Rees Jones Exorcism | Torrey Pines

[Brad Lawrence]

“I  understand, but isn’t the point of this discussion group to at least try to explain our likes and dislikes?  If every comment on this board were “i like it” or “i hate it” without any additional context or attempt at explanation, it would be absolutely pointless. To say you can’t explain why you like or don’t like something may be true, but then why comment, especially so strongly?”



My apologies.  I didn’t know this was a hyperbole free zone.  I don’t think my language here has been strong but I can appreciate that you want opinions backed up with something with substance.


I think one reason this course gets beat up on is because it has been selected a couple times now to host a major championship. If it were just another fair golf course in California that 80% of us had never heard of, we would never be talking about it. 


When judging golf holes, I think we all use the word “pedestrian” a little differently.  To me, it’s a hole that’s just another hole. There’s nothing especially good or bad about it. It’s not quirky nor is it interesting or interesting looking. It doesn’t ask you to hit any kind of shot. It doesn’t present any interesting strategy. It’s the kind of hole that says, we might as well settle this thing on the driving range with a Trackman. At TP, as I see it, holes 1,2,4,5,9,10,11,12,15,16 are pedestrian holes.  What holes there look fun or exciting or memorable? 3,13,17 I guess. 

[Tom_Doak]

I just finished reading Derek Duncan's piece on the end of the Rees Jones era, and have to say I was surprised he failed to mention that it was mostly Phil Mickelson's comments about Atlanta Athletic Club and Cog Hill that drove the stake through Rees' heart as far as future Open Doctor commissions.
[/size]
[/size]Maybe it's just a politeness thing?  Rees is good friends with the editors of GOLF DIGEST, among many others.

[David Kelly]

  Jon,


So what'd you shoot at TP, N or S?

I would assume the implication here is that you need to play a course before you can opine on it...

Trying to delegitimize someone’s opinion because they haven’t played it seems like a cheap shot.

I think it is far from a cheap shot.  I've never set foot on Seminole GC although I've looked at the routing map many times, read about it a lot and saw a few tour pros play it last year on TV.  Still I would consider my opinion of it's architectural merits pretty worthless.  Especially next to someone who has played it and especially someone who has played it multiple times.


On the other hand I've played courses like Prairie Dunes and Rustic Canyon hundreds of times so I consider my opinion rather informed.  I remember a laughable thread on this site about 15+ years ago where a bunch of people who had played Prairie Dunes were trying to convince someone who had never been there that his deeply held convictions on the course were wrong.  In retrospect, why were we bothering?


Would you buy a book like The Confidential Guide if it was written by someone who had never played the golf courses? 

[Brad Lawrence]

  Jon,


So what'd you shoot at TP, N or S?

I would assume the implication here is that you need to play a course before you can opine on it...

Trying to delegitimize someone’s opinion because they haven’t played it seems like a cheap shot.

I think it is far from a cheap shot.  I've never set foot on Seminole GC although I've looked at the routing map many times, read about it a lot and saw a few tour pros play it last year on TV.  Still I would consider my opinion of it's architectural merits pretty worthless.  Especially next to someone who has played it and especially someone who has played it multiple times.


On the other hand I've played courses like Prairie Dunes and Rustic Canyon hundreds of times so I consider my opinion rather informed.  I remember a laughable thread on this site about 15+ years ago where a bunch of people who had played Prairie Dunes were trying to convince someone who had never been there that his deeply held convictions on the course were wrong.  In retrospect, why were we bothering?


Would you buy a book like The Confidential Guide if it was written by someone who had never played the golf courses?

[size=78%]My guess is on any given day that all of the top shelf golf courses are played by some individuals who know little about golf and know little about or care about golf course architecture.  I don’t think those individuals suddenly become  qualified to talk about the merits or lack thereof of said course.  I also don’t think that the course architecture connoisseur has a meaningless opinion until he or she has played a course. I’m all about neatly ranking courses but I have no interest in ranking the importance or validity of people’s opinions on subjective material.  You’re not going to convince me that I need to play Augusta National to understand that it is a very good course.  [/size]
[/size]
[/size]

[Jon Sweet]

  Jon,


So what'd you shoot at TP, N or S?

I would assume the implication here is that you need to play a course before you can opine on it...

