Value of "Ordinary" Golf

[Steve Kohler]

Destination clubs/resorts have dominated much of the airtime in the golf media over the last several years.  There’s breathless coverage of places like Bandon, Cabot, Ohoopee, the next Discovery Land project, etc.  Each of them receive glowing writeups complete with glamour shots and sunset drone flyovers.  A stampede of golf cognoscenti and social media influencers follow in short order to inform the unwashed masses of the experience they’re missing out on.

Most have compelling design, beautiful settings and over-the-top service.  What’s not to like?  But it’s a limited population that will ever experience golf like this.  A relatively small subset of golfers will ever go to Bandon.  An even smaller group will ever get beyond the gates of a buzzy, exclusive club.  Is this the equivalent of the masses drooling over the newest Ferrari, knowing they’ll never get within arm’s length of one?

Where is the appreciation for your home club down the street?  The course with a fuzzy architectural heritage and a few too many ornamental trees.  The locker room is musty-smelling and the snack bar is staffed with sullen teenagers.  Is it possible to find excitement and strategic interest in these places – and say so out loud?  Or is it like parking a dented Camry in the far corner of the lot and hoping none of your friends ask what design elements you value in it?

To get to the point: does the echo chamber’s (here on GCA and elsewhere) emphasis on “new” and the “best [choose your adjective]” drown out the appreciation for the ordinary and mundane of golf?  Is stating that you enjoy a Doak 3 akin to admitting that you’re an uncultured rube?

[Mark_Fine]

Jeff Brauer and I have posted on here numerous times (and just recently) that his site is primarily focused on the Top 1% or so of golf courses. It is a fact and that is fine but that is not where the world plays golf.  It is like The Masters - we love to watch and great to talk about, but not reality for 99%+ of the golfers who play this game.  This site could probably make a difference if it focused attention on the 99% of courses that don't get mentioned and how the collective knowledge and experience here can help/influence those kind of golf courses.  I proposed a month where no course on any Top 100 list gets discussed.  That went over great    Those threads sadly don't create much interest.  Feel free to give it a try. 

[Tom_Doak]

Steve:


Ordinary courses are indeed valuable.


The problem with discussing them is that there is no overlap.  The charms of the course closest to your home are hard to describe to me, and the charms of the course close to my home are equally foreign to you, and you're unlikely to ever come and see them for yourself.


It's hard to sustain a conversation on that basis, but you are welcome to try!  I'm sure Mark will be happy to cheerlead it, so you'll probably hear less from me just on that basis 

[Thomas Dai]

Relativity is important.
Play a course now seen as ‘ordinary’ or ‘lessor’ with equipment from a bygone era and the course will likely seem more of a challenge and less ‘ordinary’ or ‘lessor’, probably even more so if yesteryears maintenance and conditioning practices also apply.
Atb

[Mark_Fine]

That is one problem, not many people have seen someone else's local courses but I still think they could be discussed in general and some threads have tried.  Honestly, there are a lot of threads where only a handful of people have seen the top courses either that are being discussed.  Correct me if I am wrong, but are there more than 20 contributors here that have seen more than 15 of the Top 100 courses in the world?  How many have seen at least half of the Top 100 in the U.S. or in Europe?  Probably not many so maybe discussion about some of the courses that are little known might not be that bad. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

I always say the biggest distance issue in golf is the distance from front door to first tee, and most golf is played within 20 miles of home.  So, of course, it's important.  And, not only that, but while the quality of classics remains relatively equal over different design periods, there is little doubt that the "country club for a day" or "upscale public" design quality starting increasing dramatically in the 1980's and continues to this day.  So, yeah, it is probably worth more discussion, but for reasons listed, it is not. (insert sad face)


I also always say that the moniker "A course you could play every day" is undervalued.  Yes, we want to get to those dramatic resort courses or play a tournament course a few times per year, and their designs often justify the excitement.  But, part of it is getting to see something you DON"T see every day.  Would you really want to play a Dye course where you shoot 20 over your normal score most times (in exchange for occasionally having a career-best at such a course 5% or 0.5% less of the time?  I believe most golfers just want to shoot near their average score most days.  They want some challenge, or it wouldn't be exciting enough, but not so much as to leave with that "all beat up" feeling.  And, designing to that standard, most places most of the time, is an important part of design philosophy, again, most of the time.


