Greg Norman

[Jim Franklin]

Matt -

You should check out The Reserve in Litchfield next time you are in Myrtle Beach. It is a really good course and I loved his sod faced bunkers. I liked it better than the Barefoot Landing course.

[Derek_Duncan]

Jeff Mingay,

Norman's off-season tournament you saw is held at Tiburon in Naples, connected to a very nice Ritz-Carlton. The original 27 holes are a blast in my estimation--not a blade of rough, enormous fairways, no mounding and no contrived earth shapes, fast surfaces (depending on the month), lots of possible playing angles, invasive sod-wall bunkering and sleek, crowned greens. I think it's a very intuitive use of an absolute flat, wetlands infringed property. The nine they added a few years ago, however, seemed forced.

My issues with the Norman-designed courses I've seen is that there's too much of the above (including formal white sugar sand bunkers and crushed coquina waste bunkers/cartpaths) and it's often not suited to the sites they have. I'd like to see the firm react more to the land rather than apply their consistent formula. That said, most of what I've seen has been in the southeast on not always the greatest sites:

Tiburon--Naples
Grande Lakes--Orlando
Champions Gate--Orlando
Shark's Tooth--Panama City Beach
The River Club--Duluth, GA
Sugarloaf--Duluth, GA
Doonbeg

[Greg Krueger]

I have played 3, Doonbeg, Medalist & Sugarloaf. I liked all 3,
however I played The Medalist when it first opened and I
understand many things have been changed. It had more of
a Pete Dye feel to it back then.

I thought Doonbeg was a awesome site, makes me wonder
what a different GCA would have done with the same property!

[Kevin Pallier]

I've played the following Norman & Harrison courses in Australia and they all of a consistently good overall standard and make my Top100.

I rank them in order -
The National (Moonah)
Brookwater
The Glades
Pelican Waters
The Vintage
The Grand
Sanctuary Lakes

The only one I haven't played is the ultra-exclusive Ellerston.

Pretty much all have had a resonably good set of P3's, long P4's and P5's. The only thing that is a glaring ommission in my book - is the lack of any really good / great short P4's for some reason ?

[Chris McCuaig]

Has anyone played or have info on the Joe Lee golf course that Greg is renovating or restoring in the Bahamas?

Chris

[Kyle Henderson]

Pretty much all have had a resonably good set of P3's, long P4's and P5's. The only thing that is a glaring ommission in my book - is the lack of any really good / great short P4's for some reason ?

The Wente  course has two short par 4s (2 and 10). Both are very good IMO.

#10
http://www.flickr.com/photos/farber/863019176/

[Matt_Cohn]

I think I remember #9 and #11 on National Moonah both being very interesting short 4's.

At Wente, #3 is a really neat looking uphill par-3 that's just a 9-iron or so.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I have only played three of Norman's courses.  They all have one thing in common--they are hard as hell.
I played the Medalist when it was just a youngster. I like it, even though it beat me up.  I remember one par three that looked as though it was on stilts that I thought was a bit much but the rest of the course was pretty good.
Red Sky Ranch is very good.  I commented on that with pictures a couple of months ago.  For being on the side of a mountain, I thought the routing was brilliant.
I played Landsdowne in August and absolutely hated it.  Someone   have designed it in the dark.  It was long and the par fours were pretty much the same distance.

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

The range of diverse reactions has a lot to do with the staff behind Greg. My experience one the eleven Norman courses I have seen share this range.

Bob Harrison's work at Moonah and Nirwana Bali I really enjoyed. PGA West and Doral, I did not.

There is little doubt that stylistically the recent courses in the U.S. that I have seen are not even remotely similar to the Australasian work.

Coincidentally, two courses that people have mentioned liking were also ones Harrison worked on; Wente and Sugarloaf. He then went on to focus on his native land and Asia.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Thanks for your comments re Tiburon, Derek. Your description is exactly what I got through the television.

Tiburon has to be the best of those courses named for the designer/pro. Tiburon is Spanish for Shark, right? (Awesome!)

Further to Ben's comments above, it seems Bob Harrison deserves quite a bit of credit for Norman's work; particularly at those courses most consider to be his best.

[Derek_Duncan]

Has anyone played or have info on the Joe Lee golf course that Greg is renovating or restoring in the Bahamas?

Chris

Chris, the course is called The Blue Shark and it's a remodel of the old South Ocean Club course. They stayed pretty much within the original corridors though I believe they reversed directions in a few places. I don't think you'd be surprised by what you see there regarding the style/features--very much in line with Norman's southeast US style (See an above post for a general description). There are some "blue holes" that come into play which are basically lagoons connected to the ocean via underground channels.

[Padraig Dooley]

I was watching Norman yesterday, he's still a very impressive golfer, great posture, the shark aura is still there.

As for his golf courses, I've only played two, Doonbeg and Wente. His hands were tied in Doonbeg by the snail and lost some great golf country, but he still did a really good job and it gets better every time I go back. I'd have to see Wente again to make a better judgement.

He mentions a principle in his book, 'The way of the Shark', that spend every dollar as if it were you're own, great guiding principle.

My other impression of him is that he does nothing in half measures, which seems to lead to great successes and spectacular failures.

[Craig Van Egmond]

Apparently the Shark has moved on romantically ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071214/us_nm/golf_european_norman_evert_dc

I always thought Chris Evert was hot when I was a younger man.  Not looking too bad now either.

[Voytek Wilczak]

Kudos to the Sharkster for hitching up with a woman of 52.

I guess Chrissie will enjoy those buttocks, not Kavanaugh...