Just back form a Hillbilly Hit n Run through central North Carolina. While the courses played won't populate any list, they should not be missed.
First stop, Forest Oaks CC in Greensboro, NC. Until a few years ago, I suspect this was a tired Ellis Maples housing tract design circa 1960. The beneficiary of a Davis Love III re-design, it now hosts the GGO - or whatever they call it today. Cutting to the chase, this course is home to perhaps the most fun set of greens I've played on a modern course. Through the green, this course remains low profile, borderline pedestrian, though it has been spiced up with a judicious smattering of Raynoresque bunkering.
I'm no good at describing holes, but the greens include a biarritz at the second and numerous, dramatic false fronts and fallaway sides that create very small pinnable sections that are difficult to access. The back nine in particularly is a virtual hit parade of large, dramatic greens. I applaud the architect for not backing off and bringing back the old staple of defending par around the green.
Trusting the consensus advice of the treehouse, I headed down the road to Ashboro to play Strantz's Tot Hill Farm. Fun, fun, and more fun. Not nearly as "goofy" as I expected, though the pin at the 9th was less than 15 feet from a downslope to the cart path and adjacent road (perhaps the single worst piece of golf course architecture I've ever seen) and I had to take relief from embedded gravel in the 10th fairway that had washed down from the silly volcanic cul-de-sac that bisects the fairway (runner-up). The rocks weren't much of a problem though I was less than 25 feet from the pin on the front togue of the 5th green and didn't want to ruin a brand new sand wedge against a rock 12 inches in front of my ball.
I really liked the fourth, a par five to a highly elevated green with anything short coming back down the fairway 40-50 yards. Strantz gets the last laugh here as there is a good 10 yards of fairway fronting the green at the top of the hill. I also liked the 7th, where one drives out of a chute to a heavily bunkered and ridiculously narrow fairway, only to find that the bunkers are easily carried and a turbo-boost yields a short iron in to a slender green fronted by an angled creek. The 17th green is a Road Hole original, with the green set hard against a rock wall next to the road and the front and left sides defended by dramatic fall-offs. One other note is the extent to which the architect used dramatic green contouring to disguise a lot of micro-movement. I've never seen so many putts tail off at the hole.
Thanks to a heads up I stopped by the Ashboro Muni on my way down to Southern Pines. The course is touted as a Donald Ross design and looked a lot like any small-town nine holer, though the greens were noticeably crowned. Questioning the course's heritage in the golf shop (gotta love a smooth concrete floor) I was directed downtown to the parks and recreation department. Sure enough, Ross' original sketch on linen hangs in the director's office, dated 1935. The routing is tight as a tick, on less than 50 acres. No evidence that Ross was ever on site, as the course was not actually constructed until 1940 as a WPA project, according to the director. Best of all: $10 greens fee, walking ($8 for residents).
Final stop, Ran's beloved Southern Pines, but not before I placed a piece of duct tape over my official GCA bag. Alas, I was told the favored son was at Oakmont, slumming once again. I am an unabashed fan of Donald Ross (and his "farmers" for that matter) but Southern Pines was a mystery to me. The routing and the way the holes were draped on the land seemed familiar, yet the green contourings had a surprising modern feel. As is often the case, Ross used the dramatic elevation to somehow lengthen the golf course well beyond the 6200 yards it played from the back markers. Ross can get more yardage out of a single yard than any architect I'm familiar with. A standout feature of the course is the extent to which the one, two and three shot holes equally carry the day. Nonetheless the par four 4th, 6th, 10th, 12th and 17th are standouts.
The Elks have apparently leased the golf operations to a local company so improvements should be forthcoming, though the course was in plenty good shape.
Scores of 89, 89 and 90 on three very different courses confirm that it is indeed a great big world out there.
Go see it.
Mike