Better Architecture: Olympic or San Francisco GC?

[Bill Wright]

In a parallel thread, Mark Fine introduces the topic:

"Courses with high shot values and that require the golfer to think and to play a wide variety of golf shots are what many of us would classify as a Great Tests of Golf.  But can you have a great test of golf without great architecture?  If so, why?"

Olympic comes up, again, as an example by several posters, myself included, of a course that fits Mark Fine's description.

To me, San Francisco Golf Club next door is so much more interesting, from its green contours, ingenious fairway bunkering, perfect use of trees, as compared to Olympic, which is a great test of a championship golfer, but certainly not as interesting, IMO.

I'm always surprised as why the GD panelists put Olympic several places higher than SFGC in its polls.

So, I would like to take a vote of the GCA Discussion Group:

Which has better architectural elements and interest, Olympic or San Francisco GC?

I'll start the tally by placing a vote for San Francisco.  
  

 
 
 

[John_Conley]

Haven't played either, but I've always been told it wasn't even close.  SF by a landslide.  

I don't think I'd like those canopies at Olympic since I don't drive it too straight!

You say the panelists rank one ahead?  Don't forget how much "Tradition" factors in.

[Richard_Goodale]

I have played both.  They are both great courses.  You very much have to think and be able to plan and execute a wide variety of golf shots at Olympic, and SFGC is a great "test of golf."  Both have their own strengths and weaknesses, like all courses.  IMHO, anybody trying or even wanting to "rank" one over the other is very much into picking nits.

[Gib_Papazian]

Here we go again. The so-called "canopy of trees" was drastically cut back years ago. In fact, plans call for even more widening and eradication of brush.

I thought to save something I wrote a year or so ago on the the subject in response to a post by John Bernhardt:

 It is difficult to make an unqualified assessment of one’s home club - particularly when the comparison is with SFGC - an official GCA sacred cow.  

I think the tendency to compare O-Club and SFCC is more geographic and cosmetic than anything else. Yes the basic soil composition is similar, but the Lake is on the leeward side of the hill, tumbling down to Lake Merced with sharp twists and turns. SFCC faces the sea on what amounts to a gently rolling hillside.

I have always been mindful of the difference between an objective test and a subjective one. SFCC definitely presents more geometric variety off the tee - but the basic challenge between the two is completely different.

Trees are more of an embellishment at SFGC, with little effect on the line of play. At Olympic they are hazards that must be confronted to gain a better (read: shorter)  approach shot.
You must move the ball both ways off the tee on the Lake Course. There is an advantage to this at SFGC, but a straight ball on a carefully chosen line always works. At Olympic, straight tee shots must have distance control.    

Olympic is more of a black and white challenge. If you spray, you must take your lumps and try to chip out and get it up and down with a mid-iron in your hand. SFGC is more classical in that a miss makes the next shot a bit harder but not impossible.

That said, although the bunkering and putting surface contours at SFGC are superior in many respects, SFGC lacks the little swales that introduce variety in the approach shot to the green. The bump shot is actually a far more useful tool on the Lake than SFGC. Actually, there is no comparison. Yet SFGC from an aesthetic standpoint - and again from a geometric standpoint - is one of the best on the planet.

For many years, the rough lines at Olympic were holdovers from previous Opens, and sacrificed (and hid) the subtle rolls and folds of the course at the altar of difficulty. Remember, everyone was very proud of our GD ranking - based more of difficulty than anything else. The result - along with demands for a green golf course - was a wet and annoyingly difficult bog.

I would suggest that reorientation of the rough lines and the reintroduction of using the contours of the ground to direct your ball have vastly improved the variety out there. I am terribly sorry John caught it after fairway and green aeration, so he did not get to see it in its best form. However, he has been there a few times before.

True enough that SFGC is less a product of evolution than Olympic - but I guess all we can judge is what is there now. I cannot understand how SFGC can allow that ridiculous encroachment of bushes on the Duel Hole (#7), particularly because in some respect it is the most noteworthy hole on the golf course.

The intrusion of trees there - and oddly enough, there only - has grossly compromised the aesthetic presentation and balance of Tillie’s green complex. Plus, it so clearly defines a visual target that makes the hole psychologically easier. SFGC has lost 3 holes plus part if one more to the 280 freeway (The same road that took 3 holes from Cal Club and destroyed Lake Merced CC), but besides that, the basic architecture remains intact.

