Golf de Saint-Germain profile is posted...

[Ran Morrissett]

...under Courses by Country and Architecture Timeline.

People are drawn to golf and to certain courses for different reasons. In Australia, golf architecture junkies frequently sight Royal Adelaide at or near the top of their personal country list. There literally may not be a single person in the world that thinks that the property could have yielded a better set of holes, so gifted was Mackenzie’s use of the dominant sand dune in the middle of the property. Other, more normal   golfers say, “Are you kidding? No way does Royal Adelaide compete with New South Wales Golf Club and its spectacular setting.” Debate ensues, hopefully over many pints of Victoria Bitters.

Ala Royal Adelaide, there is something enormously appealing about a course where the overriding sensation is that everything has been done right. A friend of mine here in Pinehurst says that every time he returns from Friar’s Head. Such courses/clubs are so very few and far between that when you find one, it is time to rejoice. This is the feeling that Philip Gawith, Rick Holland and I had as we left Saint-Germain.

Architecturally, it shows Colt’s talent as an architect as well (and probably better) than any course with which I am familiar. At Portrush, was there really not four better holes to be had than the fifteenth and in that we play today?   Maybe, maybe not. However, at Saint-Germain, I defy anyone to come up with a better design on this flat site that has a rail line running through it. You decide for yourself but under the Holes to Note section,  seven holes can be fairly labeled as great (the fourth, fifth, seventh, tenth, fourteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth). That’s an astonishing number for a course located on a piece of property that had limited potential. Better yet, there are no dullard holes either. Architecturally, in terms of getting the most out of a site, Colt gets a perfect ten out of ten here, at least by me.

What are some other such courses? They might not be the architect’s best course but the design yielded the absolute best sequence of holes from the property. Kapalua Plantation and Yeamans Hall fall in that category for me. Of course, The Old Course at St. Andrews and Merion - what are other examples? The Sacred Nine but I have never been there   to see for myself.

Cheers,

[PThomas]

great pictures of a great looking course Ran

and i've never had any great desire to visit Fance, but maybe now.....

[Paul_Turner]

Ran

Nice one.  It's definitely a course with its own character.  I haven't played one that's similar.

PS

What's wrong with Purgatory at Dunluce, eh?  Where's your sense of adventure?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Ran you magnificent b------, you read the VORP thread!

To collate, high-VORP designs:

Royal Adelaide
St-G
Royal Worlingon
#2
St. George's
Painswick
Cypress Point (disputed)
Caledonia
Monterey Peninsula
Garden City
Seminole
Muirfield
Riviera
TPC Sawgrass
Carnoustie

Does this answer the question?

Mark

[Bill_McBride]

Doesn't a hole like this stir your blood and just tell you to get out there and hit a nice iron shot?   Thanks, Ran, what a good profile of a beautiful golf course.

Also, what good work you could do with a crew and a chain saw!

[Noel Freeman]

For the record Paul Turner discovered St. Germain.. Its about PT.

In reality--

 
Ran, I think you need to maybe highlight Garden City for design on average property.  But I would add, Colt's effort here has to be viewed in even higher esteem than say Portrush and Friars Head because nature gave absolutely nothing.  I know you write that you defy anyone to come up with anything better but great land should make for great golf.. Flat land for average, so to come up with all world holes and seven at that is of a magnitude higher that what Colt did at Swinley or perhaps at Portrush, PV.. If ever he was challenged, it was here.. So asking the Swinley's ? does St. Germain really deserve the moniker of his least bad course.. If it was in England, how would it be regarded?

[Paul_Turner]

That's nice, but I can't take credit Noel (though I did get you there!).  

I think Steve Okula was the first to write nice things about St Germain on GCA and I remember he even stuck his neck out and claimed it was better than Morfontaine.

Patrick Mucci has been here, but not sure he remembers much.

[Paul_Turner]

I'd like to know about the short course at St Germain, if anyone made time to play it.

[SPDB]

For what its worth, my interest in St. G was piqued by
a Links Magazine profile back in 2003.

[David Stamm]

Boy, if there ever was a new, fresh biography that was crying out to be written, it would have to be the one about Colt.

Kelly, so true. Colt fascinates me. Very possibly the best of all time.

[Philip Gawith]

I agree with Ran's central thesis that Colt did a great job at St Germain. It is worth adding that Stuart Hallett did a great job in helping restore the course. At risk of diluting the GCA comment, I would also mention that St Germain was just a very nice place to be - it really felt like a thriving members golf club, and that added to the pleasure of the day.

At risk of being pedantic, it is an interesting question what constitutes a "great" golf hole. I suspect a few GCA folk playing this course with Ran's words in mind - nearly half of the holes on the course are "great" - might be a little puzzled/underwhelmed. I think those holes are all very good, but I am not sure they all deserve the moniker of greatness. I reckon without checking the book that St Germain is maybe a Doak 7?

If you look at the par threes, the 5th and 17th are memorable, while the 7th and 11th are broadly symmetrical, quite similar holes, located very close to each other, where your admiration is as much for how he constructed these two holes on flat land as for their outright excellence. I am not sure they are "all world".

As for other courses where the architect has delivered an excellent routing and course from an unexceptional site....call me parochial, but I think Sean will back me in saying that Huntercombe ticks this box.

[Keith Durrant]

Bravo, Ran!

Here's an aerial view, showing the disused railway, running diagonally across the course. The short course runs along the lower side of this railway, I believe, with the 15th and 16th running along the perimeter on the lower side.