[Mark_F]

Being a new club member, one of the joys to me is that, with the changing light from the seasons, the different contours on greens and surrounds that are discovered with each new round, putting past, present and future strategies in new light - no pun intended.

Is it ever really possible to entirely figure out your home course?

Or, perhaps more importantly, would you want to?  

[James Bennett]

Mark

depends on the course set-up

A home course can vary for a variety of reasons.
- the season (strategy changes between winter and summer)
- your game (it might be improving, stagnant or deteriorating for different reasons).  
- the change in your age (loss of flexability, strength, gaining of wisdom);
- the growth in vegetation (encroaching vegetation and taller trees might not be desirable in all cases, but they certainly keep the course strategy changing, albeit slowly); and
- the course set-up (some courses provide a reasonable rotation of tees and hole positions from day to day thorughout the year.  Others present similar conditions for a particular day eg Saturday.  The latter is more likely to be repetitive for many a club member (not all - some like the penal challenge).  For the itinerant visitor, it doesn't matter as much.

If by chance you do get bored with your home course, play it from the wrong set of tees, and then go back and play it from the normal tees.  Alternately, play at another course When you return, it's like seeing an old friend again, except that some of the characteristics of that friend are more striking.

[James Edwards]

James,

I would hazard a guess that you are a good player?

At my home club, I play with a European Tour Player regularly and he has a great game we always play to keep, as you put it - the interest in the 18 holes and the course.

Essentially, you both play from the medal tees (ones in front of the tips) on hole 1 and whoever loses the first hole has to play off the medal tees on the 2nd and also has to role a dice for the winning player and where they tee off on the next hole!  Depending on the amount of tees you have you decide on where the dice numbers double up - so 1=tips / 2&3 = medal / 4&5 = mens & 6 = Ladies.

So its great because even though you lost the first, you could push the winner back to the tips, but could also send them off the ladies...

Its just a great, fun game!

[Paul Richards]

Mark

I grew up caddying at my home course, Beverly CC.

That means I have been playing there for the good part of 26 years.

I still find something new and different every time out.

I don't think you can ever really 'figure it out.'!

 

[Willie_Dow]

On any course it is a matter of how well you are playing.  If I am playing well, better than normally, I can go back to each and every shot and wonder --- why ?

[Andrew Summerell]

Mark,

It all depends on the course. A great course can hold your interest for a life time.

One thing that great architects have over mere good ones is their ability to design courses that reveal themselves slowly. It's a bit like marriage.

The better you know your course, the more you discover what you didn't know.

[Player_Aus]

Mark, I am a member at your course and another within 7 Klm's of Melbourne. I have been at the latter for many years.  I love the Gunnmatta course and believe it will stand out in world golf given time.  

My other club, along the Yarra River has undergone significant change over recent times, now boasting Legend Couch fairways and Bent greens.  A fantastic layout and one that beckons me to play week after week...a bit like the Gunnmatta....that's how it should be. As to the figuring out bit, well that's week to week

[Philip Gawith]

I agree with Andrew. My home course is Huntercombe and for all the rounds that I have played there, I still have not worked out what is the best way to play the course - at least with my game.

Having said that, I find it a bit difficult to believe that a course, however well designed, carries an infinite permutation of challenges within it, to any one player. In theory that is true if you bring a totally different golf game to the course every day/week, but that is not true of most people. Sure, things evolve as you age, the course changes etc, but I am more inclined to say that while the strategic challenges after a certain point have become clear, the challenge of actually executing remains a perennial.

And the other factor that works against a player over time is that the more times you fail at a hole, the more it gets into your head, so you may have cracked the strategy of the course, but your own mental foibles prohibit you from doing what you need to do. And this factor, arguably, is likely to offset the improved knowledge you have of the strategic challenges.

Put into American, I suppose that translates that you more you play a course, the more likely you are to get in your own way.

[johnk]

The muni I play at, Shoreline in Mt. View is built on a garbage dump.  The greens are constantly sinking and changing shape due to the compression of the garbage below.  The turf is poa, with a fair bit of bumpy thatch underneath.

No putt is ever the same.  You have to read them every time, and they never putt true...  Remembering what the putt did last month or last week is a disadvantage - cause it's usually wrong for today.  There are putts out there that you just cannot fathom...

The city is also constantly working on drainage and slowly taking all of the difficulty out of the course in the name of pace of play, so even the fairways and hazards change on you.

So whatever else you may say about it, the last 10 years haven't really helped me "figure it out"

[ForkaB]

I agree with Andrew and Philip.

The better the course, the more likely you are to continue to find new aspects to it.  My village course, Aberdour, is lovely and challenging, but after playing there for 15 years I know just about every shot there is to play there.  Alternatively, Dornoch never fails to surprise, often in spectacularly unforeseen ways.  Just a slight change of angle or distance of wind conditions can give you a shot that you wouldn't have ever imagined would be there.  But, it had been there all along.

I've got Aberdour sussed.  I'll never truly understand Dornoch.

[Steve Lang]

 

when you shoot par or better.. and then move back or to another a set of tees to learn it again..

[mike_malone]

 It is fun to realize something you did not know before.
   
  For instance, our #7 hole encourages a ground shot to the green. Just this year, I realized that when the pin is up front/right it is wiser to err long. The trouble is in front and this leaves an easier chip back.

    It probably is true for most courses that "going long" takes a while to occur to you as an option.

   What is required is an "open mind". But as a member I assume too much that I know what to do.

[Mark_F]

Rob,

Too right.  Gunnamatta is genius.  Although not enough people realise that at this time...


Rich,

Hey, if you'll never truly understand Dornoch, then what the hell kind of book have you just written?!?

[ForkaB]

Rich,

Hey, if you'll never truly understand Dornoch, then what the hell kind of book have you just written?!?

A pack of lies.....

[Doug Siebert]

Every hole on my home course holds the memory of a birdie or an eagle, so if I could channel those positive vibes I should play really confidently.  Unfortunately, they also all hold the memory of a triple bogey or worse as well!

Come to think of it, be an interesting exercise to try to find one's ringer score taking their worst, instead of their best, on every hole.  My ringer isn't all that great, a 49 where I've eagled all the par 5s and aced one par 3, but never eagled any of the par 4s.  My negative ringer is probably not far from 149!

[Steve Lang]

 

Also, depended on the day's strategy, how good one feels about the world and dominion over it..

stra'teg|y generalship, the art of war; management of an army or armies in a campaign, art of so moving or disposing troops or ships or aircraft as to impose upon the enemy the place and time and conditions for fighting preferred by oneself [ f. F strategie f. Gk strategia generalship] Concise Oxford Dictionary 7th Edition

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()