Trying to delegitimize someone’s opinion because they haven’t played it seems like a cheap shot.

I think it is far from a cheap shot.  I've never set foot on Seminole GC although I've looked at the routing map many times, read about it a lot and saw a few tour pros play it last year on TV.  Still I would consider my opinion of it's architectural merits pretty worthless.  Especially next to someone who has played it and especially someone who has played it multiple times.


On the other hand I've played courses like Prairie Dunes and Rustic Canyon hundreds of times so I consider my opinion rather informed.  I remember a laughable thread on this site about 15+ years ago where a bunch of people who had played Prairie Dunes were trying to convince someone who had never been there that his deeply held convictions on the course were wrong.  In retrospect, why were we bothering?


Would you buy a book like The Confidential Guide if it was written by someone who had never played the golf courses?

[size=78%]My guess is on any given day that all of the top shelf golf courses are played by some individuals who know little about golf and know little about or care about golf course architecture.  I don’t think those individuals suddenly become  qualified to talk about the merits or lack thereof of said course.  I also don’t think that the course architecture connoisseur has a meaningless opinion until he or she has played a course. I’m all about neatly ranking courses but I have no interest in ranking the importance or validity of people’s opinions on subjective material.  You’re not going to convince me that I need to play Augusta National to understand that it is a very good course.  [/size]

Unless I am misremembering, there were courses within the book Tom Doak didn't even play.  Specifically at the time of publishing, The Cascades, which is my favorite track within the state of Virginia. With flyovers, tons of pictures, seen it on TV 100 times, and a pretty accurate recreation using lasers to capture contours and elevation in a golf simulation, I am fairly certain I have a good feel for it being bland as can be. To quote the book you champion regarding Torrey, "a fairly dull layout with a view". It's amazing to me how worked up people get because you don't think the course is the best thing since sliced bread.

[Brian Finn]

I don’t believe you can ever really know a golf course until you have at least walked it.  Ideally backwards.

Seriously, though. Can you “know” ANGC is great without visiting?  Sure. The overwhelming amount of information available and annual coverage (showing more each year) allow us to “know” almost everything about the place. To a lesser extent, the same goes for virtually any well-known or highly documented golf course, and it seems like that’s nearly all of them these days. 

However, I don’t think anyone, expert or weekend hacker, is really going to understand what a golf course is all about if they’ve never been there.  Anyone who has ever been to the Masters probably knew a ton about each hole before visiting, but seemingly every single person that visits is amazed by the scale of the property, the amount of elevation change, the brilliance of the greens, etc. That’s likely the best known course in the world, but there is still so much to learn by actually going.

As you go down the list from there, to less and less documented, broadcast, and exposed courses, in my view, the amount to be learned by actually going to the course increases (at least for courses “worth studying,” which in my opinion, includes TP South).

Of course, many people disagree with me, and of course that’s fine. One thing I will say, though, is anybody posting on this site that doesn’t want to dig into the nuance and minutiae of what makes a course great, good, indifferent, or bad, is probably in the wrong place.

[Lou_Duran]

I have a local friend who is a member of two of Dallas's best courses, an annual traveler to Carmel and, pre-Covid, to Bandon, as well as a visitor to many of the high-end resorts most of us like (Whistling Straits, Sand Valley).  A little over a month ago, he took a key employee for a three day trip to Torrey Pines and came back gushing over the place.  As to his architectural chops, he just finished reading "The Evangelist" and has started on "Anatomy" with "A Feel For The Game" and the Tillie articles collections on deck.  He may not be the gca aficionado that some here feather themselves to be, but I have yet to hear him refer to a golf course as a "track".


And yes, one should at least have played a course once before getting into heavy analysis.  Guys like Matt Ward (of "carrying the water" fame) deserve our attention a lot more than those who regularly intellectualize about courses they have only read about or seen on television.  On the other hand, posting here is mostly free and nothing is required reading.


I do suspect that there is a positive correlation here between the ability to play and the affection for TP-S.  How anyone can make a case that the course is one-dimensional and without options is incredible.  I suppose that chopping out of the rough, getting on the greens a shot or two more than in regulation followed by three-whacking would make for a dull day.  For that player, the North is available, but I'm not sure that it would be that much more fun.   

