What am I missing?

[Jim Franklin]

I played with a couple guys over the weekend that played Kingsley last summer and hated it. They bitched about too many sidehill lies. This was on a trip where they played Kingsley, Crystal Downs, Sand Hills, San Francisco GC, Bandon and Pacific Dunes. I don't get it. I loved Kingsley and thought it was comparable to Sand Hills. These guys are good players, but said they would never go back. I had so much fun at Kingsley, I would play it every day.

[A.G._Crockett]

You aren't missing anything; they are!  There are a LOT of very, very good golfers who don't care one bit about GCA, and would find the stuff that we talk about here unbelievably boring and/or trivial.  They want long, flat, glitzy looking courses that are "fair".  They aren't interested in old, or quirky, or "natural", strategic/heroic/penal, or any of that cool stuff we obsess about.

It's their loss; don't sweat it.

[Tom Huckaby]

Is there ANY course that is universally beloved?

Many in here bitch about Pebble Beach and it's "ordinary" holes.  Some call Cypress Point too easy, and a 17-hole course because the 18th sucks.  NGLA is too quirky, Sand Hills is too tough of a walk with too many forced carries off the tee... St. Andrews Old has too many hazards... Augusta is too bastardized and/or too perfect in its conditions...  Pacific Dunes is too easy, Bandon Trails' greens have too much internal contour...

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Hell I've never been to Kingsley, but from the pics and the many descriptions here I have do doubt I'd love it.  I also have no doubt there are those who won't, because there are always dissenters against ANY course.

All this being said, from what I can tell from afar, AGC likely nailed the specific situation here.  But how did these chaps feel about the other courses?  Kinglsey ain't the only one with side-hill lies...

 

[PThomas]

wow, I don't get it either Jim....I thought Kingsley was really cool, esp the shots required on and around the greens

are they scratch players?  don't a lot of todays pros like "fair" courses and want flat lies if they land in the fairway, etc

[Tim Leahy]

Is there ANY course that is universally beloved?
 Kinglsey ain't the only one with side-hill lies...

Huck, wonder what they would say about Lake Chabot?

[John Kavanaugh]

Maybe they were purists and didn't like the recent changes..

[Tom Huckaby]

Is there ANY course that is universally beloved?
 Kinglsey ain't the only one with side-hill lies...

Huck, wonder what they would say about Lake Chabot?

oh man - major audible yuks!

Methinks they'd go screaming for the parking lot by the time they got to #3 green.

 

[Jim Franklin]

They were all good players, but older. They used to play the backs at low handicap numbers, but are a little older. One is a member at SH so I guess he didn't like the competition . They said they liked all of the other courses. To each their own.

[Jimmy Muratt]

They are definitely the ones missing out.  What is strange though, is enjoying a place like Sand Hills and then hating Kingsley    
I found the shot values very similar and a level lie at either is more the exception than the rule.  

Perhaps they only played 1 round at Kingsley and got themselves in a few dicey places because of not knowing the course.  It's the type of place that really rewards some local knowledge.  Just like at Sand Hills, you have numerous ways to play every shot on the course.

[George Pazin]

What is a little odd to me about Jim's friends is that they liked the other courses. Kingsley doesn't appear to have land much more severe - in terms of unusual stances - than Crystal Downs or Sand  Hills. Maybe Kingsley was the only one they felt comfortable criticising?

But there will always be unusual opinions, among both good golfers and bad. A friend of mine has played out on Monterey a bunch of times, played Pebble a bunch of times, and when queried, says Spyglass is the best of them. And that's not the odd part. When asked why, he says, Spyglass has this stuff called ice plant....

[Jim Franklin]

Goerge, you may be onto something. Since the other courses are "name" courses, maybe they felt since Kingsley kicked their butts that they could dislike it because it was not highly rated by the magazines. That is the only thing I can think of.

[Tom Huckaby]

Jim - Kingsley's surely not the most difficult of the courses these chaps played, is it?  Or did they get butt-stomped at all of them?

[Jim Franklin]

I did not think Kingsley was the most difficult. They apparently had a tough time with some of the rough and #9 was not to their liking. If you miss the green you are in trouble and they missed the green.

[Tom Huckaby]

But that can be said for any number of greens at damn near every other course you listed...

I'm just not getting this either.  Was the weather bad the day they played it?  Did someone steal their lunch money?

I mean yes, to each his own - as I posted before, no course is universally beloved.  This is just most strange because the REASONS they seem to have given you seem to be all wrong... To put it in context for you and me, it's like saying The Preserve (Monterey) is too loud... too crowded... too much hustle and bustle... too urban....

 

[TEPaul]

"Is there ANY course that is universally beloved?"

TomH:

Yes, frankly there does seem to be one. It seems to get rave revues from everyone and from all levels, and it has for almost as long as I can remember. I just can't remember a single person ever saying anything critical of it.

It's Shinnecock.

I do not pretend to know exactly why this is but I must say it certainly has made me look at it very very carefully to try to understand why it and its architecture seems to be the only one that is universally beloved.

[Tom Huckaby]

TEP:

Are you SURE about that?

I have to believe there are golfers out there would who definitely find it too tough, too firm, too fast, not enough trees, too many hills, too quirky, etc.  Then there are also those who just plain don't like links or links-like golf - they surely wouldn't rave about Shinnecock.

BUT... perhaps that is among the ones that come the closest.  But then again so are all the others I mentioned.

 

[Troy Alderson]

They ARE missing the point.  My boss (head pro) plays an interesting golf course that we all would love and complains about it left and right i.e. Bandon Trails.  He likes to ride, not walk.  He is everything that we are against.  Most golfers do not get it.  American golf is not Scottish/English golf.  

Troy

[david h. carroll]

Jimmy- Another anecdote from the same fellow we were with last weekend:

we were playing a practice round yesterday for the MSGA team matches and I mentioned that I had just received an invite to go up to Yale for the Raynor Society meeting and how disappointed I was that I could not go....he answered "what's Yale?" and "who's Seth Raynor".

Ugh.

[Jim Franklin]

Thanks DC, that is your typical American golfer. I think they all want eye candy and could care less about strategy, quirkiness, fun. I bet if you slap a waterfall on Kingsley it goes up dramatically in the public's eye. I think I am going to get sick .

[Jerry Kluger]

I think a great deal has to do with the conditions when you play a course with respect to how much you enjoy it the first time that you play it.  My favorite experience to date has been NGLA and I played it on a breezy summer day and it was wonderful.  I played Shinnecock the next day and the wind was 20-25 MPH in the opposite direction from the normal prevailing wind - it was so hard trying to keep the ball in play that it was difficult to appreciate the architecture. Shinnecock is a tough course and this was last summer when we had plenty of rain so missing a fairway made for an impossible recovery shot.  

[ed_getka]

Jim,
    Did they have anything to say about #5 or #17 at Crystal Downs? If not, I would hazard a guess that Kingsley Club wasn't high profile enough for them as has been mentioned.