[CHrisB]

I thought this was a thought-provoking quote from Matt Ward in response to Tom Doak in another thread.

Tom D:

How many times must one play a hole before you can comment? If that's the case there are a number of courses in Confidential Guide in which I can certainly say I outnumber you in terms of total plays from key respective courses.

Candidly, I don't think the amount of times is the most important element -- it's how cogent and insightful the analysis is.

So how much can you pick up about a hole or a course based on one playing? Obviously you are limited to seeing it in one specific set of weather/wind/maintenance/setup conditions--those which exist on the one day you are there.

But with analysis and imagination can you essentially "get" everything the hole or course has to offer?

My gut feeling is that you probably can get the basic gist of a hole or course on one play, but unless you've actually seen it many times in a variety of conditions, you can't fully understand all the possibilities or mysteries of the hole or course. And from there I think the reviewer is walking on shaky ground when making generalizations about the hole/course or comparing it to other holes/courses. He really should probably stick to "First impressions: What I liked/what I disliked" comments rather than definitive "This hole/course is better/worse than..." comments.

[Then there is the issue of how much you can remember about a course if you have played it only once. I think I have a pretty good memory, but it is amazing to me just how many details of a course I have forgotten when I go there for a return visit after a long absence. It makes me doubt my ability to honestly rate and compare the courses I have played, when many of them I have only played once--I am not a rater, by the way.]

I guess it's the old "depth" vs. "breadth" argument--whether it is better to have seen (1) a larger number of courses, but with only a "snapshot" view of them, or (2) a smaller number of courses, but with a deep understanding of them. Obviously the ideal is both, but there are very few, if any, who can claim it!

[Dan Kelly]

Close to worthless, I'd say -- beyond telling the reader whether the course is or is not worth playing.

A one-round review can certainly be interesting -- but I don't see how it can be definitive.

Respectable restaurant critics never review a place based on a single meal -- for the same reason that golf-course critics shouldn't.

I know they must, sometimes, but they shouldn't.

My guess is: Golf-course critics could get at least as much insight into a course in a single day by wandering around, dropping balls here and there, than by playing a single round.

Does any of the critics work that way?

[Mike Hendren]

More is better.  However, only those who wish to elevate their stature opine that this is rocket science.  Only Mike Nuzzo knows for sure.

Mike

[TEPaul]

Chris:

If one is as observant as Matt Ward is, just one playing of any golf course is all that's needed to know everything about any golf course that anyone could ever know.

Tom Doak has complete photographic recall and was able to visit 3-4 golf courses in a single day and write intelligently about any of them in the Confidential Guide. TomD may be the quickest study in the history of golf course architecture other than perhaps his idol Alister MacKenzie who was able to build some golf courses without even being there.

[Rick Shefchik]

Opinions on this issue, around here, seem to fall into two camps, with a turnstile between them: If I've only played the course once, once is enough to say something insightful; if you've only played it once, and I've played it more than that, your opinion has almost no merit.

[Phil_the_Author]

Many people will walk into a doctor's office, a specialist, carrying x-rays and test reports, and on the basis of one visit that might last only a few minutes, make life-altering decisions. Trust is placed and many times rewarded with renewed health.

Why then should we be surprised that some have the ability to take a look at a golf course or hole only one time and be able to evaluate it fairly? Just as there are numerous talented heart & neuro-surgeons in every area of our country, so too there are many more people out there with an ability to understand the intricacies of golf course architecture than we realize.

One look or many, it is a person's ability not his experience (in the sense of numbers) that enable a person to evaluate a golf course.. and have their opinion accepted. Otherwise why believe an architect you call in for one look to be able to decide a course's future for the next fifty years?

[Mike_Sweeney]

I once read a review of Long Island National by John Morissett. In one play, he saw things that I never noticed in probably 30 or 40 plays.

Ran remembers greens at Winged Foot that I have played a bunch of times and I think he has been there once.

Matt drives us all crazy, but he has an idiot savant ability to remember holes.

In a nutshell, it depends on the person.

[A_Clay_Man]

A person need not figure-out everything there is to know about a place, to know that it is special.

However, when a place is devoid of soul, and filled with repetitive demands, dictation , or penality, it's character is hard to find, ergo...crap.

[cary lichtenstein]

My first impressions have been pretty good for an overall opinion, but I have on occasion returned to be disappointed. Two courses where that comes to mind are Red Sky Ranch Norman and The Summit at Cordillera.

I don't recall a course getting better however.

[Geoffrey Childs]

My first impressions have been pretty good for an overall opinion, but I have on occasion returned to be disappointed. Two courses where that comes to mind are Red Sky Ranch Norman and The Summit at Cordillera.

I don't recall a course getting better however.

Cary

That's a shame that courses have not seemed better on repeated play.  I consider that one true mark of an excellent design. Courses that I've been lucky enough to get repeated plays that seem to get better and better have been-

NGLA
Friars Head
Hidden Creek
Yale
Fenway
Winged Foot EAST

just to name a few. I think it would make an interesting thread on its own to discuss features that make a course better with repeated play.

[cary lichtenstein]

Maybe I should rephrase what I said. My first visits to Fiar's Head and NGLA just knocked my socks. I'm sure their are many, many nuisances that make repeated visits even better, but the initial WOW shock has worn off by that time, so it kind of balances it out.

When I done care for a course, I can still respect it for being a good test of golf, and perhaps an even better test of golf on repeated plays. My home course, The Ritz in Jupiter, the first time I played it I gave it a B-.

After I joined, the course has risen in my estimation because of the green complexes and their resistant to scoring. It is not a wow course, and it is not in my top 20, nor is anything in Florida.

[Geoffrey Childs]

Cary

Maybe this is better in the thread I started on this topic but Hidden Creek on my list is just such a NON-WOW type of course that I failed to appreciate some of its inherent features that perhaps will make you go WOW when you see how some of those holes can play.  Now I was one of the critics of the course after my first play. No more.  ANd yet another C & C course Friars Head is certainly WOW worthy and it too perhaps as much as ANY course except NGLA has shown me more and more each time I'm lucky enough to play.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Chris Brauner,

Haven't some of Ran Morrissett's most insightful reviews in the "courses by country" section been based on one play ?

[Geoffrey Childs]

Chris Brauner,

Haven't some of Ran Morrissett's most insightful reviews in the "courses by country" section been based on one play ?

Ran is the best I've witnessed at finding more insightful information about a course in a single play.  He has a truly keen eye for this but he is one of the few.

[Tom_Doak]

The more you've seen (elsewhere) the easier it gets to notice things on a new course your first time around.

I played Rustic Canyon last spring with two of my associates and one of our interns.  Afterward, on the drive to Palm Springs, we were discussing the nuances of the course.  Our intern could not believe some of the things we'd noticed that were on the other side of the fairway or green from where we had actually hit our shots ... we are just always looking around at stuff as we play, which is probably one reason none of us play that well anymore.  It does help to play with others, too, and see what's happening to them.

I do agree with Geoffrey though:  on the really great courses you are still picking up new stuff after five or ten rounds, whereas on the vast majority you've seen it all before then.

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