Played this gem yesterday.
Wow. Holy terrain-a real shot shaping driving and approach test.
This is not a great muni.
It's a great course.
Shades of The Country Club, Myopia, Whippoorwill,Fishers, Wykagly and frankly a lot of its own unique character to the tumbling fairways.
Further proof that we're doing it wrong, with a $500,000 budget on a $55(non resident)course booked solid 6 AM-7:30 PM every single day.
the funny thing about $500,000 budgets, you get grass to hit and pitch off of, and interesting hanging lies are encountered rather than your ball finding friction in a depression, divot or the rough(rolling out of the fairway)
Also, you get to see interesting greens, using interesting pin placements, rather than putting the pins in the flattest(and same) places on other pimped up speed tests.
The tee shots at GW were wildly varied with ups, downs, varied terrain, doglegs suggested by both terrain and vegetation, and multiple blind tee shots that were surprisingly intuitive and fascinating to figure out and execute.
The combination of tee shots and sloping/tilted terrain, coupled with actual grass to keep the ball on the slope, made for some of the most interesting tee shots and approaches I've played in a long time.
For context, I played Fishers the day before, which has many of the same great qualities, so the bar was pretty high for trip.
Shennecossett, one of my favorite courses and places, was the third course of the trip.
Bethpage Black isn't even in the same conversation as GW with its ordinary, demanding rinse and repeat diet of narrow driving setups and flat greens.