Interesting the perception of Troon is improving. My last trip, we took a walk around the Portland Course and I was terribly sorry I'd wasted a day trying to find something to like about the Open Course, aside from #7-#11. The rest of it was a yawn at best. The Portland had so much more nuance and greenside interest, I'd make a special trip to play it.
Then again, I much prefer the Queens to the Kings at Gleneagles, so I'm probably in the category of perversely contrarian critic . . . . . at least that is what Dean Knuth thinks.
Interesting several prominent Treehouse dwellers hate Spanish Bay. Personally, I dearly love everything about it. It is a bit like the Grateful Dead - I can understand why some people cannot stand free-form, what-the-fuck was that(?) music . . . . but to me, the odd quirks are not only endearing, but a source of endless fascination.
One thing, Spanish Bay holds my interest, every single time - and I look forward to the next hole, if only to finally decipher the riddle. How to play #5 this time? Where do I aim on #13 to avoid another quintuple bogey (while -2 in a qualifier)?
By contrast, Poppy Ridge is like bad elevator muzak . . . . each hole a milquetoast repeat of the last colossal bore. Which two nines of the three do I want to play? Why does it matter? They are all like reruns of the Lawrence Welk show, so BRING ME A BUCKET."
The courses I actively hate are either like PasaderaDoveMountainRubyHillOldGreenwood - let's see if you can hoist that 4-iron onto a dead flat ribbon of cement 18 times in a row - or Lake Merced, an exercise in poorly done, clumsy, awkward landscape architecture that shrieks "mailed in" by somebody who wasted a lot of money to lure a Women's Open that never happened. I still wonder if David Fay got a kickback from Rees, but that is only mean spirited speculation.
Really, the one thing I loathe are courses described by humorless gunners as "straightforward, everything is right out in there in front of you, objective, fair tests of golf." Like that is a compliment? It sounds like spending an afternoon taking the SAT.
That is not to say I mind the occasional exercise in Calvinist, self-flagellation, but a steady diet of horsewhips and cattle prods (read: Carnoustie and Oakmont) - I just recognize the futility of playing chess against a supercomputer.
It is the boring repetition - and lack of personality - that sets my teeth on edge . . . . . come to think of it, Tehama is "The Room" of private courses. Except not "so bad it is good," but "so bad it is worse."