkers irrelevant because they weren't "green side" any more or had been grassed (roughed) in. 


In a plug to our restoration architect, David Savic in 2001: knowing it was a golden age course, but not having the club's Alison drawings which hadn't yet been discovered, he did it the old fashion way.  He used a probe and his feet and eyes to discover greens that in many cases were two (or more) times the size of the circles we played.  With that, and rediscovering abandon bunkers, the greens now were "green complexes" (a term I only learned years later) and bunkers and greens were threaded together.  Hopefully the members will vote this fall for the tee portion of David's master plan.  If so, 5 or 6 of Charles Alison's original back tees and another 3-4 other tees from his 1921-28 efforts will be restored.  The new greens were a stunning change to the course and the views from the original Alison back tees should be be almost as visually striking.


So yes my 15 yo omniscient view that we were playing a "rinky-dink" course was indeed (very) wrong.
Anthony