‘Flat’ courses get less love?

[Tom_Doak]

In addition to the great links courses, many others were built on relatively flat terrain such as Seminole, TPC Sawgrass, Harbour Town, The Ocean Course at Kiawah, Long Cove, Kittansett,..  to name a few.

One of my favorites is Fishers Island.  It is rumpled land but all in all relatively flat with what I am guessing 30-40 feet of elevation change scattered across the property which is nothing.

Almost your entire list are seaside properties with lots of water in play and in view, or at least enough of it to provide the signature holes that make them stand out.  No one who has ever gone to Fishers Island has had the first word out of their mouths to describe it be "flat".


A better example of a great course on a very flat site is The Golf Club in Columbus.  Mr. Dye could do a lot with very small elevation changes, so long as they were abrupt.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
I don’t think of Fisher’s Island as flat either but there is very little elevation change across the property.


How much elevation change is there at Pinehurst #2?  What about at Oakmont?  Shadow Creek was built on a dead flat piece of desert as were many desert courses. 


I guess we need to define what is flat (Sean didn’t think links courses were flat).  Is the Old Course at St. Andrews flat?  What about Hoylake? 

[Adam Lawrence]

I knew there was a quote I wanted to mention on this thread and eventually I found it!


“Golf at its very best, the golf of St. Andrews and Hoylake, is played on level ground; the uphill holes are disappointing and the downhill ones often incalculable.”
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[/size]JOHN LAING LOW, 1901.[/color]