I wanted to like Torrey Pines because I cling to so many fond memories of Billy Casper Golf Camp . . . . . The first time I saw the re-do it was with Shivas and Bernhardt in carts and it did not impress me in the same way the Trump National in Palos Verdes left me a bit cold.
Last year, I played it in a tournament from relatively sane tees (6700) and found the golf course very playable and shot a ridiculously low number relative to my current modest abilities.
Yet, with the exception of #14, there was not a single hole I found inspiring - including #3 - a pedestrian effort in a superb setting.
In my view - and with most of his work - there is a lack of interior hazards and mind-numbing repetition. If you take the greens at Lake Merced in Daly City and plug them in at Torrey South, nobody would notice the difference between them.
Whether it ought to be a U.S. Open venue or not is hardly the point. Any golf course of sufficient length can host an Open because layouts are unrecognizable under those tortuous conditions.
Given the choice, would anybody on this board rather play Baltusrol Lower over the Upper if all things were equal?
I'm sure Torrey will be a fine test for the big guns and San Diego is paradise with bikinis (or not at Black's Beach), but my memory of the golf course from my childhood has been ruined.
As Ran would say: "Lost Opportunity."
It came out a bit like Harding Park, good but not great, updated competently but certainly not artistically . . . . .
Let them give, say, Gil Hanse the job of doing over the North Course and the only people playing the South will be Japanese tourists or the same bozos who would rather play Medinah over Shoreacres.