Seattle Trip, The Classic and Doak's Up Day

[Eric Olsen]

I just returned from a quick weekend trip to Seattle to play golf with my brothers.  We played 18 at Druids Glen on Friday, 45 at Washington National on Sunday, but the real treat was 54 at The Classic on Saturday.  We had played there years ago, but frankly had little memory of the course. What a gem!  

Apparently the conditioning had run down in years past, but the new management had the course in pristine conditions.  Every shot was very tight and visually demanding, and the greens had great speed, contours and rolled true.  

We played all our rounds from the blue tees, but in the clubhouse between rounds, one of the staff said that many of their regulars come out and play a predetermined variety of tees, in order to bring different hazards and options into play.  This reminded me of course of the recent Doak thread about an Up Day, and so I thought I would pass this along for the good of the group, along with a strong recommendation to check out the Classic if you are in the Seattle area.  

I have played many courses in the Seattle, and The Classic has the most character of any of them.

[Jordan Wall]

I am playing Classic in a few weeks, and I will take some pictures for people to see.  The greens are truly amazing, at least for a course that sint really talked about.

The one time I played the Classic, about two months ago, it got down to 45-degrees and the rain was coming down so hard it was going sideways because of the wind.  It was crazy, yet it did not detract from the fun of the course.  I am glad you enjoyed the course, it really is a treat!!  If you ever come back to Seattle,. let me know!!


Some questions,

What was your overall opinion of WA National?  How did you like the bunkering?  Were the fake sand pits pretty weird?
What was you favorite hole at the Classic?  
Glad you had a good time!

[Craig Van Egmond]

Eric,

    I'm with ya on the Classic, what a cool course. It was always one of my favorites when I lived up there.  A great example on how to route a course on a small property. The always had amazing greens. And what a bargain, glad to see they are taking care of it again.

[Peter_Herreid]

My memory may be fading, but I think that Bill Overdorf, Classic's designer, used to post here in the early days of GCAtlas.com...  

I believe that the original money for the project, which opened in 1991, was supposed to be Japanese, and was going to be one of a series of "Classic"-named clubs around the country.  That angle didn't last too long, however, and perhaps it never got off the ground in that fashion.

In any event, the biggest reason to care about the Classic Country Club is that it was the home of one Ryan Moore, native of Puyallup, WA, whose family ran and maybe still does run the course.  I remember the scrawny teenager in the shop in the mid-late 90's before he headed off to UNLV.

The course is nice, but is not necessarily worth the special trip, as it is very similar to numerous other too tree-lined, stump-encircled, overly wet, claustrophobic Pacific Northwest courses built in the same general time-frame.  It does have some of Bill Overdorf's most creative green complexes, though, and that part is intriguing.

It is damn-hard to get to in normal working hours if you're coming from anywhere more than a few miles from Tacoma or Puyallup--traffic can be terrible.  As Eric described, it is perhaps best tackled as part of a multi-round day in mid-summer, without anywhere else to go or have to get back to...As have many places up here, prices (once way out of line with the lack of conditioning years ago) have come back down to appropriate levels.

Always amazing to find such courses pop up on GCA!  Perhaps we can now discuss Whitney Farms in Monroe, CT!

[Eric Olsen]

Jordan,

I will let you know the next time we have a sibling competition in Seattle!  But from what I read about your game you will have to give up some strokes!  I have played Washington National several times now, and have generally had the same reaction.  I like the course, and think it is a fine track, but it doesn't really feel like it has much character, and this feeling was particularly acute on this trip after playing the Classic.  The fairways are enormous, and the greens at WN were larger than many of the fairways at the Classic, it just felt mostly like a course where you could just bomb away without much penalty.  Of course, we nevertheless managed to find a hazard or two...It was overwatered in places, like number 2 where our drives practically plugged.  With respect to the bunkers, my inability to hit a good shot out of them undoubtedly shades my perspective.  I like number 3, 6, 7, 10, and 12, particularly.  I also think it is overpriced.  I think we all liked Druids Glen better than WN, but then the views of Rainer are also more plentiful there....

The Classic is a pain to get to.  My brother lives in Ballard, so it is a rough drive indeed to get there.  That is the one downside.  

It would be easy to say that 7 might be my favorite, since I birdied it two of the three times we played it, but I might have to say the third hole, which my brother noticed is actually very similar to the design of number 16 at Pacific Dunes.