[John Burzynski]

A golf course next to a nudist colony...it cuts down onthe boredom between shots.

Physically:
Seriously, I like a course with fewer trees, a rolling terrain, not much water but plenty of other hazards.  A bit of creativity, something new or different, whether it is a bunker in the middle of the fairway or something else  not seen a lot at many courses.

Psychologically:
A membership or players who are not haughty, where if you walk on as a single nobody cares and they might even let you fill out their group.  Course employees who CARE about their work, not some who jsut volunteer for the free golf opportunity.

[Lou_Duran]

Full agreement with most, particularly replies 1-8.  Don't care as much for rolly-polly greens, specially when they're running much over 9'.  Love all types of courses, though desert and mountain less so.  Maintenance-wise, good greens, flat tees, and decent sand in the bunkers are big pluses.  Don't like OB, particular inside the course, or the use of trees in combination with water or bunkers to guard shots to the green.  Handicap- 10 +/-

[John Kirk]

A golf course is fun to play if the golf course, and its surroundings, are visually appealing.  If I like what I see all day long, then I'm happy.

Understand that I interpret "visually appealing golf shots" and "golf shots of strategic interest" to be the same thing.

Also, over the course of a round, I'm only thinking about golf shots 10-20% of the time.  The rest of the time, I'm looking at plants and rocks and birds and clouds, and last week, big chuckwalla lizards.  For me, the walk in the park is the best thing about golf.

[cary lichtenstein]

Great question, best one ever asked on here by an architect that I am aware of.

For me, I love topography and while I prefer it to be already there, a bull dozer works fine when it is not.

I like a certain degree of tension on the tee, but not with water on both sides of the fairway. I like a side of the fairway, where you can hedge your bet. While I like and respect a course like Innisbrook, it will bore me after a couple of day, because it is just a ball strikers course

While I don't spray it much anymore, when I did, I always liked a chance to recover, still do.

I hate rough that is so deep and rough that SW is all you got. It takes away so much from the game, thus my dislike for Oakmont, which is on most people's top 10 list.

I love bunkers, the deeper the better, the more varied the better. I don't want to see the same bunker over and over again for 18 holes.

I love quirk, and by quirk, I mean quirk anywhere. I love being challenged to be creative, and that is why I liked Barnbougle Dunes so much.

I like parking my cart on the cart path 20 yards for the green and having to take 6 clubs with me to hit a shot that missed the green because there are so many options.

I hate trees that hug tees that knock down draws or fades, that's a hazard as far as I am concerned.

I like risk/reward options that are reasonable.

I don't care about the length of a course, I can always find a tee or combo that works fine for me.

I don't like a forced carry over water on 18th with a 3 wood nor do I like a diagonal green on 18 with water on either side and not enough green depth to hold a shot, example the Ritz in Jupiter, 18th hole.

I usually don't like collection bunkers in the middle of the fairway or trees in the middle on par 4's, but I don't have a problem with either on the 2nd shot on par 5's, makes you think.

I hate laying up on par 5's to the 150 yard marker when the risk to going to the 100 yard marker is too great.

I don't like narrow Diagonal fairways with traps on both sides.

I like both forced carries and the ground game, give me a combo. Give me some ground on the long par 4's so I can bounce on a 4 wood  if need be.

Give me a barritz and you'll make me happy, ditto a redan.

Give me an elevated pot bunker, make me smile at how clever you are, give me a quirky Jim Engh green with a 2 level green 8 feet above the bottom portion like 17 at Lakota Canyon or his par 5 at Redlands Mesa.

Give me putting surfaces like Tom Doak did at Barnbougle Dunes, or topography like Ballyneal, Highland Links.

Give me quirk like Tobacco Road and Royal New Kent, give me Yale, Royal County Down, The Quarry at Giants Ridge, Pine Valley, and Royal Dornock.

Please don't give me soft, muchy sand.

Surprise me, give me some blind shots, challenge me, you may give me all the undulations in the greens you want, but don't make them choppy. Allow the ball if properly struck to feed to the hole.

Keep your green elevations appropriate for a 10 stimp and enuf pin placements so on a windly day you can accomodate a 12 or 13 if need be.

Handicap 5.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

A 12 handicapper here.....as low as 7 but no more!

