Why don't the raters love Rye?

[George Pazin]

I'm probably the wrong person to start this, since I'm the least experienced golfer on the site.

However, I'm also likely the biggest dreamer, and I must say that my golf daydreams center mostly around TOC, Dornoch & Rye (okay, also all of Ireland & Tasmania:)).

After reading many people's descriptions of Rye (Tom Doak's, Donald Steel's, the terrific course profile on this site, etc.)(sorry Rich G, know you frown on my reading), I wonder why Rye doesn't rank higher. It's not on Golf or GD's lists & barely squeaks into the top 50 of Golf World's UK & Europe list (I think).

So why aren't the raters showing Rye any love?

[THuckaby2]

a) not all that many people get to see it, relative to other UK greats, anyway.

b) though it's stupid, par of less than 70 scares people off.

Dave Schmidt absolutely loves it, and that's good enough for me.  But the above might explain why it doesn't get "rated" higher anyway....

TH

[Craig Disher]

I'll offer two reasons.

It is a member's course, first and foremost. If you've never played the course before, you will be frustrated by your perfectly struck shots winding up in places you didn't want them to be while your opponent, if a member, will cruise the course as though he's on a Sunday drive. It's criticized by locals as not being a "fair" course and I imagine raters who play the course only a couple of times also leave with that impression.

Rye is also exclusive. You must make arrangements in advance, much like Muirfield, and for a course that doesn't host well-known tournaments, that can be aggravating. I have seen golfers who played at Sandwich in the AM without any introduction turned away at Rye in the PM when the course is empty.

Having said that, it's still worth the effort. What a fun course!

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

George

Some of my best friends are raters, but..........

My guess is that Rye is:

1.  too par challenged (68)
2.  too quirky
3.  too fast and firm
4.  too hard to get onto

to ever be rated as high as it could and should be.

BTW, keep on reading.  It won't be long that your steady diet of "false fronts" and "maintenance meld" and "arts and craft movements" and "BIAS" will send you to exploring Shakespeare for some comic relief, finally.............

[Lynn Shackelford]

When I played there with the club secretary, he indicated that local qualifying events will not play there.  They think it is too short.  That mindset prevails with many raters on both sides of the pond.  The other points previously mentioned are also true.  If you want old fashioned fun golf, it is the place to play.  One course which will not over water.

[TEPaul]

Just what I always suspected! Any course anywhere puts a "6" in front of its par and all of a sudden it has big perception problems!

[NAF]

I have played Rye 3 times and while I love the course dearly I can't say I favor it to Deal..Just the quirky type of guy that I am.  I think Rye is a course that has to played 1)In the winter when it has some semblance of green to it and 2) Played at least a dozen or so times to get a proper appreciation or respect for.  I have stated in a previous thread that playing the 7th hole with a bucket of balls would be alright with me. It is the hardest par 3 I have ever played with the wind off the Channel.

At Rye:

1)The wind seems to blow that much harder
2) The bounce seems to be that much more capricious
3) The rub of the green seems that much more in evidence
4) It is almost impossible to keep some balls in the fairway or reach in regulation (#4, 7 and 13 in my experience)..

Nonetheless I think it deserves to be higher in the GolfWorld panel and someone like Donald Steel votes it very highly.  It is too bad that Rye is so far away because if we got to watch the Putter competition they hold there for the old Oxford and Cambridge golfers people would appreciate the course much more.  For example when I played Rye the first time it was yellow, straw hay yellow in June..It was a bowling alley and the ball was completely uncontrollable..I had great fun but it was conditions I have never seen replicated.  So Rye in January thru March is probably the time to see it.

[Paul Richards]

I loved Rye!

To me it is perhaps the most under-rated course on the entire Top 100 list from Britain's GolfWorld.

[Jeff Schley]

A mystery to me indeed. Having just played my first rounds yesterday there, I think it is one of the top 5 links courses in the entire UK. Most wouldn’t have played as we had 40 plus MPH winds and that wouldn’t allow a hat to stay on.  Surprisingly the card yardage from the blue was not even 5850. 

