Just a few pics of our GCA brethen engaged in golfing activites before and after the Stevinson Ranch get-together...

Another nice Vander Borght ass-pic, seaside


...And his "cousin's" ass-pic from the same spot


Mutt & Jeff perched atop a really cool tee-box...and it's no easy shot from up there!!!


Yours truly and Brent Hutto on a fairly famous 1st tee


Can you guess whose house this is?!?!?

Other than continued poor play, I really enjoyed the place...very unique piece of property there in the hills.

Some great vistas, and seemingly EVERY hole plays uphill!!!...actually I'd venture to say that 11-13 of the 18 holes truly do play uphill and the course plays SIGNIFICANTLY longer than the scorecard indicates.

The stretch of holes from 10-12 was solid, and many of the other holes seemed pretty unique.  The par-3 third plays like a par-3 1/2 and I though was a great hole.  Many features of the course seem "big"...on a similar scale to the features found at Bethpage Black.  The bunkering was very well done both in placement and depths...loved the huge complex fronting the 10th green.

Unfortunately, the greens were NOT what we expected. Not only did Pasa do the injection process, they also punched them with their normal process which led to very uneven and slower surfaces, something I know they pride themselves on.  They were also in the process of punching and sanding the teeing grounds. The greens looked like they had some awesome interior movement, and you could easily get the sense that ANY shots hit above holes in "normal" playing conditions was death, but under the current conditions they were much tamer.

Shivas...how the hell did you 8-putt that 17th green, dude?!?!?

All in all we had a very nice time...both Paul and Brent cleaned my clock in our small money game, and an after-round lunch with those two chaps and a surprise appearance by my match-play foe Mr. Goldman made for a great ending to my 5-day West Coast trip.

Can't wait until the next installment!!!

I loved Pasatiempo, hopefully I'll get few pictures posted later this evening. As Evan said, great scale to some of the holes (like the one-shotters on the front nine and the tenth and eleventh holes) and it's a very friendly and relaxing place to play golf. My periwinkle-blue carry bag with the siesta-man logo is now one of my prized possessions.

I think the tenth, eleventh and twelfth holes at Pasa are as good a three-hole series as I've played other than fifteen, sixteen and seventeen at Cypress Point (which are the ultimate gift to the golfers of the world from the ultimate architect). The front nine at Pasa doesn't really "do it" for me other than the aforementioned Par 3's. The back nine is awfully fine, though.

I will say one controversial thing w.r.t. the previous discussion of Spyglass Hill versus Pasatiempo. In my opinion there is no contest. Spyglass is as good a course as I had ever seen until last Wednesday morning. Pasatiempo is the equal of Pine Needles, Cuscowilla and possibly the Ocean Course (couldn't say until I see the real Pasa greens) but Spyglass is a complete golf course with no real shortcomings that I can perceive.

Brent, one of the reasons many cite for preferring Pasatiempo to Spyglass Hill is the great routing of Pasa vs the great to ho hum routing of Spyglass.  Wouldn't it have been great if RTJ could have figured out a way to FINISH the round out there in the dunes?!  If you haven't seen Pasa with greens running at least 12, you haven't seen Pasa.  I was there Monday also, teed off at 11 a.m.  I had been told the greens were only going to be water-aerified.  Disappointing to say the least to have to whack it through punch marks and sand, but there are few finer days than those spent at Pasatiempo.  I agree with you about the back nine, I kind of lose it on the 7th with all those trees, but #2, #3, #4, #5  , #8 and #9 are all outstanding holes.  

The par 3's ate me up because I'm a lefty who cuts across the ball, ...

Those par 3's eat everyone up, not just lefty cutters...  They are a big reason the course seems to play so long, I think.  Simply put - 4 of them ARE real long.  

But I think the secret of the course is simply: build greens at an angle, or make them effectively very shallow.  Give no one an easy approach, and make recovery very difficult.

Where's Pasa on the GD list? - oh, it's not on it anymore, right... Yeah, there are 100 better courses in the US.  
 

Well, I'd say Pasa is definitely in the Top 100 courses I've played  

Seriously, I did really really like the course. I place is on a similar level to Cuscowilla or Pine Needles, courses I'd play any time I have an excuse to be close enough to make a day of it but not quite worth dropping other plans to make a special trip there as often as possible. Where is that on the Doak scale? I never can remember...

Regarding Bill McBride's comments I would say that all three of the one-shotters on the front nine are excellent and personally I thought the opener in its current form is a great starting hole. The Par 4's through the hosues and trees are just a little too generic to hold my complete interest. I found myself steering my tee shots a bit too much to be having fun.

On the routing of Spyglass, I'm with my non-GCA buddy David on this one. The best holes at Spyglass Hill are not finished once you leave the dunes. In the abstract, I agree with the idea that finishing on the oceanfront is hard to beat. But if I were playing either a medal or match game at Spyglass the final five holes are a power-finesse-power-finesse-power combination that I don't think could be matched by finishing on the fourth, fifth or sixth holes (or the ninth for that matter).

