Serious Criticism: Streamsong Blue

[Tom_Doak]

Though I also posted another quote from Donald Ross in a different thread, this is the one that prompted me back here:


     "The British architect of golf links pays little heed to criticism, but is open to valuable suggestions, knowing that the carping critic is usually a very ignorant man, while the one who has any advice worth taking gives it in the gentlest way, for no two experts ever agree exactly on points of golf construction, and the best links usually are the outcome of a compromise of ideas gathered from many intelligent sources."




So, my sincerest thanks to those of you who have offered gentle advice on this thread.  For the others, I've taken it for what it was worth.     If you have any doubt which critic you were, give it some thought.

[Peter Flory]

I'm heading down tomorrow!  This has been one of the longest stretches that I can remember between real rounds of golf, so I can't wait to get out there. 


Has anyone experienced the new grasses there yet?  Mach 1 or something...

[Erik J. Barzeski]

My "criticism"^ is that the course is too soft to play along the ground most of the time. I appreciate that you can play that way when you're around the greens - putting, chipping, bumping hybrids, etc. But I'd love to be able to do it from the fairway, back from shots outside of 100 yards. I feel like the course almost asks or begs me to play some of those shots. I was disappointed that you had to fly the ball there, most of the time.

^ As Tom explained to me, it's way more to do with Florida's general conditions. You can't have super firm turf in that area of Florida (or maybe almost anywhere in Florida). So, it's more a criticism of the conditions, about which there's not really much you can do.

[Kyle Harris]

My "criticism"^ is that the course is too soft to play along the ground most of the time. I appreciate that you can play that way when you're around the greens - putting, chipping, bumping hybrids, etc. But I'd love to be able to do it from the fairway, back from shots outside of 100 yards. I feel like the course almost asks or begs me to play some of those shots. I was disappointed that you had to fly the ball there, most of the time.

^ As Tom explained to me, it's way more to do with Florida's general conditions. You can't have super firm turf in that area of Florida (or maybe almost anywhere in Florida). So, it's more a criticism of the conditions, about which there's not really much you can do.

Weren’t you the one who claimed to hit a 3/4 4-iron from 190 yards and it only rolled 10 yards or something? I seem to recall your review also noted you won’t critique courses based on your preferences and then several paragraphs later said the bunkers had too much sand for your liking. 


For the record, this morning I watched a fellow bound a low shot into Blue #1 green from 150. The shot carried about 90 yards.


This has always been an odd one to me since more often than not one is applying the mentality of what works on Ryegrass must work on Bermuda EXACTLY as it does on Rye/Bent/Fescue. Far more likely the reasons is the golfer doesn’t know how to hit anything other than a maximum spin shot with a lofted iron and then expect the laws of physics to bend to their will. The point being that on Bermuda all too often the fix is simply going two clubs longer and carrying the ball the same instead of wondering why the club designed to impart the most backspin on the ball is doing as such...

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Weren’t you the one who claimed to hit a 3/4 4-iron from 190 yards and it only rolled 10 yards or something?

Yes. The shot appeared to call for a ball that would land just short of the green and bounce/roll up. I played that shot, the ball barely got to the front edge.

I seem to recall your review also noted you won’t critique courses based on your preferences and then several paragraphs later said the bunkers had too much sand for your liking.

I try not to comment on the architecture after one playing. I can comment on the conditions after one playing. And I'm not aware of anyone's preference for 8" of sand in the bunker. 

For the record, this morning I watched a fellow bound a low shot into Blue #1 green from 150. The shot carried about 90 yards.

Okay. In response to me, about that point, Tom Doak said that playing bouncing shots like I was talking about was virtually impossible for Florida. So I'm just going by that.

This has always been an odd one to me since more often than not one is applying the mentality of what works on Ryegrass must work on Bermuda EXACTLY as it does on Rye/Bent/Fescue. Far more likely the reasons is the golfer doesn’t know how to hit anything other than a maximum spin shot with a lofted iron and then expect the laws of physics to bend to their will. The point being that on Bermuda all too often the fix is simply going two clubs longer and carrying the ball the same instead of wondering why the club designed to impart the most backspin on the ball is doing as such...

I'm not sure how that applies to a punched, low 4-iron. I managed to get around the courses in Scotland by almost never playing a ball above 50 or 60' in the air. I wasn't playing shots with "maximum spin" and the landing angle was well south of 40°.

And yes, I mostly play here in the northeast. The shot looked like a low, running shot was called for. The conditions didn't allow it. So that's my one "minor" criticism, assuming it still holds (as Tom's response to me would indicate it does).

[Tom_Doak]

Erik:


I’m not a turf guy, and Kyle is a really good one, so I will defer to him about whether firm conditions are impossible or just way more difficult on Bermudagrass.  It’s certainly more difficult, because the grass grows more aggressively and produces more thatch, and thatch will smother bounces.  So you’ll have to adrift and vertical [I had typed "topdress and verticut" here, only to have my phone edit it -- note to self, turn spell checker off] aggressively to counter that, and most courses do not.  (Whereas on fescue, you can keep firm conditions for a while via neglect and some topdrrssing.)


As to the level of sand in the bunkers, I remember when I was at the Open at Troon in 1982, Gary Player said the same as you.  A reporter went to the greenkeeper for comment, and his reply was “As far as I know, it’s sand all the way down to China.” 

