Best Starts and FInishes: The Sir Thomas Beecham question applied to GCA

[Richard Fisher]

Many apologies if (as I strongly suspect) there have been previous GCA threads on this theme, but what do people think are


1) the best first three holes
AND
2) the best last three holes


on the same golf course? I am going to start the ball rolling in the West of England, with Burnham (main course) and St Enedoc (ditto). Fab starts and finishes to both.

[Tom_Doak]

I'll go with NGLA.  The start is pretty unconventional but always interesting.

[Brett Meyer]

I think that Pinehurst no.2 is a standard choice for the opening three--and rightfully so. An under-appreciated but excellent first three in England is Hankley Common. Another in that category is Burnham and Berrow.


Obviously the competition is going to be pretty hot for the closing three because it's natural to want to have a big finish. Two of the best that I've seen--although I'm not sure that they'd rank so highly if I'd seen everything--are Mid Pines and St. George's Hill.

[Niall C]

When you consider these things there is a tendency to run through the championship courses first. In doing that the course that jumped out at me was Carnoustie. A feared and renowned finish and a fairly varied and excellent start.

Niall

[Phil Burr]

Hard to go wrong with Pine Valley...

[Phil Burr]

I could also go with Cape Breton Highlands Links.  Golfing paradise.

[Tim Martin]

Old Town Club

[BCrosby]

Richard - I've listened to a fair bit of Sir Thomas Beecham's music. His discovery of and recitals with Kathleen Ferrier are remarkable, for example. Lot's of other good stuff.


Perhaps I have missed something obvious, but what do three good opening and closing holes have to do with him and/or his music?


Bob


 

[Richard Fisher]

Bob


Beecham is said to have observed that the secret of live performance was a good start and a good finish, and that nobody much noticed what happened in the middle...as with many Beecham stories that may be apocryphal, but somehow it's stuck. And it was that sentiment about a good start and a good finish that I was applying to courses. Both B&B and St Enedoc do seem to me exemplars, and if all of their middles were as good as their beginnings and end both would be even more highly esteemed than they are now.


Totally off topic but Beecham's recording of Carmen was for many years the only classical recording to have ever hit the UK LP charts...

[Thomas Dai]

Good call of Carnoustie by Niall. Honourable mention imo for Royal Aberdeen.
Imagine if golf were only played over 6-holes.
Atb

[Sean_A]

Burnham is a good call Richard. What about Deal and St George's Hill?

Ciao