[paul cowley]

Sorry guys, but this thread is wierd without photos.

[Craig Sweet]

Shivas....I thought #10 was as good a par 5 as there is....perhaps it was the hole that played the toughest?

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:  The whole point is to get you off your butt to go see it in person.

[Daryl David]

Paul:  The whole point is to get you off your butt to go see it in person.

I will be there in a few weeks and can't wait.  The lack of a photo essay is making the wait unbearable!!!   

[Jim Nugent]

Paul:  The whole point is to get you off your butt to go see it in person.

I will be there in a few weeks and can't wait.  The lack of a photo essay is making the wait unbearable!!!   

IIRC, about a year ago Tom said he thought Rock Creek might be among his five best.  Sounds like he was not exaggerating. 

[DMoriarty]

Previous pictures have shown the bunkers there as blindingly white.
Perhaps those pictures were photoshopped and overly saturated.

I rather like this bunker location and shape, but the material doesn't seem right to me.
Maybe wind will blow most of the fines away.

How do the bunkers there fit in terms of location, shaping, hazard, surrounds, color, materials, drainage, etc?  Did the rocks on the property determine some of the bunker locations?

Joe,

It is incredibly bright out there and the bunkers pick up more light than almost everything else, and so I think that some auto-cameras will tend to overexpose (bleach out) the bunkers (and the rocks and sometimes even the sky) in order to get everything else right.  I just checked the raw negative and .jpeg transfer on this photo, and it is as shot, but transfers and posting may have slightly thrown off the white balance, at least on my monitor. 

Anyway, the sand color is not bright white in person.   I think the color is pretty accurate in the photo shown, although from a distance and in the larger landscape it probably appears a bit brighter. 

___________________________________

DaveM:  #13 doesn't play its length on the card.

I hit 2 iron to the back of the green from the 265 tee, and from the "up" 225 tee, it was a 4 or 5 for me.

Yes but not everyone hits a 2 iron like you and me.

I'll end the suspense.  Now this may have been the result of pin position or whatever, but it was #1.

I got asked this question...thought about it a little...then responded "Number 1?"

The reason I guessed that was that the hole looks like your basic fade-favorable ease-in opening hole, but the second shot can be tricky and, the day before, I watched 6 other players completely butcher it, mostly because they underestimated the second shot.  The tee shot reminded me a lot of #1 at Rustic Canyon for some reason.  The second shot was dynamite.   Basically, the same can be said of #2.  A great way to start - with nice forgiveness off the tee and exacting mid-to-short iron approaches if you want to sniff birdie AND take bogey out of the equasion - because a 3 putt bogey is omnipresent.

I believe the 1st is the only non-par three where the golfer must cross a hazard on the approach to the green.  Hit a less than perfect drive and that little stream suddenly becomes a huge factor.  These types of hazards are a bane to duffers like me.

[DMoriarty]

Yeah, but Dave, that little stream is pretty far up in front of the front of the green -- what, maybe 25 yards?  And there's a slight upslope in front of the green there too, so a play to just in front of the green leaves room for error and lets you stop the ball with a decent shot.  I agree that the little stream is troubling for a truly whiffed approach.  To tell you the truth, though, it didn't factor into any of my decisionmaking on any of the rounds there because for me, it's a driver and really short iron from either the middles or the back tee. 

Once again, your embarrassingly narrow range of ability limits your understanding of a golf hole.   

I agree that the stream should not come into play on the approach. The creek is nowhere near the green.  For a golfer like you it should only come into play on the drive.  And for the rest of us it  should be nothing but a slight psychological hazard (and a beautiful one at that.)

Nonetheless, from personal experience I assure you that it does come into play for the duffer, especially after a less than stellar tee shot.   