BTW, even those exciting designs can get blah when overdone.  Case in point, with it's fantastic shaping, I started to find every hole at PGA West melded together over the round.  Perhaps a few simpler greens in that (or almost any design) would make each hole more memorable, which is a bit off topic, but trying to point out that we want to make every course good, but somehow, the top 1% are going to rise, even if everything below it is better than it used to be.

[Peter Pallotta]

There's no one here except us -- what this site has become reflects who we ourselves are: what we value and want. Of the few here who have consistently expressed a sincere interest in 'value golf', Sean A stands out as a particularly astute observer: he recognizes, appreciates and promotes the wonderful quality that abounds in the modest and unsung courses that surround us. [Cleeve Cloud is a municipal course, I believe.] We are free to do likewise; to demonstrate what we actually care about by the way we spend our time and money. I should spend a lot less time here and a lot more money at a couple of quality municipals near my home.

[Carl Rogers]

The world is a big place and there are few courses that enough people have played that would permit a discussion with common knowledge.  I enjoy the comments about courses I will never get to play.

[Ira Fishman]

I particularly enjoy Sean A, Joe B, and Mike C's photo tours. They probably do not produce a lot more discussion but they do highlight the virtues on less than famous courses.


To answer Mark F's question though, there are more people on here than you might think that have played more than 15 of World Top 100.


Ira

[Kalen Braley]

I think there are primarily 2 reasons for this, the first already explained by Tom.

Secondly thou, I would compare it to Pro Sports and top college sports.  While it represents only a tiny minority of the golf, basketball, baseball, etc being played overall, it is the best of the best.  No one wants to tune in to watch a Rec League game much less discuss it.  Its nothing personal, just that no one cares outside of a few people...

[Mark_Fine]

Ira,
I hope you are right and maybe you are. 


Kalen,
The reason we should care is that this is where we can have the most impact and really make a positive difference.  There are some threads here every once in a while that can be helpful in this regard but too many that are just talking about courses that very few of us will ever play and that we have little influence over.  There really are a lot of regular courses out there that we can help (if nothing else to talk about as examples that others can emulate).  Most don’t have $15MM+ to do what they did at Harding Park but some have a few dollars that if well spent can be positive for the golfers who play there. 


Ran and his team have set up a great platform for us to get the word out.  I don’t know about you but I get a lot of emails from people who peruse this site and are thankful when they see useful and thoughtful posts.  People I don’t even know which is nice.  We can make a difference here 

[Kalen Braley]

Mark

I agree with you in concept, and I did my fair share of local course reviews a number of years back.   They were fun to do, I really enjoyed taking the snaps, organizing them, uploading, writing up comments, etc...but they generated little interest beyond the off-hand chance someone also played the course.

And with 15,000+ courses, just here in the states alone, it really just comes down to that lack of overlap that Tom mentioned.  We've maybe discussed 3-4% of those over the last 15-20 years and most of the non-top 200 I can barely recall.

[Sean_A]

There's no one here except us -- what this site has become reflects who we ourselves are: what we value and want. Of the few here who have consistently expressed a sincere interest in 'value golf', Sean A stands out as a particularly astute observer: he recognizes, appreciates and promotes the wonderful quality that abounds in the modest and unsung courses that surround us. [Cleeve Cloud is a municipal course, I believe.] We are free to do likewise; to demonstrate what we actually care about by the way we spend our time and money. I should spend a lot less time here and a lot more money at a couple of quality municipals near my home.

Happy New Year Pietro.

