Stories from Nemacolin-Mystic Rock

[Jay Flemma]

I'm covering an event there in the near future and was wondering about what y'all think about the design of Dye's Mystic Rock course?

I'll be playing it shortly...

[tlavin]

It looks pretty gaudy on television...

[George Pazin]

How soon?

There's been a good amount of discussion on here of MR, I'll try to dig it up.

[Matt_Ward]

Jay:

Give the Hardy family credit in not sparing any expense in regards to the facility.

I have not played the course since the most recent upgrades by Pete Dye but there's a bit of both good and less than good at the course IMHO.

Nonetheless, it's still one of Pennsy's top public courses.

[George Pazin]

Mystic Rock from an earlier thread

[Tom Zeni]

At best, it's a nice resort course, but greatly over-priced.

For western PA, it's a $50 course except that it has Pete Dye's name on it, so at last glance it was nearly $150.

Add to that the fact that with gas around $3 per, not too many day trippers are going to make the trek far up into the Uniontown mountains for an over-priced round. Joe ain't catering to the public course golfer, or even the average private club golfer. Strickly upscale pricing for the neuvo-rich who have a difficult time hitting driver into the same fairway their playing, or when discussing hybrids, they're talking Prius.

BTW, I've played both courses gratis, and for my taste, I've always considered the original Nemocolin Woodland's course to have more character than Mystic Rock.

[Dan Herrmann]

My understanding is that MR is now a guest-only course, similar to Hershey.  

[TEPaul]

"I'm covering an event there in the near future and was wondering about what y'all think about the design of Dye's Mystic Rock course?"

Jay:

What event are you covering there in the near future? We'll be out there this coming week putting on the Pennsylvania State Open Championship. If that's what you're covering, look me up. Just ask anyone on the PA Golf Association Committee in a cart or with a radio or earphone to call me and I'll find you.

[Jay Flemma]

Nice George, I saw that stuff shortly after I posted.  Thank you for that.

Tom, I'm there next week for the POTOMAC CUP - its Maryland vs. Virginia.

Basically its two teams made up of various "Tournaments of champions" from each state (14 guys each) plus a couple Fox and other network broadcasters.  Its the 6th year of the competition, Virginia won the l;ast two and leads the series 3-2.

Basically, each year four "new people" make the team from two qualifying tournaments - one in VA one in MD - the oldest four players are rotated out (unless the qualify again) and there's two celebrity "Captain's Picks."

It was the brainchild of Fox/Jim Rome Show/Washington Redskins b'caster Steve Czaban who wanted to combine a rivalry (Maryland vs. Virginia) with an amateur Ryder Cup and it really took off.

They used to rotate it between MD and VA for the Cup matches playing it at places I never even heard of like "Rocky Gap."

This year, Steve was psyched to move it to a neutral site - PA - and rope in a tour stop to Jazz it up for everybody.

Basically since the qualifiers from each region are chosen as 1) low gross and 2) low net 80% of handicap, a nice mix of handicaps are represented and everybody gets to hang up close with some b'caster talent.

Anyway, I never played it yet and need to and so I promised Czabe I'd cover it for Cybergolf and Golf Observer along with some other regional TV media (from DC to Syracuse!) and give the ams a thrill.

My initial thoughts on the course are that I love dye and his strategy and, for him, can usually overlook that its not natural because he serves up lots of meat and potatoes, just super-shaped.

Tom, if you'll be in the area, I'd love to hook up with you one day - it would be my great pleasure.  I may even be in the Philly area this weekend, although I'm not sure yet - I have a client playing at a rock club Sat...they're heavy metal - an old major label band called The Feds.