Garden City vs. Pebble

[Gib_Papazian]

*Steve,

I think you need to take a closer look at Pebble. I've been fortunate to play it all my life and those who trash the golf course are frankly . . . . . well, aesthetically challenged.

The opener is puke. No doubt. A complete zero. However, there is something architecturally interesting on nearly every hole that follows.*


Jason,

What the fuque?

Clearly, either I need to learn how to write more clearly, or Ran needs to institute a policy of drug testing before you are allowed on this board.

#1 at GCGC PUKE? That - except for #1 at NGLA - is my favorite opening hole in golf.

Of course, the reference was to #1 at Pebble.

[Philippe Binette]

What makes that comparisons akward is the extreme difference of style of the courses...

Pebble Beach is a lot about the spectacular (I haven't seen it in person). Everybody would like to play Pebble at least once, because of the site and the images that this site provides. (Remeber that Payne Stewart picture with the ocean on the background)... and most people would be impressed.

on the other side

Garden City is (for most people) the extreme of unspectacular golf, it's not about the views, lakes, elevation changes etc. That said, I think Garden City is not about images but ambiance and it's a course that becomes better the more you play it...
Garden City is just great golf, not great photographs...

but

I think there's a lot more in Pebble Beach than the setting, but every time somebody would like to talk about how great the drive is on 9 because of the incline fairway (for example)... somebody would say it's the ocean that makes it special and not really the shot in itself.

Finally, I don't think that somebody could say that the stretch 7-8-9-10 is only good because of the setting.

Sometimes it's better not to compare and just appreciate

[Brent Hutto]

Jason,

I've played a couple rounds at Cuscowilla and it is one fine golf course. It combines attractiveness, variety, shot requirements and ambience as well as any course I've seen save one. I don't live far from there so I hope to see it many times in the future.

Unfortunately, I haven't played Pebble Beach (but I've walked the eighteenth hole in the dark which was fun) but I'd be surprised if it isn't pretty demanding shot-wise. Still, anyone I've talked to who played there talks about the setting first and foremost. As for GCGC, I've not seen it and may never do so. I rarely have occasion to be in that part of the country.

Basically, I don't compare or rank courses. So if given the choice of playing Cuscowilla, Pebble Beach or Garden City I'm not sure what my answer would be. I just know I'd enjoy every minute of the first two and have a good idea that the latter would be a day to remember, as well.

[Brent Hutto]

Jason,

I guess I should have said "rank" or "judge" rather than "compare". Like everyone, of course it happens all the time that I play a hole and say "Hey, this is like a mirror image of the seventeenth at Cuscowilla" or whatever. I just try to resist the urge to compute whether Cuscowilla is "better than" the Ocean Course or Athens CC is "one notch below" Holston Hills or any other ranking of overall merit. I think that kind of thing is a natural tendency but it obscures the full appreciation of the unique features of every good or great course.

So my only contribution to this thread was that comparing the shots needed to score well at GCGC vs. Pebble is a fine and useful thing but summing that up to reach a conclusion about the overall merits of each course doesn't work. Any concept of "overall" has to include the exclusivity and unique culture of GCGC and it has to include the setting and history of Pebble Beach.

That's why some people can say that'd play a course like Pebble Beach if it were the last round of thier life but they'd rather be a member at Garden City if they could play there every day.

[Michael Moore]

When Garden City Golf Club is playing these matches against other courses, does it take its shirt off on the fourth tee?

[Sean_A]

Brent

I know what you mean.  There are mant great places to plat golf, but not want to be a member of the club.  North Berwick is one (perhaps most favorite) of my favorite places to play, because it has all the elements of greatness.  It has some challenge, some funk, some birdie opportunities and beauty.  But I would not want to be a member of the club.  I would much rather be a member of Muirfield.  Not because I think the course is better, but because I think the club is better.  The place is virtually empty to explore on most days while North Berwick is overun with visitors.  Muirfield does an excellent job of protecting their members interests (ie tee times) and offering a very warm welcome to a limited number of visitors.  

Ciao

Sean

[Brent Hutto]

Jason,

If you want to rank courses or compare one course to another and declare a winner of some kind, I have no objection in the world to you doing so. The vast majority of the on-topic discussions on this forum eventually morph into either a ranking or a dispute between different rankings so it's pretty much the normative way to discuss architecture around here.

None of that is interesting to me. I think the eighth hole at Cuscowilla is an fun hole to play as a lefty and I wonder if it's the same for righties. That's might be an interesting discussion. I also think the seventh hole at Cypress Point is a great Par 3 even though it plays totally different than the eighth at Cuscowilla. I think CPC #7 is probably easier for righties than lefties and would love to discuss that possibility with other people who have played it. However, the question of whether the seventh at Cypress or the eighth at Cuscowilla is a better hole would just seem like a made-up excuse for arguing. Not interesting to me.

So if you say that your purpose here is to rank and evaluate courses relative to each other, I'll take it as a correct statement of your intentions. I'm not sure why my stating that ranking and comparing courses is not interesting is so offensive to you. I suppose if it bothers you so much I could not say it any more but it wouldn't cease to be true.

[Dan King]

Brent Hutto writes:
None of that is interesting to me.

I'm with you Brent. I've never understood this obsession with competing one course against another. I think the rankings are not only silly, but also bad for golf. And this silly match play makes no sense, reducing golf to a collection of holes rather than a course.