Thankfully #12 was spared, one of my favorite golf holes anywhere. A member friend of mine swears that the mounding is not completely original, but the approach shot just knocks me out. Whoever did it, I would like to see some of their other work. Tillie would be proud.

With one exception, the Lake Course is pretty much unaltered since 1972 (?), when the 7th green was rebuilt from two to three tiers and those hideous fairway grass traps were installed. Several years ago, the 15th green (short par three) was rebuilt. It is so bad it literally gives me a Naccarato-type palsy every time I see it. Tom Weiskopf  just ruined the entire concept of the hole. It is actually almost as bad as #12 at Garden City but not quite.

Our “historian,” who was one of three members there the Monday it was graded, offers the excuse that the hole had been altered from the original prior to Weiskopf anyway. As if this somehow makes it more acceptable. He never quite fesses up to the fact that he and the green chairman at the time were “helping” during the grading. I know, because the other member who dropped by was an obscure and opinionated golf scribe.

The problem is that the hole is as bad a non-sequitur as the 7th. Before it fit very well in that intimate corner of the property. However, a later green chairman (with some prodding from certain members . . . .) modified the putting surface. In time it will probably be okay.

SFGC has its own ugly duckling though - #13 with its oval bunkers and Wilson/Jones surface contours is actually more hideous because the rest of the course remains so faithful to the original artistic composition.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

This isn't trying to be a smart ass complaint or anything, but why does one have to be better then the other?

I haven't played Olympic, a wrong that should be righted someday soon, but I have had the fortune to play the little bit of Shangrla across the street and as one wise soul once said on this website, "If you complain anything at all about 13, 14, & 15 @ SFGC, you shouldn't be really be there."

Yes, the freeway did do harm and "Little Tllie" should be resurrected but SFGC is more then that.

Being at SFGC is everything, and yes, I have a very "wet", fond and special place for it in my heart. If anyone that has had the chance to visit this place, please tell everyone that hasn't had the opportunity just how fun it is to say to yourself, "I'm at SFGC......" (this usually happens at the 1st/10th tee, where it literally melds from the driveway to the actual tee box. It can only be described as a giddy feeling or high.)

It's just magnificent golf architecture, nothing over the top with just enough quirk. I don't even have to mention anything about the bunkering either! (Which of course I will and say that it is so precisely placed that visions of #3 come directly to mind!)

Favorite hole? for me its a tie between #3, 5, 7, & 12. I cannot pick a favorite. But if I had to, I would be leaning towards the 12th)

If anyone says anything about how trees dictate the experience, or the fog (Bill V.) don't listen. He just mad at California  

[Ran Morrissett]

I vote for Olympic and its great side hill architecture.

SFGC's 13-14 and Sampson's mongrel 15th are all thumbs down, its finish doesn't make up for 13-15, at least half the green pads have shrunk with great hole locations being compromised (e.g. back right at the 3rd), the second cross bunker at the 1st was lost a long time ago, its one shotters collectively aren't near to Tillie's best, and it doesn't have anything close to a great short par four to match Olympic's 18th. Plus, its routing doesn't seem special as 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 are parallel to one another and so to (roughly) are 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, and 18.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Here we go again!:)

[Paul Richards]

Ran:

Agreed.  Olympic is unique in its lack of fairway bunkering.

SF Golf is wonderful, but Olympic gets the nod in my book!

[Gib_Papazian]

Tommy,
One does not have to be better than the other because both are completely different types of courses.

If you would levitate out of your desk chair and take me up on one of my 2,457 invitations to come play Olympic, you could see for yourself.

Speaking of SFGC, interesting lecture I attended last week on nematode eradication through the use of heat. Hope it works at SFGC so they do not have to lift up their putting surfaces.

[redanman]

A few extreneous points before I vote

If anyone says anything about how trees dictate the experience, or the fog (Bill V.) don't listen. He just mad at California  

Olympic has more of the fog (Due to its location) and trees galore.  That doesn't change the fact that it is a much more unidimensional golf course than SFGC.  I've played it over 40 times, have attended major championships there, so I have some idea from where I comment.  When you guys visit SF, play all 3 courses there SFGC, Olympic and CalClub.  Decide for yourself.  

California suffers from golf depravity.  It is such a cool place with relatively no old golf courses in her cities.  For all of its trendsetting and influence on the USA and the rest of the world, it surely didn't  get it right with golf.  i.e., no respect at all for Thomas and the ridiculous home building at Pasatiempo, for examples.  At least they haven't screwed up Cypress point.  Two   bad they couldn't have built Raynor's design, too.

