TOC: the Case for the Prosecution

[Chris Burgard]

Martin,

There are too many par 4s.

Only having 2 par 3s and 2 par 5s clearly is a flaw!  

Chris

[Mike_Cirba]

Martin,

I haven't read this thread, but paraphrasing something someone wrote to me recently, you sir, are an utter rougue and a disgrace to everything that Old Tom Morris and Allen Robertson ever lived for.   Oh...and you've pissed off Young Tom too!  

[Bob_Huntley]

Martin,

With respect Sir, you are, in the parlence of the mob, a nutter.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Martin:

Regarding your initial post. Nice satire!  

However, when it comes to particularly TOC even its all-time greatest defenders had things like this to say:

"St. Andrews violates every conception of what we think a golf course should be. It is now up to our authorities to prove the beneficence of the terrors they spread in the golfer's way. But this they can never prove. The final appeal which a golf course makes is to the feelings."


How about that----even one of its greatest defenders admitted most golfers may think St. Andrews violates every conception of what we think a golf course should be, but yet, the course itself has continued to transfix golfers for many generations.

So, how can that be?

Well, perhaps many of the conceptions we have about what a golf course should be are not particularly valid or enduring and just maybe all the things about those conceptions that TOC violates are what is and should be right and valid and enduring about golf architecture and golf.

But this may never work for golfers such as yourself who either satiriically or actually are saddled with a "game mind" which includes the everlasting desire to always make logical sense of things.  

[Marty Bonnar]

Gents,
thanks for your contributions.
So between 1500 of us, we can only find 8, yes, 8! things wrong with TOC?

Maybe the Auld Lass is actually okay after all.

Thankfully, TEP saw through my satirical bent. There was certainly an element of rhetoric in there, but I was also just trying to wheedle out the truth. (See my new byline).

Dearest Uncle Boab,
Sir, I may well be a nutter. That I am happy to concede.
But I ask you to consider this: Which one of us chooses to live in the Home of Golf and which one chooses to live on an active seismic faultline, currently well overdue for its next cycle of activity?? (proximity to CPC, MPCC and PB notwithstanding )

cheers,
FBD.

[Bob_Huntley]

Gents,
thanks for your contributions.
So between 1500 of us, we can only find 8, yes, 8! things wrong with TOC?

Maybe the Auld Lass is actually okay after all.

Thankfully, TEP saw through my satirical bent. There was certainly an element of rhetoric in there, but I was also just trying to wheedle out the truth. (See my new byline).

Dearest Uncle Boab,
Sir, I may well be a nutter. That I am happy to concede.
But I ask you to consider this: Which one of us chooses to live in the Home of Golf and which one chooses to live on an active seismic faultline, currently well overdue for its next cycle of activity?? (proximity to CPC, MPCC and PB notwithstanding )

cheers,
FBD.

Martin,

Although California does have a spot of bother from time to time with some small earth movement, the Monterey Peninsula, or that part of it that is home to the courses you mentioned, seems quite immune. You see we live on the probably the biggest piece of granite in the State and have had no problems with quakes for eons. What's more I'll take our winters over yours, the summers are probably the same.

Bob

[Phil McDade]

Martin:

Stategically, it offers time and again -- and again and again and again -- this set of options:

A) Left off the tee is safe, but makes for a much tougher approach shot;

or

B) Right off the tee is riskier, but makes for a much easier approach shot.

In short, it is one-dimensional in the set of options it provides to golfers standing on the tee.

[J_ Crisham]

I've only played one course with more fairway humps and bumps and it was at Ballyliffin-fun but not something I'd want a steady diet of.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Martin, St Andrews is special but lets not confuse it with life on the Monterey Pen. Bob has the best of places on this earth to call home.

[Rich Goodale]

Anybody other than me wonder why the first 12 Open championships were NOT held at TOC?  Was it not that highly regarded in those good ole' days?

[James Bennett]

FBD

The ninth hole.  What other championship course would have a hole like this?

(One of the things I like about TOC is that they have kept the ninth hole as it is, despite its apparent 'weakness.'  Given the land behind the green, any fair-minded championship aspiring manager would have pushed the green back considerably, towards the ablutions).

James B

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Having just played Kingsbarnes last Wednesday in the driving rain and a 2 club wind, followed by a round on the Old Course on Thursday in a brisk 2.5 club wind, I find it difficult to say anything bad about the Old Course.

Although Kingsbarnes is sensational the Old Course delivers far more surprise, variety of club choice and unususal shots. On at least 4 occasions at the Old Course when the pin was placed at the front of a downwind green my best choice for a second or 3rd shot was a bump and run which had to negotiate at least 5 or 6 humps and swales and sneak round a bunker - it doesn’t get more fun than that.

Last Thursday at the 9th Green there was a van attended by bonnie lass who served us tea and snickers. So there’s another negative point solved.

My only bitch with the Old Course is the 9th Green - it’s so out of character with the rest of the course - completely flat, bunkerless and nondescript. On Thursday in the wind it was essentially a defenceless Par 3.

As they say about the Old Course if a true copy was made almost every hole would be criticised - including the 9th.

[Brian Phillips]

My only bitch with the Old Course is the 9th Green - it’s so out of character with the rest of the course - completely flat, bunkerless and nondescript. On Thursday in the wind it was essentially a defenceless Par 3.

That is why the 9th is still a good hole.  It comes just at a time when you might need a break and two holes before you get battered on The Eden hole...

[Marty Bonnar]

...and ding, ding, ding.