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I’m not a turf guy, and Kyle is a really good one, so I will defer to him about whether firm conditions are impossible or just way more difficult on Bermudagrass.  It’s certainly more difficult, because the grass grows more aggressively and produces more thatch, and thatch will smother bounces.  So you’ll have to adrift and vertical aggressively to counter that, and most courses do not.  (Whereas on fescue, you can keep firm conditions for a while via neglect and some topdrrssing.)

Sure, yeah. I mean, I probably should have known that. My only point, having only played the course the one time, was that I thought the course begged for some running shots from the approach shot areas (not just around the greens), and the course didn't really allow it. Whether it's even possible or not, I don't know. I could be wishing for something I didn't know, or I could have been misled by a misconception I had about the course, etc. I'm tempering my own "criticism" - and waited until this topic was relatively old as it's not a big criticism - because I only played it the one time. Heck, it could have been the conditions at that time.

You had said at the time:

I had the chance to play the Blue course in December, the day after my first round on the Black course.  Toward the end of the round we were joined by our client Rich Mack and the superintendent Rusty Mercer, and I told Rusty I was really pleased with the condition and presentation of the course.  They've had some common bermuda contamination in some of the fairways in the past couple of years, which is hard to fight down there, and that has made the course a bit softer in some spots than I'd prefer, but Rusty has been involved since the whole place was a giant sand pile, and he's doing his damnedest to present the courses the way Bill and I want them.

But anyway… my mild criticism remains: I wish(ed) that I could have played the ball more along the ground from farther out. Maybe that's been changed/improved. Hopefully?

As to the level of sand in the bunkers, I remember when I was at the Open at Troon in 1982, Gary Player said the same as you.  A reporter went to the greenkeeper for comment, and his reply was “As far as I know, it’s sand all the way down to China.” 

You said the same thing back then.    It's a good quick story though.

https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,60276.msg1563985.html#msg1563985

FWIW I didn't bring up the sand in this topic. And I said much of what I'd say here again over there - bunkers are supposed to be hazards, selfishly I wanted to play a skinny shot, etc. I'd even said " I'm almost reluctant to list this one, because bunkers should be hazards…".

[Kyle Harris]

These threads are generally a psychological study for me anyway. Any review or opinion is a practical Goldilocks of comments. Too fast. Too slow. Just right. All on the same putting green. All within 15 minutes of each other.

The question remains how does the golf course suit the idea that golf is merely hit ball find ball hit ball again until hole. Repeat 18x.

I've attempted the approach shot in question almost weekly for the past 9 years and have yet to be able to repeat your result. I've never NOT been able to bound an approach shot into any of the greens on the property but then again I've been immersed in the site fully for a decade now. I will stand by my statement that it's more about knowing HOW to integrate with the golf course conditions than the same TAKING AWAY the option. You even hint at it yourself, to wit: "I didn't get to play the golf course the way I wanted to play it."

No golf course on the planet gives a damn how you wish to play it.


I do know that I am generally fearful of the ball going long and almost always use the approach to scuttle the ball on to the green, even if/when I'm fortunate enough to catch a bounce of the tee that puts a shorter iron in my hand.

The approach is partially blind, with many of the low hillocks completely blind, from the distance in question so I'm not sure you could fully see how the ball behaved on the ground or if it bounced into an upslope or bottom of the hollow. I do believe that you visualized a shot and it didn't end up as intended but as is most often the case in those situations that has much more to do with the archer and the arrow than it does with the target. Your numbers seem suspect, too. If you have the fire power to knock 2/3 off a 4 iron and trundle it in there from 180 yards out you probably have the firepower to hit a tee shot further down the fairway than you did. Though admittedly you did say you switched Drivers on that tee.

The slight dig was more to your comment (on the blog, which I clicked so good job on getting that engagement!) that you don't evaluate golf courses based on your own preferences. Utter rubbish. Everybody does. In fact, I'm not really interested in reading your opinion through the lens of what you think others want to think but rather in how your own experience and perspective shapes your opinion. The worst thing that can happen their is that I think you're a moron, but at least you're an HONEST and OPEN moron all the same. And guess what? We're all morons. 

Maybe I'm just offended that my namesake friend of yours clearly didn't do our shared given name any justice.

Looking forward to your return.

P.S. Didn't realize you were the Coach at Behrend.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

You even hint at it yourself, to wit: "I didn't get to play the golf course the way I wanted to play it."

I said "I expected to be able to play the ground game, but couldn't." The fairways and approaches were pretty soft. The greens weren't (which I enjoyed).

The course appeared to be receptive to bouncing a shot on, but they just didn't bounce. The ball didn't get high in the air. It hit softly, despite landing at a sharp angle. It didn't bound forward much at all.

I don't know what to tell you. It didn't. I tried it two, maybe three times in that round, and gave up on playing that type of shot after that 4I, IIRC. It was years ago at this point.

I do know that I am generally fearful of the ball going long and almost always use the approach to scuttle the ball on to the green, even if/when I'm fortunate enough to catch a bounce of the tee that puts a shorter iron in my hand.

As you know, I can only speak to the conditions on the day I played.

If you have the fire power to knock 2/3 off a 4 iron and trundle it in there from 180 yards out

A "2/3 4-iron" doesn't go 66.6% of the distance of a full 4-iron. And the 180 was the distance to the flag - intending to bounce the ball up, it likely flew 150 to 155?

P.S. Didn't realize you were the Coach at Behrend.

Indeed. We've gone to 9 of the last 10 National Championships played. Generally have a really good group of guys. Most years they can play a bit, too.