This thoroughly delightful Bill Newcomb course about 10 miles east of Jackson, MI, got me to thinking...If someone had told me that this course was rated among the top 100 public courses in the US, and didn't tell me where it was and how much the greens fee was ($25), how would I rate it? Don't setting (right off the highway, without Oakmont's camouflage) and provenance (a hog farm near a depressed town) taint us from the start? I know we all hope that we can be objectively subjective in our assessments of golf courses, but I bet I wouldn't have passed the test I just laid out. I can't decide if this course is just a nifty, affordable, fun track or a really superb one. Or maybe the two just need to be the same in my internal assessment of golf courses. I know that I enjoyed it much more than Hazeltine, Congressional, and Firestone--and not just because it's easier. It had more design variety by a long shot. Dare I say its shot values were better, too.
I don't know what to make of this. I know that there are many emperor-has-no-shot values posts about storied golf courses, but I may just be crazy to like Calderone as much as I did. And I confess that I've only played it once, so it may not repay replays.