Studies and my own experience show that golfers play more for camraderie than competition.  So do I and it might affect my answer.  When I design, I figure any feature that gives rise to a cheer, ooh, aaaaaah, or groan might foster camraderie, or at least a shared moment.  Which is why I tend towards the real easy or real hard, or funky, like Biarritz swales on greens.

If they talk about it in the bar afterwards, I think I have done my job.

[Michael Dugger]

variety variety variety 

Uphill shots, downhill shots, sidehill lies, challenging greens, firm turf and wind.

Long and short one shot holes, a reachable 4 and 5.

I want lines of charm....

[Andy Troeger]

Unique features that I haven't seen before

A few heroic shot opportunities. Risk/reward, but where the reward is worth the risk. Too many times its all risk and not much reward. Short par fours and fives seem to be the best opportunities to do this.

Courses where I can shoot 70 or 90 depending on how I play (as a 7 hcp who was as low as a 1 a couple years ago).

Courses with variety among the holes on a course. Every par four being the same distance, whether its 380 or 460 tends to equal boring after a while.

At least one short par three. Less so one long par three but also a good thing.

Beautiful surrounds, I love the mountains personaly even if it does make some other golf traits more difficult.

The opportunity to walk is preferred.

Wide landing areas off the tee with a preferred area to play from, followed by green complexes that are more challenging and reward good iron play.

Recovery opportunities especially off the tee.

I like courses with a varied challenge of all parts of the game. Courses that have bland or excessively wild green complexes would not be as much fun for me as a course with some balance.

Angular hazards that make me think about a line of play.

DISLIKE forced lay-ups (the 5-iron off a par four tee followed by a 4-iron second shot). DO LIKE option lay-up or go for it holes where the best play might be a 5-iron off the tee (although still not followed by a 4-iron preferably).

[Matt MacIver]

What these guys said. 

A bad, or boring, golf course can make up for a lot of sins with interesting greens.  Interesting, to me, means tons of movement, which even (especially?) at an 8 can provide lots of fun - i.e. putting away from the pin to get it close.  16 HC moving higher

[Kirk Gill]

Frankly, I have felt that an otherwise "fun" round on a great course is ruined by the excessive freight charged by certain courses.  For those that love to play often, and varied style course, prices sometimes don't factor into the first sizzle inclination to go try a new, heralded course.  But, the fun factor diminishes rapidly for me when a certain "buyer's regret" sets in, usually causing me to say, "one and done", to an expensive course, that I realise was great, but just too costly to overcome the allure of a repeat play at outrageous prices, no matter if that course was otherwise, "fun".  

I wonder if top level architects operate on a default notion that in order to create "fun" on a golf course, a certain element of extreme, bombastic, or expensively done landscape, waterscape, eyecandy features are a requirement?  Thus, for every added excessive landscape feature added, the cost to the end user is increased; until the end result is a set of diminishing returns, with the fun factor overcome by "buyers regret", and a "one and done" result that disencourages the fun seeker to repeat play?

I strongly agree with the  above sentiments, although certainly some of the top architects aren't operating on that basis. And let's face it, some architects and golfers seem to think that brutal difficulty equals fun. At the same time, there are courses that are fun for me (high handicapper) that wouldn't be enjoyable for the better player,  back tees or not. But I wonder RJ, when thinking about courses like the one you mention above, if the amount they want to charge, the "echelon" they want to be in, is determined before they build the course, and how much that affects what they create. In other words, is the course so expensive because there's so much construction and maintenance cost involved, or is all the eye candy and bells and whistles created to somehow justify the tariff the developers decided to charge before they moved the first shovelful of dirt?

[RJ_Daley]

In other words, is the course so expensive because there's so much construction and maintenance cost involved, or is all the eye candy and bells and whistles created to somehow justify the tariff the developers decided to charge before they moved the first shovelful of dirt?

Kirk, I am at first speaking of Whistling Straits, that I've played twice.  Once for free on opening event, and once full freight.  I believe that one might say that WS was always conceived as the very high end audience with the added notion of the potential to host a major (which it now has).  The eyecandy is both the bells and whistles that justify the tarrif, and adds to the drama and challenge of the course.  There are IMHO surpluss areas of eyecandy there that are for the sizzle, not the playing strategy.  IMO. 