[Charles Lund]

Quote from Jason Thurman:

"I'd really like to understand the specific constraints governing the routing of Torrey Pines. My knowledge currently only amounts to "I believe it was pretty restrictive."Dreaming of California Kidnappers sounds fun but I'm like 90% sure it wasn't an option."


One thing to remember is that Torrey Pines was originally built as a public municipal course and for a number or reasons became a site of an annual tournament on the PGA Tour.  The city operates two 18 hole courses and is a steward in some sense of public funds for operation of the facility and any profit made on the operation.


I have played Cape Kidnappers and Kauri Cliffs in New Zealand, two times each on different trips in 2007 and 2008.  The developer was Julian Robertson, hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist, who had large remote sites to work with and hired David Harman to built Kauri Cliffs and Tom Doak to build Cape Kidnappers.  David Harman had 4500 acres to work with.  The Cape Kidnappers site has a lot of finger style ridges around the top of a large cliffs and the site overall has a large footprint.


The two courses were so stunning as cliffside courses I lost interest in trying to find anything superior and have played lots of links courses  and links like courses in ocean and seaside settings.


Discussing Torrey Pines South in the context of two of the most stunning cliffside courses in the world is not really a fair comparison.  Aesthetically, Hawkes Bay and the Bay of Islands have stunning beauty with or without a golf course.  I like the Pacific Ocean but there are close 1200 miles of coast line on the west side of the U.S.  La Jolla Cove and the view west of Torrey Pines is nice but not that special IMHO.


Similarly, comparing a budget for a municipal golf facility at the core of Torrey Pines with Julian Robertson's financial options is not all the realistic as a basis for a comparison.  Even if the South and North course footprints were merged, my guess is there might be a routing that would make one course somewhat better and another slightly worse.


Torrey Pines South gets a Doak rating of 5 and the old North has a rating of 5 as a carryover.  The courses listed in the Doak Guide from San Diego most are 5s or less, worth playing in the area but not calling for a special trip.  I've had a condo in San Diego since 2001.  I have good but not great options for playing golf and weather is rarely an adversity to tolerate.  I like playing the North and South at the resident rate.  Now in my 70s, I play the South from the whites and the North from the Greens on the senior resident rate and occasionally get a tee time outside the 7 day window for a surcharge. 


Charles Lund

[Jon Sweet]

I don’t believe you can ever really know a golf course until you have at least walked it.  Ideally backwards.

Seriously, though. Can you “know” ANGC is great without visiting?  Sure. The overwhelming amount of information available and annual coverage (showing more each year) allow us to “know” almost everything about the place. To a lesser extent, the same goes for virtually any well-known or highly documented golf course, and it seems like that’s nearly all of them these days. 

However, I don’t think anyone, expert or weekend hacker, is really going to understand what a golf course is all about if they’ve never been there.  Anyone who has ever been to the Masters probably knew a ton about each hole before visiting, but seemingly every single person that visits is amazed by the scale of the property, the amount of elevation change, the brilliance of the greens, etc. That’s likely the best known course in the world, but there is still so much to learn by actually going.

As you go down the list from there, to less and less documented, broadcast, and exposed courses, in my view, the amount to be learned by actually going to the course increases (at least for courses “worth studying,” which in my opinion, includes TP South).

Of course, many people disagree with me, and of course that’s fine. One thing I will say, though, is anybody posting on this site that doesn’t want to dig into the nuance and minutiae of what makes a course great, good, indifferent, or bad, is probably in the wrong place.

As I have stated along with others, I find the course bland and uninspired. Perhaps this might be better to have the people that think this is so amazing explain their position. This course is on TV every year. Not once have I said WOW. A bunch of 400 plus yard straight away par 4s with bunkers on either side of the landing area don't really scream amazing to me. I am open to having my mind changed.

[Brian Finn]

I don’t believe you can ever really know a golf course until you have at least walked it.  Ideally backwards.

Seriously, though. Can you “know” ANGC is great without visiting?  Sure. The overwhelming amount of information available and annual coverage (showing more each year) allow us to “know” almost everything about the place. To a lesser extent, the same goes for virtually any well-known or highly documented golf course, and it seems like that’s nearly all of them these days. 

