hello to the group

[Jerry Kluger]

Welcome: The Golden Horseshoe is one of my favorites and has a tremendous set of par 3s.  The picture of 7 does not do it justice as it appears to be a dropshot but it is not - you play from an elevated tee across the river to an elevated green.  

[CJ Carder]

Welcome CJ!!

There are some great courses to study here in Virginia. I really love Strantz's, Royal New Kent


We will have to get together to tour some of the new courses here in Virginia.

Have you been up to King Carter GC, 2006 best new, yet?

Hey Scott,
I have not made it up to King Carter yet, though my dad continually reminds me that we need to go.  I have played every course here in the Williamsburg area (lived here most of my life) but a short list of courses I'd love to visit in VA includes King Carter, Bay Creek, Spring Creek, Old Trail, Pendleton is a new one in Richmond), and then a whole slew of private courses that I don't have access to such as Kinloch, CC of VA, and RTJ.  

If you ever want someone to go play with though, give me a buzz - my wife is pretty liberal with letting me out on the links.

JB - I would love to tell the group some more about the Horseshoe.  My collection of pictures from the Gold Course is pretty limited (which is suprising given it's my home course), but if you guys don't mind winterized pictures, I am playing tomorrow and will take some pictures and start a new post about it over the weekend.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

CJ:

Welcome. Fantastic photos. So far so good!

Anthony

[John Kavanaugh]

JB - I would love to tell the group some more about the Horseshoe.  My collection of pictures from the Gold Course is pretty limited (which is suprising given it's my home course), but if you guys don't mind winterized pictures, I am playing tomorrow and will take some pictures and start a new post about it over the weekend.

Thanks!! If they are anything like that first picture they should be most illuminating.

[Lester George]

CJ,

Welcome!  Have you played Kinloch?  Let me know.

Lester

[Bill Gayne]

Shaving the grass in front of the green on the seventh hole at Golden Horseshoe Gold Course would be to difficult for their typical resort guest. The grass short of the green is Bermuda with seasonal over seeding. It's kept long enough to hold up a ball from rolling to the bottom of the hill but short enough to allow for a fairly simple uphill chip. This green has significant slope and you do not want to be above the hole or a three putt from ten feet is a possibility.

The pin position in the picture is probably the most difficult (although far back right is also very difficult). The play for the majority of players with this pin position is at the front of the green with the margin of error being short.

Jerry Kluger is correct in saying that the picture makes it look like a drop shot but it really isn't. The picture being taken on the front edge of the forward tee.

[John Moore II]

Bill--you echo my statement about shaving the grass short would make it nearly unfair for someone playing the hole the first time. A shot could come up 2 feet short of the green and perhaps wind up in the water. Or a putt from above the hole hit too hard could roll all the way down as well. I think the way it is set up is fair as is.

[Roger Tufts]

I agree, Muirfield was hands down, the coolest golfing experience I've had to date.  I honestly think I'd be happy if I could play that course with that atmosphere every day for the rest of my life.

I think you speak for all of us with that statement

Welcome, looking forward to some heated debates about GCA in the future

Enjoy

[J Sadowsky]

I'd also like to say hello.

I'm an amateur with no real professional interest in golf course architecture.  A student of everything, I picked up golf.  Professionally I'm an attorney in Washington, DC.  Since that and the weather keeps me from playing golf as much as I'd like, I've done the next best thing - and become a serious study of the game, particularly architecture and aesthetics.  I've been lurking on the board since I picked up golf 3 years ago.  I've fallen in love with the architecture of golf, and since I'm a passionate reader and studier, I've read as much on it as I can.  

Golf, unlike any other sport, provides a unique and differente challenge on each playing field - but it does so much more than that, because it, even more so than baseball, is a true pasttime.  For urbannites, it may be the only time they get to really commune with nature.  For others, it becomes the backdrop for friendship and family.  

For me, it is all of the above.  I started playing golf as a way to reunite with my father.  Since then, I've come to see the game in a variety of lights - as a way of forcing myself to get some modicum of exercise, as a way to clear my thoughts and think, to connect professionally, and to enjoy the company of friends and family.

I will try to contribute to this board in a thoughtful and positive way.  I look forward to getting to know you all.

- Justin

[Gene Greco]

  Welcome to both of you - CJ and Justin.

[Voytek Wilczak]

Great picture of Gullane Hill.Let those who think Muirfield mundane take a long look at that picture.

Mike - here's another picture for you.  I agree, Muirfield was hands down, the coolest golfing experience I've had to date.  I honestly think I'd be happy if I could play that course with that atmosphere every day for the rest of my life.