To be fair, a ton of the less known courses I profile are not ordinary at all. That is why I visit, hoping to find something good regardless of stature. I reckon that if I like the courses others would as well. In hindsight that often doesn't seem to be case. I think the reason for this relative indifference is down to so called substandard conditions, lack of design eye candy and odd terrain which can often result in odd architecture. Most golfers like predictable, straight forward courses. I am not overly keen on ordinary and don't think most places need to settle for such a low standard.

BTW
So do you have to support the Canucks now?

Happy Hockey

[Tom Bacsanyi]

I think the threads that I find most interesting tend to be in regards to fun, cheap, cool golf courses that have modest budgets, and how those courses are marketed, maintained, and sustained financially. Discussions around The Fields as one example, even though I have never been there. The question that keeps coming up in my mind is good architecture at a good price really that difficult to do? Perhaps it is.


But why aren't there more places like:


CommonGround
The Fields
Rustic Canyon


etc.


I believe that is the eternal question of the day, not whether Old Mac is the best or worst at BD, or whether or not the 13th tee at Augusta should be located in a currrent Chick-fil-A parking lot.

[Jeff_Brauer]

The question that keeps coming up in my mind is good architecture at a good price really that difficult to do? Perhaps it is.

I keep coming back to the quote that you do no more than is necessary.  I do find that among gca's, we have varying ideas of what is necessary.


For example, one good gca seemed to provide great courses on lower budgets.  His greens were as large as you would want, and there were numerous attractive sand bunkers.  When I started examining it, he devoted a lot less budget to irrigation and drainage than I would, and did partial paths.  In the end, I downsized my drainage criteria a bit (he used 1/4" per hour whereas I had previously used at least 1" per hour drainage) but as we discuss often here, it is not very popular to sacrifice cart paths and irrigation to build a few more bunkers.

[Steve Kohler]

It’s fun to have escapist fantasies of gallivanting around the country playing every top tier course along the way.  I’ve played a handful of courses that deserve every accolade and compliment they receive.  Spectacular, compelling stuff.  But not the day-to-day reality for 99% of us.
 
As a forum, we’ve established the bona fides of these “best of” courses over a 20+ year archive of content.  There’s some fantastic stuff on this board, but how many more adjectives can we collectively conjure up to describe Pine Valley/Cypress Point/NGLA/Merion/etc? 
 
How does GCA keep its content fresh and pull new voices into the discussion?  Here’s some thoughts on different topics I would find interesting:
 
- Where are there unheralded golf courses worth checking out?  I enjoy TD’s Confidential Guide for this sole reason
- Is there a single interesting design element you can highlight at an otherwise dull course?
- How did the design of the course you learned the game on influence your tastes?
- When did you first become aware of the impact of design on how you play the game?
- What’s the most extreme landform you’ve seen a well-executed hole on?
- How have you used an opponent’s GCA naivete to your advantage in competition?
- How does pace of play affect your perception of a course?
- What does your local course do well to engage more women and children in the game?
- How does your home club promote it’s history/architectural pedigree?

[Mike_Young]

Well,  Playboy Playmate of the Year edition, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, Golf digest top 100, Golfweek Best 10 Built last Week Edition, Golf Magazine Best Edition all have things the average guy will never play.  And so often may not be as good as the "ordinary".  Owners and marketing have so much to do with so much of the noted "Best of" being there.  The real value is in ordinary...

[Peter Sayegh]

I've never felt the majority here REALLY takes value into account.Good on those who don't care or don't have to.
When I finally cross the pond for my bucket golf trip, Sean A will be my first and only guide.

[Tom_Doak]

I've never felt the majority here REALLY takes value into account.Good on those who don't care or don't have to.
When I finally cross the pond for my bucket golf trip, Sean A will be my first and only guide.

Peter:


It's just hard to do value, because there are so many different price points / comfort levels.  The same course can be affordable for one poster, a worthwhile splurge for another, and a total rip-off as far as the third guy is concerned! 


Plus when you try to set a price point for the discussion, you eliminate some of the most prominent golf regions entirely.

[Tom_Doak]

The question that keeps coming up in my mind is good architecture at a good price really that difficult to do? Perhaps it is.