However, I don’t think anyone, expert or weekend hacker, is really going to understand what a golf course is all about if they’ve never been there.  Anyone who has ever been to the Masters probably knew a ton about each hole before visiting, but seemingly every single person that visits is amazed by the scale of the property, the amount of elevation change, the brilliance of the greens, etc. That’s likely the best known course in the world, but there is still so much to learn by actually going.

As you go down the list from there, to less and less documented, broadcast, and exposed courses, in my view, the amount to be learned by actually going to the course increases (at least for courses “worth studying,” which in my opinion, includes TP South).

Of course, many people disagree with me, and of course that’s fine. One thing I will say, though, is anybody posting on this site that doesn’t want to dig into the nuance and minutiae of what makes a course great, good, indifferent, or bad, is probably in the wrong place.

As I have stated along with others, I find the course bland and uninspired. Perhaps this might be better to have the people that think this is so amazing explain their position. This course is on TV every year. Not once have I said WOW. A bunch of 400 plus yard straight away par 4s with bunkers on either side of the landing area don't really scream amazing to me. I am open to having my mind changed.

You’ve made your position clear. Thanks!

[David Kelly]

  Jon,


So what'd you shoot at TP, N or S?

I would assume the implication here is that you need to play a course before you can opine on it...

Trying to delegitimize someone’s opinion because they haven’t played it seems like a cheap shot.

I think it is far from a cheap shot.  I've never set foot on Seminole GC although I've looked at the routing map many times, read about it a lot and saw a few tour pros play it last year on TV.  Still I would consider my opinion of it's architectural merits pretty worthless.  Especially next to someone who has played it and especially someone who has played it multiple times.


On the other hand I've played courses like Prairie Dunes and Rustic Canyon hundreds of times so I consider my opinion rather informed.  I remember a laughable thread on this site about 15+ years ago where a bunch of people who had played Prairie Dunes were trying to convince someone who had never been there that his deeply held convictions on the course were wrong.  In retrospect, why were we bothering?


Would you buy a book like The Confidential Guide if it was written by someone who had never played the golf courses?

[size=78%]My guess is on any given day that all of the top shelf golf courses are played by some individuals who know little about golf and know little about or care about golf course architecture.  I don’t think those individuals suddenly become  qualified to talk about the merits or lack thereof of said course.  I also don’t think that the course architecture connoisseur has a meaningless opinion until he or she has played a course. I’m all about neatly ranking courses but I have no interest in ranking the importance or validity of people’s opinions on subjective material.  You’re not going to convince me that I need to play Augusta National to understand that it is a very good course.  [/size]

Unless I am misremembering, there were courses within the book Tom Doak didn't even play.  Specifically at the time of publishing, The Cascades, which is my favorite track within the state of Virginia. With flyovers, tons of pictures, seen it on TV 100 times, and a pretty accurate recreation using lasers to capture contours and elevation in a golf simulation, I am fairly certain I have a good feel for it being bland as can be. To quote the book you champion regarding Torrey, "a fairly dull layout with a view". It's amazing to me how worked up people get because you don't think the course is the best thing since sliced bread.

I never mentioned Torrey Pines South.  I agree it was a dull before the Jones work and I think he made it worse.  I played it twice before the renovation and twice after and I doubt I will ever bother with it again.

[Jon Sweet]

David,
Another quoted the book I believe or referenced it when saying you wouldn't buy a book from someone who hasn't played the course. Hence my response talking about a specific course he rated that he didn't play. That could have been the only one in the book or not. It is simply the only one that stuck out to me.  This thread has gone so far down the rabbit hole. I have tried to back up my views per the request but have yet to have anyone explain to me what makes the course so remarkable.  Never seen another course anywhere illicit such emotional responses from people.
I have heard the word "track" used to describe a golf course at a minimum at least 100 to 200 times. Don't really think I am too off base there but if there is a rule sheet for acceptable lingo on the board, by all means please post it. 

[Rob Marshall]

David,
Another quoted the book I believe or referenced it when saying you wouldn't buy a book from someone who hasn't played the course. Hence my response talking about a specific course he rated that he didn't play. That could have been the only one in the book or not. It is simply the only one that stuck out to me.  This thread has gone so far down the rabbit hole. I have tried to back up my views per the request but have yet to have anyone explain to me what makes the course so remarkable.  Never seen another course anywhere illicit such emotional responses from people.
I have heard the word "track" used to describe a golf course at a minimum at least 100 to 200 times. Don't really think I am too off base there but if there is a rule sheet for acceptable lingo on the board, by all means please post it.