• [size=78%] Although there is only one “par 5” on the card officially (hole 1), it was plenty stout. The wind made it almost impossible to avoid the rough. [/size]
• [size=78%]After a very wet spring the rough was as high and mangled as it has ever been as per my host. He is a scratch golfer and lost 7 balls himself. [/size]
• [size=78%]After a couple holes I was just trying to keep the ball out of the rough, didn’t care where. [/size]
• [size=78%]Balls on teh greens oscillated on several greens that were more exposed.[/size]
• [size=78%]Love the 2 ball club concept and no visitor times, unless you go through the secretary. Tough to get on and fully respect that aspect.[/size]
• [size=78%]Clubhouse and history has anything from HS Colt, Bernard Darwin, Oxford & Cambridge golf society is hard to top outside of TOC.[/size]
• [size=78%]NOT an easy walk with humongous dunes for anything offline. [/size]
• [size=78%]Still see the WW2 pill box where apparently the water used to be. Over time the sand deposits have increased the site significantly via photos in the clubhouse. Of course we are talking over decades.[/size]
• [size=78%]Coat and tie in the clubhouse is still very much required, although with NO short shocks.[/size]
• Splendid lunch served, just a step below Royal St. George’s.
• [/size]One of the best winter courses as they are drier than the rest of the country then.
• [/size]This is probably the 3rd or 4th club for most members, really nice option on a weekend stay.

[/size]All in all those that have been know it as one of the top links in the UK and its ranking probably always underrated.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Rye might be the most difficult course I have ever played. On second thought, it is. The long par fours wore me out and the par threes were just spectacularly good. I couldn't play it every day; my psyche couldn't take it.

[Brett Meyer]

I don't know what it was ranked in 2002, but it's 72 on the most recent Golf Magazine top 100 in the world and that seems to me about right. If it's been ranked lower in the past, I'd agree that it's probably because of the exclusivity and it being less than par 70. The latter probably used to be more stigmatizing than it now is and I wouldn't be surprised if Rye moves up as that sigma goes away and more people see it--they let me on, so it can't be too hard. And everyone seems to be trying now.

But I wouldn't put it in the higher tier with a Royal St. George's or Royal County Down because the front nine is too difficult in an often-awkward way. I thought the fourth hole, which others seem to love, was golf's equivalent of walking a tightrope. It's just too narrow given the wind. Several of the par 3s--2, 7, and 14--are too difficult. The greens are so small and any miss is in trouble, except maybe short-left on 14.

Still, I think it should be in the top 100. No one seems to talk about the back nine, but holes 13, 15, and 16 compare favorably to the best at Royal St. George's. The 13th might be my favorite blind second shot hole I've played. People also probably downgrade the course for 10, 11, and 17. 11 may be ugly but it's a good hole and I thought there was a brilliant subtlety to the long par 3 17th. It's really different from the other par 3s and complements them well.

So 72 seems close. For comparison, I'd have it just below Swinley Forest and just above Bandon Dunes and Old Macdonald.

[Mark Pearce]

I think it is one of the top 5 links courses in the entire UK.

I'd love to know which of Muirfield, TOC, Dornoch, Portrush and County Down (let alone RSG, Deal, Hoylake, Birkdale, Lytham, Turnberry, Porthcawl) it's better than.  I love Rye but "top 5 links in the entire UK" is a bold call.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Not so sure I agree on the premise here as in Doak's Confidential Guide, Rye is given an elite score of: 9-8-9-8


and it also appears in most "Top 100" lists.





I played two rounds at Rye in September of 2023.


I found it to be 1) VERY difficult (in benign conditions) and 2) awkward and uncomfortable in many places.


You need to play this course several times in order to unlock its puzzle pieces.


From tyhe first hole, you have a semi-blind tee shot that asks the player to trust a blind line down the right side where there is more fairway, but as the opening shot is like this, it plants doubt from the first shot.


Then the little "switch back move" on holes 2 and 3 where you hit your tee shot on 3 ( a par 4) before proceeding to hit your tee shot on #2 (a par 3) to accommodate smoother play with 4-somes.


But that dune ridge that runs through the course is a real mind-bender. A tee shot over it on the front and a second shot over it on the back compounded my challenges and I was caught in it both times and lost a ball each time.


In my second round, i played the first hole differently and the two holes with the dune and emerged in better shape.


The course is built for 4-somes and the paths through the course underscore that.