If someone were to ask me which I like better, Pasatiempo or Valley Club, I'd do my best to answer their inquiry. The courses have enough to common where a comparison might have some value. If someone wants to compare Spyglass to Cruden Bay that would be a waste of time. Comparing Spyglass to Dodger Stadium makes about as much sense.

Comparing the courses at Bandon Dunes makes sense. Comparing them to some desert courses in Arizona is a waste of time. (But it does sell magazines.)

Dan King

Number 10 is Rush Limbaugh's book and No. 8 is a book on menopause, so I'm somewhere between the right wing and the change of life.
 --Peter Jacobsen (on his book "Buried Lies" being No. 9 on the Washington Post best seller list)

[Dan King]

Jason Blasberg writes:
So glad "you're with Brent," at least there are two who blindly follow others ideas of good and suggest that they can't form an opinion of this course or that because to otherwise do so would violate some eternal sense of sheepishness within . . .

You are a funny guy.

You are doing the popular, coming up with some stupid ranking of courses. Heck of a valuable opinion there. You are the one that thinks there should be some sort of beauty pageant between courses. Lotta valuable thought there.

Excuse me if I decide not to go with your silly mental masturbation.

Why not try and have the guts to say this is good and that is not . . . apparently Brent has been sucked into the relativist's vacuum and you have ostensibly followed . . .

Hehehehe.  You funny.

I know what is good for me. Like I said, ask me about a course and I'll tell you what I think. Ask me to compare two courses with nothing in common and I'll tell you they have nothing in common and why. What would be the point in having those two courses slug it out in some bizarre match play that makes no sense and ignores so much about what can make a course good or bad?

So how about comparing Spyglass to Dodger Stadium for us?

Brent and/or Dave:

Dave's not here, man.

Why not grow some balls and make an affirmative and critical statement about GCA before you criticise those thoughts of others by essentially saying "sorry, no thought required here."

It must take some serious balls to do the match play between two courses. Bet after you posted that you had to get your pants specially tailored.  Next time why not compare music by comparing the notes and see how big your balls grow.

Guys, show me a little thought.

Just like they do in Golf Digest, Golf Magazine and Golfweek and every other magazine that likes to do their silly rankings so fools like you will rush out and buy them?

P.S. Dan, take your magazine reference and shove it!!

What the hell are you talking about?

Jeez, so much hostility Jason. Your silly match play a sensitive subject?

Dan King

Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. But there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
 --Emperor Joseph II to Mozart in Amadeus

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Jason, I must confess to finding these hole by hole or even course comparisons making little if any sense to me. I would think you would at least want to compare courses that have some commonality to give something for the exercise to go to. I find comparing a public resort course on the coast of California to an ultra private parkland course in New Jersey with no commonality in history or architect to be a total and complete waste of time. I hope you and Laura are having a great fall by the by and let me know the next time you are heading south. Tiger

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jason,

I agree with Dan King.

Isn't preference or ranking more a matter of taste ?
Subjective in nature ?

Or, do you feel that a 10 point questionaire definitively qualifies and quantifies a golf course's relative worthyness ?

Do you feel that the rankings really address architecture ?
In depth ?

Do they adequately and fairly represent the totality of the challenge that's presented ?

I enjoy WFW, WFE, Baltusrol Upper, Baltusrol Lower, Ridgewood East, Ridgewood West, Ridgewood Center, Bethpage Black and Quaker Ridge, but, I don't feel compelled to rank them.
They are each unique in their own way, despite being crafted by one man.
Land has a funny way of doing that.

I've said repeatedly that I have a different standard for evaluating golf courses.

My tests or ranking criteria are:
Was it fun ?
Was it challenging ?
Do I want to walk off the 18th green and go immediately to the 1st tee ?
Do I want to play it another day ?
Do I want to play it every day ?

In a global sense I've devised my own categories for golf courses.

Championship courses
Sporty courses
Club courses

Sometimes these categories can overlap, usually in descending order.

But, I don't find any need to compare golf courses because, unlike bowling alleys, tennis and basketball courts, they reside on unique land forms, in different settings,  subject to different climates, weather and use patterns.

It's not like math where 2 plus 2 equals 4 every time, no matter who's doing the calculation, and no matter where the calculation is done, unless, you're TEPaul, where 2 plus 2 never equals 4.

Dan King,

I've never been to Dodger Stadium, so I'll have to take your word on it.

[Jason Blasberg]

Pat:

I'm bowing out of this discussion because I believe I stated my point clearly and it was obviously rejected and/or misunderstood, which is fine, but I'm too frustrated to keep trying to make.  

I will say that the designation of championship, sporty, and club are a helpful way of thinking about courses, especially those that are vastly different.  

I would say overall I prefer sporty to anything else (as I'm sure many do).

Jason  

[Brent Hutto]

Jason,

I think you made your point understood pretty well. A lot of the discussion around here is in the same mold as your comments so it should hardly be a cause for frustration when a mere handful of us approach thinking about GCA differently. I'm quite confident you're in the mainstream hereabouts.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jason,

I've often thought about the perception of Pine Tree and Boca Rio had their eastern boundary lines been the Atlantic Ocean, but, they aren't, and as such, Seminole gets the nod for the best course in South Florida.

I like the categories:

Championship
Sporty
Club

because it immediately recognizes the difference in golf courses, functionally, to start with.

Shinnecock is Championship.
NGLA is sporty with a tinge of championship thrown in.

How a golf course is maintained can affect its classification.

[THuckaby2]

Patrick:

I too like those classifications.

BUT... wouldn't you say the greatest of all courses have elements of at least two, if not all three?

Just a thought....

TH