I would be willing to bet if he didn’t play it he walked it. I doubt he rated it from a simulator.

[Tim Leahy]

Googling synonyms for bland and uninspired.

Ignorance is bliss.

[Tim Leahy]

I don’t believe you can ever really know a golf course until you have at least walked it.  Ideally backwards.

Seriously, though. Can you “know” ANGC is great without visiting?  Sure. The overwhelming amount of information available and annual coverage (showing more each year) allow us to “know” almost everything about the place. To a lesser extent, the same goes for virtually any well-known or highly documented golf course, and it seems like that’s nearly all of them these days. 

However, I don’t think anyone, expert or weekend hacker, is really going to understand what a golf course is all about if they’ve never been there.  Anyone who has ever been to the Masters probably knew a ton about each hole before visiting, but seemingly every single person that visits is amazed by the scale of the property, the amount of elevation change, the brilliance of the greens, etc. That’s likely the best known course in the world, but there is still so much to learn by actually going.

As you go down the list from there, to less and less documented, broadcast, and exposed courses, in my view, the amount to be learned by actually going to the course increases (at least for courses “worth studying,” which in my opinion, includes TP South).

Of course, many people disagree with me, and of course that’s fine. One thing I will say, though, is anybody posting on this site that doesn’t want to dig into the nuance and minutiae of what makes a course great, good, indifferent, or bad, is probably in the wrong place.

+1

[Anthony Fowler]

I see that this thread has gone a bit off the rails, but I'll try to answer the question posed in the original post. I've played Torrey South at least 100 times, mostly between 2001 and 2005 (it was $10.50/month for junior golfers in San Diego). Needless to say, I've thought a lot about the course, what I liked, and what could be better.

The setting is beautiful, and at a macro level (i.e., if you zoom out and just think about the general hole corridors), the routing is really good, making good use of the cliffs and canyons. As others have noted, a lot of the holes and greens don't get as close to the cliff and canyon edges as you might like, and some of this is surely attributable to environmental regulations. It would be great if they could push the greens and fairways a little closer to those edges so that the natural setting is a bigger part of the strategy and the golfing experience.

The greens, bunkering, shaping, etc. are very unnatural. The course could be a lot better with more natural/minimalist greens and green surroundings.

The course doesn't have enough subtlety or charm. For example, in contrast with other U.S. Open venues, there are no exciting, interesting short par 4s. The 2nd hole could be a good candidate for this if it were a little shorter and had some more interesting features (perhaps with a smaller, more exciting green). 10 is a pretty uninteresting hole where you have to backtrack a ways to get to the back tee, so that would be another good opportunity to try to build a more interesting, shorter par 4.

As far as individual holes go, I think 3, 4, 7, 13, 14, 16, and 17 are very good and could be even better with some tweaking along the lines mentioned above. Other holes are either forgettable (1, 5, and 10) or downright bad (18). The artificial pond and the artificial green on 18 are a terrible way to end the day on a seaside golf course.

Despite my sentimental attachment to the place, I suspect you'd have to go back pretty far in time to find a U.S. Open being played on a worse golf course. The sad part is that it could be great, and you wouldn't have to meaningfully change the routing. You'd just have to build some interesting greens and bunkers that fit the terrain, and you'd have to be willing to use the edges of the cliffs and the canyons a little bit more.

[Tim Leahy]

“I  understand, but isn’t the point of this discussion group to at least try to explain our likes and dislikes?  If every comment on this board were “i like it” or “i hate it” without any additional context or attempt at explanation, it would be absolutely pointless. To say you can’t explain why you like or don’t like something may be true, but then why comment, especially so strongly?”



My apologies.  I didn’t know this was a hyperbole free zone.  I don’t think my language here has been strong but I can appreciate that you want opinions backed up with something with substance.


I think one reason this course gets beat up on is because it has been selected a couple times now to host a major championship. If it were just another fair golf course in California that 80% of us had never heard of, we would never be talking about it. 


