[Jordan Wall]

A couple days ago, on a beautiful sunny day, I went out and played Seattle CC with a friend of mine.  Near the end of the round I asked him what he thought of the course, and for an honest opinion.  In his opinion, he felt the golf course was a good track...there were many good holes, but none that were really 'great', or that really stood out.

While I disagree, I think Seattle possesses a couple of great golf holes, I understood what he was saying.

For a course to be 'great', by definition, it needs to have great golf holes.  No great course is full of 'good' golf holes.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with a good hole, but on the other hand I think there is a big difference between good and great.


So, how many great holes does a course need to have to be considered 'great', at least as far as the entire course is concerned?
What defines a great golf hole?
Can a golf course be great with a mediocre hole?  Two?

What is the difference between a good hole and a great hole?
Is the differnece marginal?  is it a big difference?

Cheers.

[Joe Hancock]

Jordan,

I hope you'll understand what I'm about to tell you; You and your friend are too young to worry about discovering greatness. I don't mean that you aren't smart enough to know, just that everything will change in the years to come.

Great is often overused. You think hamburgers are great, and pizza is great, and girls are great. And, they all are...right now. As life progresses, your definition of greatness will change. Maybe the hamburger becomes a rib eye, then progresses to Chateaubriand, and so on. What you say is great today is something you will ponder and question in years to come.

The difference between good and great anything is often experience and time.

Joe

[Jon Wiggett]

Jordan,

The difference between good and great anything is often experience and time.

Joe

Thats very deep Joe

Jordan,

defining greatness is very difficult as you and your friend have found out it is something different for every person. As Joe says give yourself time and enjoy discovering things good and bad without worrying about if it is great.

[Rich Goodale]

Jordan

Listen to Joe's advice, as he is always worth listening to.  However, do not heed it in this instance.

The questions you ask are good ones, and also ones which this discussion group is not capable of answering (or willing to answer) in any detail.  It is one of the dirty little secrets of GCA.com that we talk every day of "greatness" without really ever having to back it up except maybe to say something like:

"It's #38 on the Golf Week best reverse redan (semi-modern) list", or;

"I'd give it a Doak 7 with a bullet", or:

"Just because."

I would recommend:

1.  Continue to challenge the old farts on this site (such as me) to back up what they say with cogent and informed arguments.
2.  Do your own analysis, with the information you do have at hand.  As Joe says, this information and the results of your analysis will change over time, but that should not stop you from starting now.
3.  Don't overanalyze.  The last thing we need is yet another overly anal ranking system.
4.  Do be specfic.  If you play a hole (preferably one some of us know, but not necessairly) and you think it works, or does not work, tell us why.
5.  Be comparative.  As your experiences grow, think about and then relate how a certain hole or a certain course works vis a vis another similar experience.  At the simplest end, this could mean comparing the Road Hole at St. Andrews with its tribute at NGLA.  At the more difficult end, this could mean comparing and contrasting the qualities of the nearby and only slightly obviously similar shortish par-4's of #4 Spyglass and #8 Cypress Point.
6.  Buy a flak jacket.  If you want to make any comment on any hole or course or architect that any contributor here knows and loves, and you comment is not completely fawning, be prepared for outrageous slings and arrows (to mangle Shakespeare).

Good luck

Rich

[cary lichtenstein]

Jordan

When you play a great course, you will know it, you will not have to ask any questions, you will simply rave about it

Cary

[James Edwards]

So Cary  , start the ball rolling... what are YOUR great courses?

[Mark Pearce]

Jordan

When you play a great course, you will know it, you will not have to ask any questions, you will simply rave about it

Cary

In which case, in the opinion of Bobby Jones, the Old Course isn't great because he certainly didn't rave about it the first time he played it.  Well maybe he did, but not in a positive way.  Equally there are courses that seem graet first play but soon lose their attraction.  I think it's just wrong to say that the measure of a great course is one that you rave about on first playing.

[Mark Pearce]

As life progresses, your definition of greatness will change. Maybe the hamburger becomes a rib eye, then progresses to Chateaubriand, and so on. What you say is great today is something you will ponder and question in years to come.

The difference between good and great anything is often experience and time.

Joe

Isn't it incredibly arrogant of each generation to assume that what it considers great is really great and that younger generations just don't understand?  How would older generations react to similar arrogance in the younger generation?  

Certainly our appreciation of things changes as we age and we become wiser but that doesn't invalidate properly considered views we formed when younger.  I always admire people who, as they grow older, and their views change still manage to retain an appreciation for the views of the young.

Taking your hamburger/rib-eye/chateaubriand example.  Why isn't it possible to acknowledge that all three can be great?  In a program shown by the BBC this week Heston Blumenthal, who has a reasonable claim to be the best chef in the world, attempted to prepare his perfect burger.  In the course of his research he met with his friend Thomas Keller and ate one of Keller's mini-burgers.  If Blumenthal and Keller believe a burger can be great, who are we to disagree?

Similarly what we appreciate in a golf course may change as we age but that does not invalidate our early opinions.  There are no absolutes in assessing greatness of food or golf courses, both are subjective and neither gives any monopoly in appreciating greatness to a particular age group.

[James Edwards]

Great Holes?  Great Courses anyone?

