This golf course was over-hyped and is over-rated in my modest, one-play opinion. It's a clumsy golf course on a clumsy site.
Loved the dell hole - that's about it.
Mike
Mike,
The day I played is shown in the above pictures. It is the last day the course is opened for the year, November in Wisconsin, notice that the fescue is cut low, the weather is perfect and I was lucky enough to play with some great guys for free that set up our round with a perfect set of tees for maximum enjoyment. With all that said - I see it as the finest modern course outside Ballyneal I have ever played.
I'm with John on this one.
Amazing to me that on a website that constantly praises naturalness, and lack of earth moving (I'm not going to use the word minimalism because everybody defines that differently and
uses it generically) that there would be so much criticism of such a natural, beautiful, fascinating UNIQUE golf course.
I've played many of the great courses in the US (no Ballyneal or sand Hills yet), and well over a hundred courses in the UK and Ireland, and I'd have to place this as one of my favorites.
I played it friday in a USGA Comittee outing on a dreary, misty, coolish day. (it had rained two inches the day and night before and still played reasonably firm)
I don't typically care for BIG courses and I really wasn't dying to go play there,.....but I simply loved all the different and unusual holes there.
PITY they are going to change the 2nd hole- (and others)
If you drive it to the proper side (I didn't) you have a visible shot-- If you don't you're merely looking at a wedge (you have a hillside/bunker to pick a line out on so it's not really that hard to get your bearings)
I managed to hit the green blind)
the pictures of that hole don't do it justice.
- and last I checked JUDGEMENT and EXECUTION are golf skills which this hole rewards in spades .
It's a fair point about ballmarks and wear and tear, but the green was in wonderful shape the day I played.
The holdable and puttable surface on #11 at Shinnecock is significantly smaller, but no one would dare question that.( I think #11 at Shinny is also great)
The greens are difficult-they were 12.2 the day I played and after putting a couple off the putting green I was sure this was going to be another stupid, over the top ego trip modern course.
Boy was I wrong.
The greens were actually playable and very interesting,although I would much prefer they play at lower speeds, (no doubt they wanted to "impress" the USGA), I mainly would want to see them slower so that some genius doesn't persuade them to flatten the greens further in the name of "fairness".
Hopefully they won't change 10 green too much (I hit one of the most imaginative, successful and ENJOYABLE chips of my life on that hole by playing away from the hole up the hill to the back of the green to access a middle pin)
lowering the front of the green would've made my chip more tempting to play conventionally and that's a shame if it sparks LESS imagination.
Not using the 7th hole (the USGA prefers the bye hole instead) is a shame and again denies use of a unique, different hole and replaces it with a drop shot par three-not real unique in golf- (but it does have an interesting green)
Would an unworthy winner be the result if the dell hole were used?
I was quite surprised that a course with such tee variance was a comfortable walk (we played at about a 6800 yard mix)
Sadly, with modern equipment a course thats stated goal is a US Open must have such tee flexibility.(I think Mike Davis would create a great balanced test with such options)
This course reminded me more of Shinnecock (in a good way) than any I've played, and with its modern size, won't need to be bastardized as Shinnecock was for the 2004 Open.
The fairway turf conditions weren't perfect(I prefer that as it adds to the naturalness)-they got a lot of flooding in June but the greens were outstanding.
They also keep the fairways a bit more green than they would like to withstand cart traffic, but they were brown enough-certainly when compared to nearly anywhere else.
Those who feel certain greens won't accept long irons or long shots may simply be playing the wrong tees.
And not every hole has to be an even par(some should be tougher than others to seperate players).
Most importantly, it's a beautiful ,challenging ,unique course that rewards judgement, skill, patience, and imagination.
I spent a long time with the owner long after the round and you can see that despite his reluctance to change the naturalness and originality of the course, he's going to do what it takes to land the US Open.
I think he'd get it anyway.
No doubt the next step will be to improve maintenance
because we all know that it's much more important(and indeed a better test of skill) to have a super tightly mown grass predictable lie to hit our 8 iron 167 than it is to evaluate the lie (which could vary from packed dirt to slightly flyery) and play a SHOT accordingly.