The problem with these two in question is that both are over-rated relative to courses everywhere else.  

A.W. Tillinghast built several golf courses in the NYC metro area that are not head and shoulders below SFGC, for example. Such is the "California Effect", it is real.

And Olympic is a unidimensional slog, not even as interesting as Medinah, the other pariah of this group.  I used to like to play there so I could wear out my long irons (Once I found my plugged ball).  San Francisco is cute and more quirky.  A little like Winged Foot East, a break from the slog in  the fog.  Shall we call The O the "Slog in the Fog" if they ever hold a Ryder Cup there?

As for SFGC give me #2, #4, #9, 12.  Olympic #4 & #14 are really stimulating.  Me, I want to play the CalClub again first when I get back to The City next.  It's the one it has been the longest since I've played, not because I am a homer.

AS for the vote, SFGC gets my nod.  The O is "harder", SFGC is a little better.  The back nine just sags a bit too much to really be called a great course.  It is a great experience.  

I have no idea why this posted in bold type, sorry.  I tried to edit it.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Y'all better get out to SFGC quick.  The greens go under the knife April 1 (nematode eradication), and will be out of service until October 1.

[redanman]

Y'all better get out to SFGC quick.  The greens go under the knife April 1 (nematode eradication), and will be out of service until October 1.

Won't make it, my friend.  Good luck.  Are they sodding and with what?  I haven't heard.

[Gib_Papazian]

redanman,

Just because you played Olympic 40 times before the Eisenhower administration, does not mean you can accurately comment on what is there today.

Since you fled (or were asked to leave? )the Golden State, a few things have changed. For instance, we have sound in our movies now and Orlimar makes metal woods.

The first time I played NGLA was only 14 years ago and it bore little resemblance to what is there today. You are so damned East Coast-centric in your views that it has blinded you to the fact that California has vastly improved its golf  courses.

[redanman]

redanman,

Just because you played Olympic 40 times before the Eisenhower administration, does not mean you can accurately comment on what is there today.

It has been a short time, my friend, sorry.  I was only 8 when Ike left office, and I've only been 2 years full time back east again.  You can't add much more strategy to the O without wholesale revision of the greens and especially tree lines.  But it is a fine, fine manly golf course, aye.  The course is much harder with mud stuck to your ball, too!  

East Coast centric?  We're certainly not golfcourseopenic (A sort of medical term).  


Remember the homer cover article a few years ago on GolfJournal?  I still laugh about that one.  Soltau's "Golf on the BEST coast!  Homer, homer homer.  

(All in fun.  We're just pickin' straws here.  I'll play CalClub, O and SFGC anytime, believe me. They're all 7+ in my book) I just won't pay $425 for the 6 hour privilege of PBGnotL(9).  I can play NGLA, Pine Valley, Shinnecock and Merion for that much and still have cocktail and ceegar money left over.

[THuckaby2]

I am here to attest, and confess.

First, the latter:  for a LONG time I was of the opinion that Olympic Lake was a long wet confining slog.  A great test, yes.  A great course, well... if being tested is your thing, sure.  But if fun and interest what you like, no.

Then I played the course again a few weeks ago, after over a year's absence.

Now the former:

I will TESTIFY that the ground game is alive and well at Olympic - oh yes sir it is!  And tree clearing has been done to a remarkable extent.  This is now one DAMN GREAT golf course, even for a "fun over test" guy like me.  You need to bounce the ball in - YES, SHORT OF THE GREEN - in several places.  The trees are there all right, but not nearly so claustrophobically as before.  The greens remain incredible, as they always were.

It is a GREAT course today and deserves every ranking it gets, if not better.

As for SFGC, I echo Tommy's thoughts:  you do get an incredible "feeling" there - at least I sure did!  But trying to say it's better or worse than OClub Lake, by any measure... well... I'll go with Rich.  They're both incredible.  I can't put one over the other.  Too much nit-picking for me also.

Cop-out?  Maybe.  But I can live with it.

TH

[John_D._Bernhardt]

This was a tough subject last year and is so again. I do like the tenor though. I find the ground game to be the shot of choice on several holes and in many situations at Olympic lake. I have played there many times  with Gib and watched with joy as he worked his magic no more that 10 feet off the ground time and time again. I' m thankful to have played both and feel golf in the Bay area is very rich for having these to great courses as crown jewels.