[Joe Hancock]

As life progresses, your definition of greatness will change. Maybe the hamburger becomes a rib eye, then progresses to Chateaubriand, and so on. What you say is great today is something you will ponder and question in years to come.

The difference between good and great anything is often experience and time.

Joe

Isn't it incredibly arrogant of each generation to assume that what it considers great is really great and that younger generations just don't understand?  How would older generations react to similar arrogance in the younger generation?  

I'm glad I didn't actually profess to greatness, or to know what greatness was.

So, what is your advice to our young friend? Can you please help him discover greatness?

Joe

[Adam Clayman]

For a course to be 'great', by definition, it needs to have great golf holes.  No great course is full of 'good' golf holes.  

So, how many great holes does a course need to have to be considered 'great', at least as far as the entire course is concerned?
What defines a great golf hole?
Can a golf course be great with a mediocre hole?  Two?

Jordan, A collection of 18 great golf holes does not necessarily make for a great golf course. There needs to be an ebb and flow.
Do you think CPC has 18 great holes? How about Pebble Beach? Merion?

Don't sweat it, you're not the first to want to have their juices constantly flowing. Even Tom Fazio had to put the reigns on Steve Wynn.

[Walt_Cutshall]

As life progresses, your definition of greatness will change. Maybe the hamburger becomes a rib eye, then progresses to Chateaubriand, and so on. What you say is great today is something you will ponder and question in years to come.

Isn't it incredibly arrogant of each generation to assume that what it considers great is really great and that younger generations just don't understand?  How would older generations react to similar arrogance in the younger generation?

The same thought occurred to me as I read that.

I think on a personal level, "greatness," when applied to any topic, is purely subjective. When enough people view something as great, then a consensus is achieved, and its status as "great" is broadly confirmed.

[Jordan Wall]

Jordan

When you play a great course, you will know it, you will not have to ask any questions, you will simply rave about it

Cary

Cary,

Though this may be true of some courses, I think playing a course once could lead to a misinterpertation.

I think it takes several, if not many, plays of a course to determine greatness.  

Like mentioned Bobby Jones did not think too highly of TOC on his first play.  I wasn't a huge fan of Seattle on my first play either.  Now I love it.
I just think it can take time for a course to really expose itself, and for me personally, to really understand all of the holes.

Cheers.

[John Kirk]

Great is often overused. You think hamburgers are great, and pizza is great, and girls are great.

I love to evaluate things, and am deep into a pursuit of chasing the best that golf has to offer.  I evaluate music and movies the same way.  Everything gets rated.

As I get older, I become more difficult to impress.  The percentage of new things I see and hear that seem great is smaller, because my library of great things experienced is larger.  But that does not mean things I identified as great as a youth aren't still great to me.  I first loved the Beatles, and then Creedence Clearwater became my favorite band for a few years.  Those were both good calls.  On the other hand, in my late teens and twenties I got into jazz, and listened to quite a bit of the fusion jazz popular in the 1970s, which I thought was great.  But after I discovered more about jazz, what I thought was great back then, I rarely listen to now.  There are now much better things to listen to.

When you're young, sometimes you're right.  Time will tell.

One exception to the sliding scale rule of greatness.  A beautiful girl is always great.  In fact, my experience suggests that one's definition of greatness expands to include a larger percentage as one ages.  For hamburgers and pizza, that's back to the golf/music model.  However, a great hamburger is still great.

How many of you saw the Saturday Night Live skit with Alec Baldwin called "The Tony Bennett Show"?  Hilarious.

"I like things that are great, 'cause great things are fantastic."

[JESII]

"That's why I love those high school girls...I get older, they stay the same age..."


Name the movie!

[Jason Topp]

"That's why I love those high school girls...I get older, they stay the same age..."


Name the movie!

Dazed and Confused - Mathew Mconehey's [sp] character

I've quoted it ever since it came out

[JESII]

Bingo!

[Phil Benedict]

I tend to think in the case of golf courses the sum of the parts is less than the whole.  In other words, a course can be great while consisting mainly of good holes.  There are exceptions, such as Pebble Beach, but great courses have a bunch of strong holes and variety.

[Mark_F]

So, how many great holes does a course need to have to be considered 'great', at least as far as the entire course is concerned?

Two will do if you are Royal Portrush.

What is the difference between a good hole and a great hole?
Is the differnece marginal?  is it a big difference?

Land - A great hole looks made for that piece of land - A good hole looks like it could be somewhere else. A great hole will also be dramatic and thrilling.

Subtlety - You walk away from the hole puzzled as to how you were had. Time and time again. A good hole is a matter of simple execution.

In a slightly similiar vein, a great hole may require you think outside of the square to play it, or a part of it, successfully.

Greens complexes - A sentence I saw Wayne Morrison use in another thread somewhere, that I will bastardize slightly. A great hole has a great green and great green complex.  A good hole will only have one or the other.

A great hole will also be great no matter where the flag is located on the green.

I'll start an argument here to illustrate my point.  To many people, perhaps even the architects, Barnbougle Dunes' 4th hole is one of the best short par fours going around.

For mine, it's only a good one, because one set of flag location options renders the hole mundane for 95% of people playing it.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()