Phil and James make it the round 10.

#9: Stratamategical Monotony. Invisible pot bunker-strewn right side margins. Intergalactic Miles of space left.

#10: The Nuttin' Ninth. Philips, you're deluded. Not even a great hole, albeit slightly better, played in reverse.

See, I knew we could find more if we tried

FBD.

[Rick Shefchik]

Double greens. Once per golf course is oddball fun; seven has failed the test of time.

[Tony_Muldoon]

There is nothing new to say about St. Andrews, just as there is nothing new to say about Shakespeare; but wherever in the world there is a natural masterpiece, critical man will try and "murder to dissect".

Patric Dickinson

[Bruce Katona]

No half-way house (the bonnie lass in the van behind #9 aside)....the Links Trust is losing serious $$$.

On- course comfort stations? as this is a links, not a tree in sight to revieve ones-self.

#18 the finishing hole....other than the drive and walk across the Bridge, this is as strong a finish as #18 at Somerset Hills (but like SH, you need to finish at the clubhouse).

[Marty Bonnar]

Hmmm, Rick,
the Double Greens...that is a good one.
Monotonous under-explored design potential or quirky, genius loci borne of frugal Scottish economic necessity?

Sorry, but Quirky wins! Nil points from the Swiss judge.

FBD.

[Doug Siebert]

The biggest flaw with the Old Course is that the greens fees are in pounds, it gets more expensive every day for us poor suckers across the pond!



John Chilver-Stainer,

While the 9th is nowadays a pretty bland par 3.25, I figure that is made up for by 18 going from a blah short par 4 to a hell of a driveable par 4 for those of us (well some of us at least) not named Nicklaus.  One of the few holes on a classic course that was improved by modern equipment!

I'll bet you wouldn't think 9 is quite such a pushover if you had to play a persimmon driver and balata ball off the tee.  You'd see that "bunkerless" green has a nasty little pot bunker about 20 yards short center right I believe that would have your attention in a way it no longer does with 460cc high launch drivers.  Its little, but like other bunkers there I would wager that any ball rolling around in its vicinity would get sucked into its gravitational field.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Don’t get me wrong - this is a tongue in cheek bitch.

I’m aware that the Old Course is a “Sacred Cow” and any serious criticism only leads to flagellation and crucifixion as an “unbeliever”. However given this opportunity to a take a playful swipe at the Old C*w, one could argue playing the 9th is a bit like being offered water after ones pallet has been spoilt wth a surfeit of delicious wines.

Mind you, I’m quite willing to accept that the best drink IS water .

For the birdie hunter the 9th will always be a favourite, however for my aesthetic sensibilities it looks almost too “man-made”. It’s hard to imagine the original ground of the 9th Green was dead flat - it would be interesting to know how the hole evolved.

[Kalen Braley]

In light of hole #9, and perhaps #1 could be thrown in there as well, but can this course really be called a Doak 10?

A 10 says, that even missing out on 1 hole, you would miss out on something worth seeing...

Based on pics and descriptions, 9 seems to be something I would find on my local muni, more than a world class golf course.

[Tom Huckaby]

In light of hole #9, and perhaps #1 could be thrown in there as well, but can this course really be called a Doak 10?

A 10 says, that even missing out on 1 hole, you would miss out on something worth seeing...

Based on pics and descriptions, 9 seems to be something I would find on my local muni, more than a world class golf course.

Kalen:  do not be fooled by these naysayers.  #9 TOC is about as close in quality to your local muni as I am in musculature and swing to Tiger Woods.  That is, unless your local muni has pot bunkers littered right where a good drive may go... extremely firm and fast conditions... gorse to the sides... and an ENORMOUS green.

#9 sucks relative to the rest of this course.  Relative to the rest of the golf world, it remains pretty damn great.

I do think TOC is a 10.

But I don't want to be the defense here.

TH

[Kalen Braley]

Huck,

Its wintertime here, so everything is playing fast and firm right now.    No gorse in Utah though..  

How about #1?  I understand, you are about to tee off at TOC, and I can appreciate that.  But what about the hole itself.  Wide open flat fairway with a hazard in front of the green.  Interesting sure, but a must see?

[Tom Huckaby]

Kalen:

Good lord yes!  In fact if there is one hole a golfer MUST see in his lifetime, it's #1 at TOC.

And why?

BECAUSE IT STARTS OFF THE FREAKIN' OLD COURSE FOR GOD'S SAKE!

There is no more ass-tightening tee shot in all of golf.  Hell yes it's 75+ yards wide, but the whole world of golf is watching you, and the sense of "place" is pretty darn overwhelming.

There's also OB right... and you are standing pretty much on the right edge to begin with.... so it's not THAT easy.....

Then the 2nd shot is never easy.  Clipping an iron off that ultrathin turf when one knows he has to get it up in the air to clear the hazard is not easy task.  Given a pin tight to the burn, it's a darn hard shot no matter what the distance.

Then we have the green, subtle but with enough breaks to cause a lot of misses - watch the Open....

Yeah, this is just a nothing hole.  PUH-LEEZE.

TH

[Kalen Braley]

Huck,

I didn't say it was a nuthin hole, I admitted it is interesting, but didn't see how it was special.

And this may be the only time I'm going to take a Pat Muccian like position, but I think its justified in this case.     If you remove the hole from its setting next to the buildings, with the big clock, and the old codgers looking down on you, what do you have?  A flat wide fairway with a hazard in front of nondescript green.