[Tom_Doak]

Ian:


This thread was started in 2002 and there was less of a consensus about Rye's elite status back then, for the reasons cited.  It has overcome a lot of that although I would not say its position in the top 100 is guaranteed into the future; different people and panels of people have different tastes.  Right now the groupthink is in its favor.


I think one of the reasons it's underrated [as with Brancaster and Royal Worlington] is that they are steadfastly "two-ball clubs" and that many Americans skip them for that reason.  Which is probably just fine with those clubs 

[Ian Mackenzie]

Ah....I see that now, Tom, thanks.


We had a great time at Rye and were there for a full day and received permission to play a 2-ball in the pm following morning 4-somes.


The mens locker room had just been refinished.


Funny story: one of the members we played with, as we descended down to the first tee, suggested we play from the "white tees" at ~6000 yards. I stifled a sneer and a scoff... ...knowing we were all good players and could stomach the Blue tee length at a mere  ~6300 yards.


Eff-Me...the member was right... and we all struggled. Out of pure ignorance, naivete and luck, i hit driver on #4 and found myself with only 100 yards left in on a fairway we paced off at being 17 yards wide with "death right and shit left".


Course played like to was 6800+...;-)

[Adam Lawrence]

The first time I played Rye was with the golf architect Martin Ebert and Greg Ramsay of Barnbougle Dunes fame. Martin had obtained special permission from the secretary for us to play in a three ball, but every time a group of members came into view, he got nervous someone would ask him exactly what he thought he was doing!

I played it one Christmas with the architect James Edwards. It was a cold, crisp and clear day, and when we got there, we saw a sign outside the clubhouse saying 'Frost Delay -- course currently closed' or words to that effect. The clubhouse was packed. We went and introduced ourselves to the secretary and said that we were rather concerned about getting out given the size of the backlog in front of us, to which he said 'Oh, don't worry, as soon as I move the frost delay sign this lot will disappear in no time'. And it was as he said: within fifteen minutes the clubhouse was deserted, and the first tee was free. The members had all gone to various different parts of the course to start their round -- an informal shotgun, effectively. I wondered why at the time, but when we finished, I realised quickly that it was because they all wanted to make sure they were back for lunch. I have never seen a golf club dining room so busy, nor as many bottles of red being consumed.

I love the place.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I have only played Rye once. I had made arrangements with the club secretary. We got stuck in traffic from RSGeorge and were late for our tee time. We met the Secretary in the parking lot as he was leaving. He said, "Just see the barman and pay your green fees." I went to the car to get my sports jacket, but he waved me off and said, "Don't worry about it, just go in." Well, I did. I signed the guest book, paid our green fees, and then wandered over to look at the president's putters. A gentleman in a red smoking jacket looked at me sans jacket, then asked the barman who I was. "An American," he said. To which he replied, "I might have known own."

[George Pazin]

Thanks for sharing that, Adam and (Father) Tommy, it's stories like yours that make this site so special.

It is kinda funny seeing a thread I started 22 years ago bumped.  Back in those days, on cold Pittsburgh winter evenings, I would sit on the couch and flip through Donald Steel's Classic Golf Links of England and Scotland, and dream....

[Jeff Schley]

I think it is one of the top 5 links courses in the entire UK.

I'd love to know which of Muirfield, TOC, Dornoch, Portrush and County Down (let alone RSG, Deal, Hoylake, Birkdale, Lytham, Turnberry, Porthcawl) it's better than.  I love Rye but "top 5 links in the entire UK" is a bold call.

Mark


There are so many splendid links, the difference between 5 and 10 isn't that big. I haven't played portrush and not a big fan of rcd.  Muirfield, toc, dornoch yes certainly ahead.


Even if we differ on the order Rye has to be in the conversation for anyone who has been.  I like the tiers as opposed to ordinal sequence.  I guess maybe confidential guide classifications 1-10.  Rye is a 9 IMHO.

[Jeff Schley]

Thanks for sharing that, Adam and (Father) Tommy, it's stories like yours that make this site so special.

It is kinda funny seeing a thread I started 22 years ago bumped.  Back in those days, on cold Pittsburgh winter evenings, I would sit on the couch and flip through Donald Steel's Classic Golf Links of England and Scotland, and dream....

George yes 22 years ago was a different time indeed.  I searched for Rye threads and saw yours which did at the time capture a question of Rye's place on the world golf stage.