Don't get me wrong.  I love the location of the stream, for exact reasons I described.  It worries the big hitter a bit off the tee, and worries the weaker player on the second shot.      But I also love that at RCCC this type of hazard is not overdone.   Given the nature of the landscape, I suppose other modern designers would have utilized approach hazards with abandon.   While this would have greatly increased pro shop ball revenues, it would have greatly decreased the quality and playability of the course. 

But back to your interesting question about the hole that played the hardest and why . . .   I wouild imagine the creek got some action in the member guest, especially given that the course was new to almost everyone.   

How about with the six pack of players you saw butcher the hole?  I'll bet the creek came into play with at least of few of these, or more.

[paul cowley]

Paul:  The whole point is to get you off your butt to go see it in person.

Alright here's the deal:

I'll go see/play RCCC....but I will sandwich it between a replay of Ballyneal and a further driving jaunt to see/play PD's again and Old Mac [how long a drive would that be?].

...but only if;

You come and hit 3 balls at #11 Love Dunes Course when the wind is above 20 mph, and.........this is sure to be the deal breaker;

You get off your butt and apply for membership in the ASGCA.
...as an added incentive, if you fail to achieve membership the first time around, then I will immediately resign my membership in the Society as protest.

As GCAtlas is my witness.....

[DMoriarty]

Great point on balls.  I played 3 balls for 54 holes, hitting driver on every single tee the whole way around, and it would have been 2 except on my 54th hole, I dive hooked one into the creek from the back tee on 18, which is really hard to do except that before I teed off I said something about "that creek must really scare the crap out of the chops from back here"....at which point, the Golf Gods, being so close at 4000 feet, heard me and decided to teach me a little lesson....

2 balls in 54 holes at a course with tall native grass all around would have been an all time record for me....of course, having good caddies helped.   

As to the creek, I was trying to be kind with 25 yards.  I think it's a little more.  And yes, I thought about it on the tee, but since it's a cut driver for me, I figured that I wouldn't get it there, even with my Sunday best cut.  I was actually more worried about a pull.  Of the 6 guys who butchered it, I'd say that 3 hit it in the long grass beyond the creek.  That probably needs to be cut back a bit.  There's about 10 yards of it, as I recall, and it's easy to lose a ball in there, even though you've cleared the creek.  It wouldn't surprise me to see that cut back a bit in the future.  They still  have that sort of tweaking to do, IMO. 

I am surprised you even lost three.  Actually I take that back.  But I'd be surprised if most golfers lost many balls.  It is wide out there, and the penalty for a poor shot is much more subtle than the hackneyed lost ball, ob, or water hazard.

I'd put the distance from hazard to green at more like 40 yards, but I may be wrong.

I would be surprised if there is water running in that stream all summer in a normal year.   

[Craig Sweet]

It wasn't much of a stream...more like a little irrigation ditch. I don't see that ditch being near the problem that the bunker fronting the green will be.

[Craig Sweet]

"Down and to the right"?   More like down over a green cliff!  I wound up down there....not a pretty shot back up to that green....I was on the left side of the green and the pin was to the right side....took me four putts for a double bogey.  Yes, #11 is a bit over looked...but very tough hole.

[Matt_Ward]

Gents:

Enjoyed all the discussion thus far.

One quick question -- among all the courses you have EVER played where would Rock Creek place. Among the top five, top ten, top 20, etc, etc.

One other question -- for those who have played other Doak layouts where would Rock Creek place?

Many thanks for your candid comments ...

[Craig Sweet]

Top 10

[Matt_Ward]

Craig:

What others would you place with it in your top ten and is Rock Creek more towards the front of that line or towards the rear ?

[Garland Bayley]

I am sure Craig will place it well behind Great Blue in Portland that he played on a frosty morning with the Slagman.
 

[Craig Sweet]

Garland, as much as Great Blue had great movement in its fairways, and fast greens, and a fine set of Par 3's, it comes up just shy of Rock Creek on my Top 10 list.  The clubhouse knocks it down a notch, as does the lack of a truly great par 5...

