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Carl Nichols

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Disney Golf in Argentina -- Highland Park
« on: July 01, 2009, 05:00:48 PM »
As I’ve mentioned in prior threads, I’ve been living down in Argentina for the last five months or so, and have made an effort to play most of the highly regarded tracks around greater Buenos Aires.  Highland Park, ranked by Golf Digest as the 8th best golf course in Argentina, is one such course.  I was particularly interested to play HP because it’s a relatively old course, and because I had been told it has some of the best greens in Buenos Aires.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the best greens in Buenos Aires (unless one cares only about green speed), and IMHO it doesn’t deserve its #8 ranking in Argentina – there are a number of courses (mostly newer) that should get ranked above it.

Indeed, if I had to describe the course in one sentence, I’d say that it felt like someone took one of the Disney World courses (don’t ask me which one – I can’t distinguish one from another) and plopped it down in the middle of a housing development in Argentina.  Obviously that’s not high praise – a perfectly decent course (but not better than that) in fairly lame surroundings.   It is, however, a great deal if you have an Argentine national handicap – 80 pesos, or about U$S 22 at today’s exchange rate – though it’s not any cheaper than other courses down here if you have such a handicap.  It also played pretty hard from the tips, given the stiff breeze and the chill in the air.

In any event, I snapped some pictures so I thought I’d go ahead and post them here – though I haven’t bothered to add many comments.   Enjoy!


Clubhouse

 

Front Nine


 









A Nutria, which I think means “mean mother****r” in Spanish







Disney in Argentina!














































Back Nine


















































 



 
« Last Edit: July 02, 2009, 08:36:19 PM by Carl Nichols »

Garland Bayley

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Re: Disney Golf in Argentina -- Highland Park
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2009, 07:10:13 PM »
Your definition of some is way too large.
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Carl Nichols

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Re: Disney Golf in Argentina -- Highland Park
« Reply #2 on: July 02, 2009, 08:51:58 PM »
Sorry about the hiccup on the pics -- normal sized ones should now appear.

Christoph Meister

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Re: Disney Golf in Argentina -- Highland Park
« Reply #3 on: July 03, 2009, 12:40:53 PM »
Carl,

I'd rather play that sort of Disney Course than sitting in a too warm office which I am right now - Even though Highland Park doesn't seem to be so exceptional it's allways interesting for me to see what golf courses look like in Argentina - be it the famous ones or the not so famous ones. I hope you grabbed a scorecard for me form Highland Park.

Kind regards from sunny Northern Germany

Christoph
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Tony_Muldoon

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Re: Disney Golf in Argentina -- Highland Park
« Reply #4 on: July 03, 2009, 06:07:19 PM »
Carl I take the Disney reference to be disparaging, but I quite like what I see.

The site looks very flat (a la Florida) but the greens are built-up to provide some interest. They all seem to start at fairway level and at least to my eye it doesn't look overly manufactured or nearly as artificial as some courses I’ve seen.  Add in the brown sand tying in with the browned off fairways and it leads to a low key... if not exactly "elegance"... then it's got a sort of understated charm working for it.  Yes. some to the Palm Oasis seem a little over done but perhaps it looked worse in person than in your pictures, but I'm glad to have taken your tour.

How did the ground play?

Thanks.
Let's make GCA grate again!

Andrew Summerell

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Re: Disney Golf in Argentina -- Highland Park
« Reply #5 on: July 03, 2009, 06:43:54 PM »
Carl,

Obviously it's hard to tell from photos, but a few of the green complexes seem to be similar to each other. What appears to be the 1st & the 10th is a good example. Do they play differently, or is that what you found disappointing about the course?

Carl Nichols

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Re: Disney Golf in Argentina -- Highland Park
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2009, 09:53:31 AM »
Tony:
What I meant by the Disney reference was that the course really looked and played very much like one of, or really an amalgam of, the Disney resort courses (e.g., the Palm and Magnolia) -- flat terrain, pushup greens, some bunkers that work, some that don´t, etc.  IMHO the Disney courses aren´t bad courses, but they also don´t have anything particularly compelling about them.  That´s how I felt about Highland Park -- a perfectly fine golf course, but nothing outstanding (and thus probably not worthy of being ranked 8 in the country).  And, as Andrew notes, several of the green complexes were pretty similar .... although with land this flat, I suspect that it´s harder to come up with 18 unique green complexes.

As for the ground, they really didn´t have the maintenance meld working:  the greens were pretty firm, and so were some of the greenside areas -- but not all of them, and the fairways and rough were quite damp.  A few greens did have some (non-severe) cool little runoff areas that allowed for some interesting recovery shots.