Brent's fondness for Spyglass -- as well as others -- makes me think I'm gonna have to drop the $300 next time I'm out there to play  

and I think I disagree that some tough/tight driving holes is bad...isn't that just a good test of driving?  isn't that what's required at places like Olympic?

I think I disagree that some tough/tight driving holes is bad...isn't that just a good test of driving?  isn't that what's required at places like Olympic?

I think there's a qualitative difference between a tight, sloping fairway with trees being the penalty for an offline shot versus a tight, sloping fairway with OB and/or hitting a house the penalty. Houses are a (necessary in many cases) abomination when they're close to the line of play on any golf course.

And any time you want to book a round at Spy, I'll be there to give you the best match I can muster.

I like your pic of 17 green.  The angle I've had is usually past that left fairway bunker, looking at the green from the angle in between the greenside bunkers. To that right pin, that is a great angle in... Which of course illustrates the more subtle greatness of that golf hole - angles do matter, as even though it's a short iron in, the green is so contoured that it helps to have a shot that has a better chance of stopping.

That first picture I posted of seventeen green is from the exact spot where I played my second shot (short-sided myself 20 yards right of the green and pin high). This picture



is the line Lou had from the big right-hand fairway bunker, from which he put the ball on the right fringe. There was a tres cool hole location that day on the right side. It was scary looking as though the ball would roll to the front of the green if you missed a putt from above or right. In fact, we both missed such a putt and the ball would stop in the first foot or so below the hole so it was a perfectly fair hole location that looked as though it was borderline unfair. Just a minor mind-job courtesy of the greens at the 'Glass.

You want confounding? I kept this picture full resolution so you can see the two golf balls there on the green "above" the hole.



Lou putted first and left the ball woefully short. Guess it's not as downhill as it looks. So I putt on the same line and leave mine three feet short. Then Lou putts and still leaves it short. Then I putt, playing for it to break toward the water. The ball goes dead straight and never touches the cup. In fact, those putts aren't really downhill at all until well past the hole which looks perched on the edge of a precipitous rolloff to the pond. And that was my best tee shot of the day, dammit.

"Could it just be that GCA has made all of us worse players, but better golfers?"
M.Cirba, 12/6/02

I think that we've convinced ourselves that Cirba is right.  You must remember, however, that Mike is a lefty and they are never right.

Spyglass is the kind of course that could make one quit the game unless you adopt a Cerbian attitude.  I shot my worse round in 30 years, despite hitting quite a few credible shots.  I blame it all on Hutto who mysteriously showed up for my 6:50 tee time, and to the pastings I took from Huckaby, Huntley, Pieracci, and McBride that may have irreparably damaged my already fragile ego.  

And no, Tom, I am not a masochist, just a dumbass "purist" in the Kavanaugh mold.  Don't you think that alluding to playing the tips obviates a near three digit score just a bit?

Honestly, I didn't think that I could score worse than I did at Poppy Hills.  The "Glass" is a very exacting test, though it is "fair", not overly long, and possible to score well on if you are playing well.

Despite the great drainage work still taking place, the course does play longer than the card for most amateurs.  In my opinion, holes 1 and 4 are the best on the ocean stretch, with the par 3s (#3 and 5) too difficult for their distances in windy conditions with all the trash around them.

Beginning with #6, the course really gets "solid" with a nice variety of holes, and no real weak ones (the last par 3 is only so-so) .  As a purist, I particularly liked the way that Jones transitioned and melded the green complexes into the surroundings.  It reminded me much more of C&C's and Doak's style than that of most big brand modern designers.

I did walk some of my favorite holes at PBGL (e.g. #s 6, 8, 9, 10, 18) and these are superior to the best holes at the Glass.  In my opinion, PB is the weaker sister, so if it is worth $425, the Glass at $295 is a relative bargain.  Better yet, if you know a member at the Glass, the accompanied guest fee I believe is under $50.

As to other values in the area, the Bayonet course at BlackHorse has to be high on the list.  They've done quite a bit of tree trimming, and if they would expand the fairways to the tree line and worked on their bunker sand, it would be an excellent place to play.  It does have a few rather quirky holes, but for under $50, it is hard to go wrong.  I was also told that the BlackHorse course is more "gamy" and fun.

BTW, Brent is a very nice walking companion and a very astute student of gca.  He certainly discovered and communicated the various features and nuances of the Glass much better than I could.

I appreciate the kind words from Lou and accept my share of blame for that day's left-leaning ball flight. If I discerned anything that Lou overlooked it was probably because I was seeing things from about 100 yards closer on some holes, the tees I played were often in another zip code from the back markers. One helpful local resident stopped off in the thirteenth fairway and had a playful bit of back-and-forth with the normally taciturn Mr. Duran. However, as you can see from the following photo he didn't care for the results of the subsequent approach shot



I think with light winds the third and fifth holes are very sporty, if penal. But with even the moderately-strong 20mph breeze we encountered the penalty for anything less than a perfectly judged and struck shot can be more compatible with match play than the keeping of a medal score. That said, if I ever return to Spyglass Hill I now know that there's an area of short rough half as large as the third green immediately to the right (upwind on the day we played) to offer a safe bailout. I couldn't see any such bailout on the fifth.