Since starting the web site five plus years ago, I bet I have received around 1,000 emails of comments/thoughts on courses that someone has just played. Right at the top of that list for sheer passion was a lengthy, well written one from our very own crazed writer outside of San Francisco, Gib Papazian.
I wish I still had it so I could post it here (with his permission of course) but he basically said that he thought Chechessee was nearly the finest modern course that he had seen. Paragraph after paragraph explained his rationale and you could tell that the course had re-energized him and his love for the game.
Ever since that email, I especially looked forward to a return game there. And last Monday, the opportunity came and off I went armed only with my hickories.
First of all, for the 60 of us that played in the Hickory Tournament this past weekend at Mid Pines, Chechessee is a GREAT hickory course. I am just starting to compile a list of the best spots in the US for a game with hickories and Chechessee joins Saint Louis Country Club, Fishers Island, Eastward Ho! and Kingsley on the short list of neatest hickory courses. Watching a hooked Redan iron run for thirty yards down the 18th fairway before running onto the green and settling near a back hole location to halve our afternoon match is a shot/playing condition that I will long remember.
I am still trying to figure out the greens at Chechessee. Many are built up but unlike at Pinehurst No.2 where it is repeated ad nauseam, these green complexes possess superior variety. Knowing where to miss it has to be the art in playing the course and that might take 20 or 120 rounds to figure it out. Take the 13th for instance - as you move the hole around, do you understand where the smart misses become?? I sure don't.
On a side point, a very good friend has played all the Coore & Crenshaw courses several times (save for Austin CC and their new one at Plymouth) and he thinks Chechessee is the hardest of the bunch to shoot near your handicap - and that's without any fear of losing a ball! When told this, Bill Coore had nothing to say/add as he simply doesn't look at it in such a manner. However, like other par 70 courses that measure in the 6,500-6,600 yard range that don't have four par fives for long hitters to beat up on (Crystal Downs for instance), the green complexes help promote taking three shots instead of two unless the golfer is missing the ball in the right spots.
The 1st is a prime example of a deceptively challenging hole - Tom Paul in one of his million posts
has probably coined the phrase 'deceptively difficult architecture' and the 1st can be its poster child. This two shotter measures less than 375 yards from the back yet a man who has played the course more than two hundred times told me that he bogeys the 1st more than any other hole out there. How can that be? The answer centers on the pushed up 3,300 square foot green that plays even smaller. After I did a jig on the 1st tee warning two first timers of the dangers of the 1st, one of the guys stuck his approach to five feet and made birdie. In the afternoon round, he missed the green long left and made the same length putt for a 6. All most enjoyable to watch!
No cart paths, plenty of width in the shaved areas around the greens, the firmness in the playing conditions is near ideal, the low key clubhouse, the opportunity not to wait and to play in three hours - everything is being done right here. Very few places can say the same.
I understand Cuscowilla being ranked 13th modern in the current Golf Week rankings - I don't understand Chechessee being further back at 77th. Any thoughts?? I keep looking at the new photos in the course profile and they make me appreciate Gib's email all the more.
Cheers,