“GolfClubAtlas.com is presented to promote frank commentary on golf course architecture.”My history with Coore & Crenshaw is that I have been a big fan of C&C since my first visit to Sand Hills. Yes, I think the 14th at Cuscowilla is a great hole and I was always one of the biggest fans of Sugarloaf. Seeing some of the recent pictures of The Red @ Streamsong and then taking a tour of the course made me think that there was lots of width and options out there, I just had to play it.
Today I played with a friend from the U.K. who is a former member at Royal St. George’s. However, he lives in Brooklyn and does not play often so I thought to myself maybe we should play The Silver tees at 6094, but that sounded a little short. Thus we went to the 6584 Black tees, which are 100+ yards shorter that the 6698 Black tees on The Blue/Doak. All measurements are from The Black Tees below. Kyle Harris was our guide for the day, so we had lots of local knowledge.
Hole #1 reminds you of #1 at Sand Hills, but at 464 (Black) and playing as an up hill par 4, it is a tough tough opener, and the double bogey on the card showed its toughness.
Hole #2 is intimidating off the tee and I dunked one in the water.
Hole #3 same thing as number 2.
Yikes, where are the C&C options?
The course then settles into the C&C mode from holes 4-11 and I responded going 3 over during this stretch of holes with a birdie opportunity missed.
The back 9 on The Red from The Black tees plays 3511 at the following distances:
431, 408, 472, 508, 166, 453, 184, 384, 505.
Where is the C&C flexibility and options on the back 9 at The Red?
No short fours, both of the longer par 3’s are on the back.
The par 5’s play 508, 521 on the front and 508 and 505 on the back.
The Biarritz Green and Black tees play on the right side of this picture and as a result are very difficult to hit anything but a cut into a Biarittz?
The Placement from The Silver tee on The Biarritz had a great angle.
Now with all of the above, I will guess that The Red course will be ranked higher by Golf Digest and lower by Golfweek than The Blue. It is the visually more appealing course and the tougher walk of The Red is due to the more up and down and dramatic terrain. For me it played longer that The Blue.
Better players will probably prefer The Red, but for the regular guy golfer getting off a plane in Tampa and Orlando after not hitting a ball for 2-3 months, it is clearly the tougher of the two and the toughest C&C course that I have played.
I thought Tom Doak presented the golfer with more options, variety and flexibility. With a grand total of one play on both courses, my current 10 round split would be 7 on The Doak and 3 on The C&C.
In general, I preferred the greens of C&C and it is a great complementary course that all will enjoy. However I think the C&C will need some tweaking to make it more playable for the regular guy golfer.
Happy New Year.