I played Sedge Valley on Sunday and absolutely loved it. Mammoth may be easier, but I played Thursday pretty much right out of the car, and kind of fell apart toward the end. On the other hand, I played Sedge after playing 81 holes with hickories between Thursday afternoon through Saturday, and the transition back to modern (if 2007 can be considered modern) made Sedge play MUCH easier. I really liked the way the holes just draped over the land. There is width, but it can be deceptive. Three of us hit balls that looked like they were down the middle on the second, and we all ended up in various spots of bother off to the right. And while we all knew that it was just overall shorter version of a standard course, the yardage plays with your mindset to the point that a 460 yard par 4 into the wind at 3 is a real slap in the face, in a great way. My subconscious told me that it should be easy, and while I can sometimes be intimidated by new courses, that helped make me play it like it was easy for the first seven holes until some bogeys around the turn forced me to kick it back into gear. I almost feel like it would get harder the next time I play it.
After three days playing and walking through a lot of sand, the large expanses of grassy native were a wonderful change of pace. The greens felt much more intimate than at Mammoth or Lido, but I still walked away thinking about how different the course could play with different pins. We had a back right pin on 15, and that looks like it would make it an entirely different hole than with a front left pin. 9, 12, 14, and 18 are other holes that immediately come to mind where a different pin could make if feel like a different course on back to back days. Whereas Mammoth and Lido have plenty of places to put pins in different places on their greens, Sedge felt like it had the ability to put pins in not just different, but unique locations.
And I mean this with the best of intentions, so I hope Tom doesn't take it the wrong way, but it felt a lot like Kingsley to me. I don't mean that it was at all influenced by Kingsley, but given that I play more of my golf at Kingsley than anywhere else, Sedge felt like a place I had been before, and asked for shots that I had played before. The tee shot on 15 to the back right pin felt comfortable (which doesn't mean easy) because it wasn't unlike shots I've played into multiple holes at Kingsley (1, 4, 5, 12, 16). I hit a perfect five iron well left of the flag that flew past pin high, caught the back slope, and made its way back to about 12 feet (missed the putt).
12 is a marvelous short par four that set up perfectly for my middling length. My driver cut beautifully to the front of the green, and there was a moment of excitement when it disappeared, due to a devilish swale that none of us knew was there, until it reappeared about 15 feet from the hole (missed that putt, too). Two others in our group longer than me couldn't dial it back, ran it over the green on the tips of the 13th tee.
I didn't play great at Mammoth and would love another shot at it, but I were there all the time, I'd rather play Sedge much more often.