When judging golf holes, I think we all use the word “pedestrian” a little differently.  To me, it’s a hole that’s just another hole. There’s nothing especially good or bad about it. It’s not quirky nor is it interesting or interesting looking. It doesn’t ask you to hit any kind of shot. It doesn’t present any interesting strategy. It’s the kind of hole that says, we might as well settle this thing on the driving range with a Trackman. At TP, as I see it, holes 1,2,4,5,9,10,11,12,15,16 are pedestrian holes.  What holes there look fun or exciting or memorable? 3,13,17 I guess.

First of all on all the holes at TPS you have to deal with the Kikuyu rough which you don't find anywhere but Riviera or Australia. Then there are the ocean breezes to deal with that don't often allow you to just throw up a high shot without accounting for the winds.
Hole 4 has the cliffs and Pacific Ocean all the way to the green on the left side. Hardly pedestrian. Hole 11 is a great long tough par 3 into the wind to a narrow green guarded by traps on both sides and if you are putting from above the it is very difficult. Hole 12 is one of the toughest par 4's in America uphill into the wind, rough and traps with a long iron or highbrid/wood to a green that is very tough to putt.  Hole 16 is another tough par 3 into the ocean wind with hazard left and trapped on both sides of another green very tough to putt. Nothing bland at this course, just subtle. It is not Pebble or Cypress but what is?

[Mike Schott]

If the merit of a course has basis in memorability, TPS for me is highly meritorious. I had the course to myself after waiting out a long rainstorm in about 2007. Greens fees were $50.00 at the time. I remember many of the holes and the routing on the fingers of the property has a lot to do with this. It has a bit of a corporate feel due to the development on the east side and the land is flat other than 3 and 13, but the routing is interesting and of course it's fame enhances any round. I've played better courses that left much less of an impression.

[Jeff Kallberg]

I found this Andy Johnson analysis persuasive.  It comes with some nice photoshopped alternatives to 14, 7 and 13:


https://thefriedegg.com/torrey-pines-south-course-changes/

[Jim Sherma]

On Golf Channel yesterday Chamblee brought up how the outside of the fairway bunkers were tougher to play out of than the sides along the fairway edges. This is based on raised sides and fingers coming down into the edges creating effectively higher lips and tilted lies. He used these examples as a defense of Rees' Open Doctoring genius as it punished a shot 10-15 further off line more than a ball slightly off line. I guess it's subtleties like this that many of us just don't see.

[Drew Maliniak]

Jeff -- Really like the Andy Johnson article! Thanks!

[Will Lozier]

A nice shopping mall with plenty of parking would be an improvement.  What a waste of a great piece of property that course is.

This is the most useless comment I've seen on here in a while.

[Will Lozier]

As I have stated along with others, I find the course bland and uninspired. Perhaps this might be better to have the people that think this is so amazing explain their position. This course is on TV every year. Not once have I said WOW. A bunch of 400 plus yard straight away par 4s with bunkers on either side of the landing area don't really scream amazing to me. I am open to having my mind changed.

Jon,


From my experience watching the last US Open and the yearly stop ON TV, Torrey Pines has never stood out to me as having great architectural interest. I also think the pond on 18 is atrocious. However, having just breezed through San Diego at the start of a Nat'l Parks tour of California with my family, I had a chance to stop by the resort and have a quick peek around.


I was clear that I had underestimated the land movement and that I was probably ignorant to the reality that the course is better than I had judged from only seeing it on television. Your "strong" opinions haven't been backed up by any specific details other than telling us you've played it virtually. I think that is the reason for others' (fair) critiques of your posts.


Offer specifics when you jump full bore into such discussions.


Cheers

[James Brown]

Come on gents.  Isn’t it possible to like a course that is not great architecturally, but great for other reasons? 


Torrey is a great site with an average design, but it’s got tons of history, it’s a true muni, and it’s a nice walk.  I’ve only played it once 10 years ago, but it made a definite positive impression.


That the US Open was ever played there and may become a regular site is just really cool.


I will be watching all weekend.   

[Brian Finn]

Come on gents.  Isn’t it possible to like a course that is not great architecturally, but great for other reasons? 

Torrey is a great site with an average design, but it’s got tons of history, it’s a true muni, and it’s a nice walk.  I’ve only played it once 10 years ago, but it made a definite positive impression.

That the US Open was ever played there and may become a regular site is just really cool.

I will be watching all weekend.   

Yes.  Exactly.  Same.