But also to that point of what is preconceived to be the cost of creating such flair at the dramatic venue, the most telling comment to me is what Herb Kohler jokes about and likes to recount, and has become somewhat legendary.  He said of Pete Dye's design and cost:  "I gave him an unlimitted budget, and he exceeded it".  Funny yes, but it says a lot to me about part of the reason that it becomes 'less fun' as one pays and plays it repeatedly.  To me it is buyer's regret (as a certain other GCA forum member remarked that evening at dinner as we talked the merits of the course over), and one and done.

there are definintely other courses of that strata, great fun - big bombastic project, but diminshing return of fun, due to outreageous pricing. 

P > F

[Jonathan Cummings]

Jim - by design stimulate me dream beyond my means - give me a chance to do what the big boys do - make a birdie, reach a par 5 in two, negotiate a seemingly dicey up & down.

Lou D - How in the hell did you become a 10!!  Nuzzy too!

JC (handicap - about 1.....[per hole!])

[Sean_A]

For those of you that have played North Berwick, Pennard & St Enodoc, the combination of what these courses provide is as fun as golf gets so far as I am concerned.  For the most part its rough and tumble, beautiful, funky, great variety, easily walkable and affordable golf which appeals to me most and these three courses offer that in spades.  Chuck in a bit of Sandwich and Prestwick to round out the clubhouse and history side of the experience and you are talking about a day out that cannot be beat. 

9 capper 

Ciao

[Jeff Doerr]

If they talk about it in the bar afterwards, I think I have done my job.

What a perfect line!

I would continue this thought line...

If I talk to my wife about it (she does not play).
If I call Scott in VA to talk about it.
If I call Charles in GA to talk about it.


Some others have already shared variations on these:
* A short par 3
* A reachable par 5
* A driveable par 4
* Small greens and big greens with nothing repeated
* A general theme or feel to the course - no schizo bunker variations, and not a dream 18 copy
* I like a course that lets me bail out if ability or weather demand it
* I like a course that challenges me to flirt with danger
* I like a course where I can recover from a bad shot by hitting a great one
* I like a great value. I'll pay $$$ to play, but at the big rates it needs to pretty special

In Oregon these publics are really really fun:
* Juniper in Redmond (Best value and fun in central OR)
* Bandon Crossings (just south of the town of Bandon-very worth seeing)
* Forest Hills (very old and pretty short, but much fun)
* Ghost Creek at Pumpkin Ridge ($$$, but has everything listed above)
* Eastmoreland (again, very old, but most items on the list - new greens don't quite fit in)
* The Reserve / both courses ($$, very fun play on both courses)
* Across the river in WA, Camas Meadows and Tri-Mountain make the fun list

In the end, I agree that almost all golf courses I've played are fun.
BUT, some courses let you wake up in the morning and think "Wow, I get to play _____ today!"

index = 8.9 (low of 4.7 and high of about 12 in the last 25+ years)

[Forrest Richardson]

A "fun" golf course is one that does not present itself in full the first time you meet it. Like an interesting woman.

[Gary Daughters]

That's a wonderfully simple question, and thanks for asking.

The essence of fun is the unexpected, for me micro as opposed to macro. I'll take lots of little surprises over one big OMG any day of the week.

Watching the ball run.  That is fun.

Offset/lateral greens are a hoot on their own, and done right can squeeze more fun out of different pin placements.

Wind is always fun. 

Bailouts, not so much.  Options, yes.

Anything puzzling. 

Pacing.  Something between a Miles Davis solo and a train wreck.  The same hole twice in a row is not fun. 

Handicap 6 with a bullet.

[James Boon]

When I need to think about my tee shot rather than just pulling a driver out every time.

Blind shots! You can’t beat the thrill of walking over the hill and seeing your ball sitting perfectly in the middle of the fairway or on the green.

As others have said short par 3s, 4s and 5s but you still need the long tough holes as well so that there can be the excitement from of hitting a long iron or fairway wood close to the hole.

Interesting greens and their surrounds.

Watching a ball running along the ground.

What happens between shots and holes for instance playing partners: hopefully providing great conversation? Or seeing wildlife: the distraction of watching a kestrel flying over, deer or sheep nearby or on the course, or a something unexpected like the slow worm I found sunning itself on the 16th tee at Woodhall Spa or the giant hairy caterpillar trying to cross the 5th green at St Enodoc.

Matchplay!

Any time I beat my brother!

James, handicap 7

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