I have been surprised to see that pretty consistently, scoring in the US Amateur qualifying in the Philly district has been much higher at shortish Llanerch CC than at Rolling Green, whose elevated greens and ticklish putting slopes can be a nightmare of difficulty.

I played Llanerch for the first time recently and was intrigued at how challenging it is.  Despite a recent renovation by Stephen Kay, in which a lot of trees were removed, the course still plays pretty tight, simply because the original hole corridors are just not very wide.

It got me wondering.  Counter to our prevailing thinking, is the toughest test for the low-handicap amateur simply a tree-lined test where they have to keep the ball straight, or face a long day?  

Certainly the greens and surrounds of the old Alex Findlay course at Llanerch are nowhere near as sophisticated and difficult as those at Rolling Green, so why the difference in scoring with Llanerch being the tougher?  

Kyle,

When I played Llanerch a week and a half ago, the greens were in pretty good shape.  The fairways were a bit thin and the rough was thin as well, although the grass was long.  The ball would almost always settle "down".  

You're right about the bunkers, though.  I had a few doozy lies, but bunker maven that I am, I sort of loved and deserved the penalty.

Still, it has several very short par fours, two easily reachable par fives, and not much in the way of penal hazards like water.  To see players of that caliber shooting some really high scores has me wondering.

Kyle,

I'm not sure.  There seems to be a LOT of scores in the 80s at Llanerch, including one poor fellow who came in from Sioux Falls, SD only to shoot a 90 at Llanerch.

 Yesterday's average at RG was 77 --LCC-78. RG has one more par three. RG played as par 70 (You should be happy Wayne-18 as par four) LCC as 71. I haven't looked at Tuesday's scoring yet.

    I think that the tree line is much closer at LCC ; this costs a 1/2 stroke penalty a couple of times a round. This adds to the extra scoring. I imagine even these good golfers had to deal with this factor.
   
   I also think the greens are smaller which leads to more up and down versus putting over an 18 hole stretch.

   

I spoke to a lot of golfers at Rolling Green over the last two days.  Not one thought that the finishing hole should be a par 5 from any tee box.  I totally agree, as I have maintained for years and think you ought to reconsider your position on this, Mike.  I would've had the tees back a bit further on the members tee.  But I'm glad they played it as a par 4.  Whose decision was it?

With quite a number of players using irons off the 10th tee (243 yards uphill) it looks like there will be serious consideration for putting in the Flynn tee at 260+ sometime.  That would be cheap to build and maintain and would work fine.

I'm glad we had all these outstanding players come through.  It puts a lot into perspective.  Yet it is important that there are no knee-jerk reactions to some of the low scores.  Overall, under benign conditions and easy pins the course did provide a nice test as there were not that many scores under par.   The spotty greens and fairways probably added a stroke or two to the field average.

Too bad Mother Nature did not comply.  Conditions were definitely off.  Firm and fast would have been ideal and would have offered a nice way to see how the course would stand up to these talented guys.

Wayne,

What club were most players hitting into 18?

Mike,

The 18th played around 475-yards as I recall.  Burt McHugh is not long with his irons and he used a 4-iron after a good drive (he's pretty long with his woods).  Most of the young limber-backs were hitting 5 and 6 irons after good drives. I saw a few 7 and one 8 iron from long hitters.  These guys were hitting it 300-320 downhill.  As you know, they then had an uphill approach to the big green.

Thank you, Chris, for your commentary.  I don't think RGGC played easy from my vantage point as caddie on Monday and observer on Tuesday.  It was harder from your position!  The wind became a factor on Tuesday afternoon making Jamie's round quite good.  He'll probably look back at 7-iron into the green on 7 and not making birdie.  I bet he would 90% of the time!

One thing I noticed, and I'm sure it was true at Llanerch as well, is that the greens were so heavily trafficked that putting through all the spike marks was difficult late on each course on the first day and certainly the entire second day at both courses.  That's a result of pins being kept in the same spot both days.  I know you have to ensure the same locations but the conditions are not at all the same, so maybe it is best to move them to what is judged equivalent positions.

In my opinion, the hardest pin positions were rarely employed.  On some greens, such as the 14th as you said, all the pin positions are hard.  8 and 13 would have been much tougher in the front of the greens.  3 would have been much more difficult back right.  4 would have been hardest front left.  5 is hard everywhere, that is one of the greatest complexity of slope greens I've seen.  In firm conditions, I think the front right pin is toughtes because you have to land the ball short and left of the green to get near a front right pin.  Under the competition conditions, back right (fall-off and fronting bunkers) would have been tougher.  6 was pretty tough, middle left is tougher.  7 has a lot of tough pin postions due to the cant and the contour.  8 is far tougher to a front left position.  It was all the way in the back which is pretty easy.  9 wasn't easy.  10 back right is a hard pin position.  11 back left would have been more difficult.  12 is such a small green there are no easy pins but back right is hard with the fall-off and front left is difficult with the visual of the bunker in front left and bunkers behind on the hill.  15 is more difficult to a front pin as it brings the bunkers more into play and a lot of downhill putts that keep going off the green.  The rear pin was in a very patchy spot.  Too bad 16 was lost---there were no easy putts; even from 4-feet.  17 back left is difficult as a lot of balls, especially going for it in two, go through the green and you're left with a tough chip running away from you out of heavy rough.  18 anything on the right side is more difficult, especially in the front.  

Tom,

I know it is the law.  But the law is an ass, as Mr. Bumble would say.  The resulting conditions on the greens, bad as they were, were made worse.  However, I guess turf conditions prevented rolling the greens and smoothing out the irregularities from the spikes.

Especially on the 12th, I noticed several fresh ball marks that were not repaired.

The added length at Llanerch works very well.  Hopefully the club will get the turf problem straightened out on the fairways and tees.

There were a few things that I wasn't too keen on in regard to the work that was done at Llanerch:

1.  While some tree work was done, I feel they could've have been more aggressive in this area.

2.  To me, it seems that the newly redone bunker style does not fit the parkland style course.  The newer bunkers have a wispy, fescue edged appearance to them that look like they belong on a different type/style of golf course.

3.  The 15th hole!  For those of you who don't know the course, #15 at Llanerch is a short par 4, 315-325 from the back tees.  The hole used to be a very tight tree lined hole, that was best played with a long iron tee shot and a wedge approach.  The redone 15th hole is quite different.  There were a lot of trees taken out on this hole...which is good. There were additional bunkers put in in the landing area.  This would be okay if the original fairway width was maintained.  It was not.  The newly constructed bunkers on the left, now pinch into the fairway, creating a 15 yard wide strip of fairway from about 125 yards from the green to about 50 yards.  Basically now there are only two plays for the golfer, hit a mid iron to lay up, leaving 130 yards or blast a driver to the green.  For the better player, the risk of hitting the driver around the green is less than it is if he was to lay up.  I can't see anyone trying to hit a tee shot into the very narrow fairway in order to leave a 75-100 yard wedge shot.  With the very good tree removal, this should have created more options for the golfer, but with the cramped in placement of the bunkers, effective options were taken away.