This picture should serve as a gold standard for "golf real estate". These fine homes overlook Muirfield (and Gullane) but do not intrude on the golf experience at all (unlike the homes at, say, Pebble). Their residents walk their dogs on the outskirts of the courses and exchange pleasant hellos with golfers waiting at the tee. It  only adds to the ambiance and the premise that golf is "everyman's sport" in the UK.

What was there first - these houses or golf courses?

Welcome CJ.

[Mike McGuire]

Welcome CJ

To me this hole would be much improved if you got rid of the ornamental plantings. I appears to be a beautiful setting. The added vegetation is not needed and makes it look a bit cluttered.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Great picture of Gullane Hill.Let those who think Muirfield mundane take a long look at that picture.

Mike - here's another picture for you.  I agree, Muirfield was hands down, the coolest golfing experience I've had to date.  I honestly think I'd be happy if I could play that course with that atmosphere every day for the rest of my life.

This picture should serve as a gold standard for "golf real estate". These fine homes overlook Muirfield (and Gullane) but do not intrude on the golf experience at all (unlike the homes at, say, Pebble). Their residents walk their dogs on the outskirts of the courses and exchange pleasant hellos with golfers waiting at the tee. It  only adds to the ambiance and the premise that golf is "everyman's sport" in the UK.

What was there first - these houses or golf courses?

Welcome CJ.

An interesting useless fact - looking up towards the houses at the back of Gullane the 6th or 7th House from the top is Whatton Lodge, The Lothians Mineworkers Convalescent Home. The 16-bedroom house with an attached five-bedroom cottage can accommodate up to 40 people during the summer months. Ex-miners can visit and hang out here.

During the Open the Players Caddies are given rooms there.

The home was bought for £28,000 in 1947 by the CISWO. Recently an American diplomat (don’t know who?) visited the property in 1999 and offered up to £3m for the prime site !!!! Not a bad mark up of 107x over 60 years !!!!!

[Jim Nugent]

The home was bought for £28,000 in 1947 by the CISWO. Recently an American diplomat (don’t know who?) visited the property in 1999 and offered up to £3m for the prime site !!!! Not a bad mark up of 107x over 60 years !!!!!

Shows you the power of compounding...if I did the arithmetic right (in my head) that's about an 8% annual compound return.  

[CJ Carder]

Welcome CJ

To me this hole would be much improved if you got rid of the ornamental plantings. I appears to be a beautiful setting. The added vegetation is not needed and makes it look a bit cluttered.

Mike, I don't disagree with your choices of tree removal, however the trees on the left and the bushes on the right do serve a purpose.  The trees on the left (i.e. the first 3 x's) separate the hole from the 2nd fairway.  The elevated tee box on 7 already enables players to hit the ball into the 2nd fairway (if it's a bad enough shot), but these trees slow some low hooks and marginally missed balls from trickling into the 2nd fairway, which plays the opposite direction.  The bushes on the right (the first circled area) actually aren't bushes anymore so much as just tall grass.  That slope is incredibly steep and they need to have something there to help protect against erosion.  As for everything else in the back (the 5 x's), do you have a chainsaw I can borrow?  

One other thing of note... since the end of the regular playing season (end of October), the course has been undergoing a bit of tree removal, although in select locations, to help give some covered areas more sunlight and thus allow the grass to grow.  To my knowledge, only one of those areas affects play, but if you're up in that area by that point in the round... well, maybe you could use a friendly opening to the green.  

[Brian Phillips]

Welcome CJ,

This is one of the perils of posting pics of your own club...

Just wondering why the fairway is not cut a little like this photo that I quickly edited?  



This would not be too much extra work for the Super but maybe that slope is too steep to be maintained at fairway in wet weather?

Anyway...wlecome aboard.

[CJ Carder]

Brian -

Great photoshopping job!  We talked a little bit about this earlier in the thread.  The easy answer is, the slope is just too steep.  Combine the slope in the front of the green with the slope of the green itself, and you could easily see a couple people putt balls off the green and all the way down to the water once the greens got rolling at a good speed.  

Take a look at the thread I started about pictures from the front 9 and you'll see two pictures that show how steep that slope is.

[Tom_Doak]

Voytek:

That is indeed the "gold standard" for golf real estate -- the homes are more than half a mile away from the golf course, separated by a public park.  I have yet to meet the developer who would arrange it thus.

[Lloyd_Cole]

Voytek:

That is indeed the "gold standard" for golf real estate -- the homes are more than half a mile away from the golf course, separated by a public park.  I have yet to meet the developer who would arrange it thus.

Having lived in a clubhouse or adjoining building for much of my youth, that's still too close for me...