But why aren't there more places like:

CommonGround
The Fields
Rustic Canyon

It is not that difficult to do.  It does help to have a nice piece of land to start with, and those tend to be expensive nowadays.
The difficult part is to find someone who wants to do it and stop there, rather than making as many $ as they can.


What holds back the price point at Rustic Canyon?


At CommonGround it is simply because the ownership is the Colorado Golf Association, and they have not been corrupted by leadership that wants to take cash out of the golf course to fund other ventures.  Their mission statement was to make it "the best $40 course we can".

[Jeff_Brauer]

Well,  Playboy Playmate of the Year edition, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, Golf digest top 100, Golfweek Best 10 Built last Week Edition, Golf Magazine Best Edition all have things the average guy will never play.  And so often may not be as good as the "ordinary".  Owners and marketing have so much to do with so much of the noted "Best of" being there.  The real value is in ordinary...

MY, yeah, I always called the "Best New" competitions the "big budget" editions.  Sounds similar to what the swimsuit issue is putting out.


Back to value, while I have had some disagree with me, I have always touted building a course where you can/do charge a $40-$50 green fee, but the course feels like a $70 course when compared to other local courses.  You will beat them away with a stick.  That idea sort of covers all the various possible price points, a la Tom Doak's statement.

[Tom_Doak]

Back to value, while I have had some disagree with me, I have always touted building a course where you can/do charge a $40-$50 green fee, but the course feels like a $70 course when compared to other local courses.  You will beat them away with a stick. 

I started out in the business thinking that would be my niche -- I really didn't foresee getting the kinds of jobs I've gotten.  But from the very first course I built, the owners started trying to charge a premium price instead.  I wonder what's the difference between your clients and mine?  Or maybe I sold them on it by talking about having higher goals?


I guess you have done a lot of work in metro areas where the price levels are more clearly established and only a Nicklaus course is going to come and charge the big $ premium, while I started in tourist markets [N. Michigan, Myrtle Beach] where everyone felt more competitive.  In fact, my client in Myrtle Beach was the first to buck Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday and start charging a premium for his courses!

[Peter Sayegh]

Peter:


It's just hard to do value, because there are so many different price points / comfort levels.  The same course can be affordable for one poster, a worthwhile splurge for another, and a total rip-off as far as the third guy is concerned! 


Plus when you try to set a price point for the discussion, you eliminate some of the most prominent golf regions entirely.



Tom,I agree completely...but think/play/pay locally...think/play/pay globally.When I make it over there, there are must plays in my mind, regardless of cost or hassle.But if I can play 3 or 4 Sean A courses in lieu of one, I'll take more golf/experiences than a "MUST PLAY" every time.P.S. I live in Myrtle Beach where personal preference/value (and vice versa) is as great as most places, I assume.

[Peter Pallotta]

What rankles a budget course golfer like me is that greens that so easily could be more interesting so rarely are. I can't quite believe that, no matter how limited the financing, greens that have to be designed & built anyway (as opposed to being 'found') can't be built any better -- even if only in terms of their integration with the fairways. There's not a flat, wide, featureless, poorly draining and tree-and-water-less fairway on any bargain-priced Doak 2 in existence anywhere in the world that doesn't immediately become more engaging if only the green contours (not slap-dashed green-side hazards!) suggested a preferred angle of approach, and then provided significantly more challenge for shots coming in from the other side. If you've gotta shape them anyway, for goodness sakes shape them right. I'm telling you: sometimes I've found myself thinking that if budget cars were designed as poorly as budget golf courses our roads and highways would be disaster zones!

[Pete Lavallee]

I will nominate Coronado GC, my home course as ideal. It’s an easy walk being dead flat but still very interesting to play. The scenery is outstanding with views of the Coronado Bay Bridge, the Hotel Del and Glorietta Bay. The push-up Poa Annua greens are confounding which keeps even scratch golfers on their toes. I can reach every par 4 in regulation with a good drive. I play on an 80 round yearly ticket which allows me to play for $24, with a $5 surcharge on weekends. What’s not to like about that!