I do not believe in "lists"....of the courses I have played it is #1...it is simply amazing, extraordinary...I can not compare it to Taconic, Equanok, The Country Club....it is quite different....its a "mountain course" but at times resembles a "links" course...I think its vastly superior to The Old Works....not even close...and any other golf course in Montana...I played with a guy that loves Bandon, and he said it was as good, though he prefers the sea side location over the Montana fescue/sage and pines...

[Tim Bert]

One quick question -- among all the courses you have EVER played where would Rock Creek place. Among the top five, top ten, top 20, etc, etc.

Matt:  if you called me up and told me "Shiv, tomorrow, a jet will be waiting at Palwaukee Airport to take you anywhere in the US you want to play that you've played before", I honestly don't know whether I'd tell the pilot to set course for  North Platte, Monterey, Southampton or Butte.  How's that for an answer?

Are you saying it is every bit as good as Del Monte?

[DMoriarty]

Gents:

Enjoyed all the discussion thus far.

One quick question -- among all the courses you have EVER played where would Rock Creek place. Among the top five, top ten, top 20, etc, etc.

As you know I am not much for rating courses so I will not give you a number.   I would however tentatively put RCCC right up there in that group of very special courses where I just cannot imagine that the golf could get much better.    For me these include, in no particular order, NGLA, Ballyneal, Sand Hills, Cypress, Pacific Dunes, and Crystal Downs.

One other question -- for those who have played other Doak layouts where would Rock Creek place?

Many thanks for your candid comments ...

This is hard for me to say, because generlly Doak's courses fit in with their surrounds, and so there is a huge subjective element to each.  RCCC fits into its ranchland setting as well as Ballyneal fits into its chop dunes setting as well as Pacific fits into its Ocean Bluff/Dunes setting.  And the golf is terrific fun. 

________________________________

Matt:  if you called me up and told me "Shiv, tomorrow, a jet will be waiting at Palwaukee Airport to take you anywhere in the US you want to play that you've played before", I honestly don't know whether I'd tell the pilot to set course for  North Platte, Monterey, Southampton or Butte.  How's that for an answer?

This is high praise.  I don't think anyone has actually asked to to go Butte in at least 5 decades.

[Craig Sweet]

"This is high praise.  I don't think anyone has actually asked to to go Butte in at least 5 decades."

Actually, Barack Obama and his family celebrated the 4th of July in Butte, America. 

[DMoriarty]

"This is high praise.  I don't think anyone has actually asked to to go Butte in at least 5 decades."

Actually, Barack Obama and his family celebrated the 4th of July in Butte, America. 

Not much voluntary about a political compaign.   If he turns the Oxford into the Western White House then I'll be impressed.

[Craig Sweet]

He went to the M&M....the Ox is in Missoula....unless they have one there as well...

http://www.the-oxford.com/

[DMoriarty]

He went to the M&M....the Ox is in Missoula....unless they have one there as well...

http://www.the-oxford.com/

My mistake and a silly one at that, but one I have made before.  For some reason I interchange the names of these two willy-nilly. I am just kidding about Butte by the way, I started college there and absolutely love the place.  But it is an odd town.  Had many a late night at the M&M, and a few late nights at the Ox as well.  Does the Ox still serve brains and eggs?  I was never a big fan.   Anyway they are both terrific landmarks as far as I am concerned.   Montana may have lead the nation in cool old bars per capita, at least before poker machines were legalized and everything became a cheezy casino. 

[Edit:  I just did it again.]

[Jed Peters]

I've gotten really really really really really drunk at the ox when I was in college at u of m....

[Craig Sweet]

Dave...yeah the Ox still serves Brains and Eggs...not my cup of slop either...

Perhaps the coolest bar in Montana is the Sip N Dip in Great Falls....nearly every night you have Piano Pat on the keyboards (every tune sounds the same) and actual, live, mermaids  swimming in the tank behind the bar...classic!!

[Garland Bayley]

Too many Grizzlies on this bored!

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