Rustic Canyon moves towards the dark side

[Joe Perches]

by adding yardage to sprinkler covers.

Perhaps soon it'll have location colored flags on the pins too.

Oh well, still a nice walk and great fun.

[rjsimper]

Joe

RC was a charter member of the dark side when they opened the course with the fleet of GPS carts

The funny thing is that many people playing will now play WORSE because they'll actually pay attention to the yardages.  Can you think of anything more useless than the yardage to the BACK edge of a green at Rustic?

[Joe Perches]

I don't have any issue with carts that have GPS.  You can always turn it off or cover the screen, or perhaps even better if healthy enough, not use a cart.

I'm told that the addition of yardage markers has sped up average time to play.  It's a bit hard for me to believe as I'm also told that around 3/4 of the players at RC take carts.  I believe I've not seen groups of walkers significantly behind groups in carts in pace of play there.  I believe that the yardage markers will actually slow the average time to play for groups of walkers.  There'll be more pacing back and forth for players that can't control their yardage anyway.

And no, there isn't much use in knowing front/middle/back distances at Rustic.

I'm also told that the lack of yardage markers was one of the most frequent complaints and RC is just trying to please their customers.  Oh well, please some/bother some.

[Mike Benham]

Joe -

Did you confirm that they are putting the correct yardage on the sprinkler heads?  

It would be cool if each sprinkler had the same yardage and maybe a particular quote from Caddyshack "be the ball Danny" ...

Mike

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

It really is not a bad thing to have that feature on a daily fee course to help speed up play. It could be long 5 hours rounds without such features in todays game.

[Craig_Rokke]

The lack of yardage markers contributed to the old world charm of RC.
You can always choose to ignore them, though!

[Michael Moore]

Wow, those marked sprinkler heads must really be eroding the "old world charm" of a course where 75% of the golfers are in carts.

[Craig_Rokke]

Wow, those marked sprinkler heads must really be eroding the "old world charm" of a course where 75% of the golfers are in carts.

Good point, Michael. It remains a great walking course, and at least there isn't miles of asphalt and concrete weaving through the golf course. You have to admit, though, that RC feels more old school than 99% of the west coast courses.

[Bill_McBride]

No problem, they can just issue a Bushnell, or better yet, Sky Caddy, to every player.

Middle of green distances would be pretty useless at Rustic Canyon, but front of green plus pin sheet would be more helpful.  Slower of course but helpful.

That reminds me of Steve Pieracci's math at the Palms, or was it Plantation, at KPV.  Added the yardage to front of green to distance off the pin sheet, and somehow came up with 187 instead of 177.   Man that was a good looking shot, a laser right at the flag, until it disappeared over the green on the fly!  After that we checked each other's math but it didn't help, we got waxed!

[Joe Perches]

Middle of green distances would be pretty useless at Rustic Canyon

Most people can't account for the uphill/downhill yardages let alone the wet/dry bounce adjustments required at Rustic.

Oh well.

I forgot to mention that the Rustic Canyon scorecard went from a simple brown card paper that would easily fit into your back pocket to a larger slick full color job that has a photo of the course in spring.

It' pretty and it's just perfect for the golf cart steering wheel, but hardly fits my back pocket.

[Tom Huckaby]

Another interesting side-note about Rustic - I spent the weekend camping near Santa Barbara, and while listening to Dodger-Giant games on the radio, I was bombarded with ads for the course!  Yep... "come play our links, rated #4 in the country..." something like that.  It was pretty funny... Any of you SoCals heard the ads?  This was a Ventura/Santa Barbara station.

TH

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Tom That does not seem very old world as well. Rustic is an opportunity for socals to play a fun good firm and fast course at a great value.

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom That does not seem very old world as well. Rustic is an opportunity for socals to play a fun good firm and fast course at a great value.

Yes indeed it sure is!  It was just funny to me to hear the radio ads - and not just because it was Rustic, just because I have never heard ANY golf courses advertised on the radio... the voice also was like the Ronco guy... "but wait!  There's more!"....

 

[Lou_Duran]

Joe P. and Bill M.,

I like yardages on sprinkler heads, though I found it very confusing at The Palms (or was it The Plantation?) where the distances were to the front of the greens, except for the par 3s.  As Steve P. and I can attest, knowing the right distance and hitting the ball accordingly are two totally different things.  Nevertheless, I don't know how uncertainty can be conducive for better, faster golf.

Joe P., I'll be in LaLa Land in mid-August.  How about a match at RC?  I'll even grant you the option of looking past the sprinkler heads.

[Bob_Huntley]

I played the Shore course last week with a member who had a Sky Caddy, it was quite a revelation. No pointing at the flag, just take it out of your pocket, press a knob and the yardage is calculated to the dot.

I was impressed and we did get around in three and half hours.

Bob