A Pictorial: Carnoustie's Championship Course!!! (18th Hole Posted)

[Sean_A]

Kyle

I always peek into threads concerning Carnoustie in the hope I will become enlightened.  I also went back and read Finegan's blurb in Where Golf is Great just to get me in a proper mood to look carefully at the pix.  Despite enjoying your fine effort (and the rest!), I fail to really appreciate Carnoustie in any other way except as a championship test.  Not that the course is bad, that is most certainly far from the case.  I just don't get any sense of urgency or desire to head up there for a game.  Could you offer a few (or more) reasons/insights as to why I should be visiting Carnoustie over some other high quality venue.  In other words, other than the stiff test, what else makes Carnoustie stand apart from the other tourista stops within a reasonable proximity?

Ciao

Richard Goodale is a big proponent of Carnoustie's merits. He would probably sell the course more than I.

My take on the course mirrors your impression. It is a solid test, featuring a number of soundly designed holes on a decent parcel. Yet, somehow it is lacking in charm and quirk. Several of the holes are memorable, but not in a way that fills me with an urgent desire to play them again as soon as possible.

I'd probably rate the course as a 7 on the Doak scale. I think Doak gave it an 8.

At 135 pounds per round, the value just isn't quite there IMHO, but it is a course that certainly deserves a spot on The Open Rota.

Kyle

Cheers.  I thought you might make a stand for the tough ole bird!  Maybe I will make it back one day as an add-on for somewhere else, but it wouldn't be me organizing it!  That said, for my money I really liked the Burnside and I could definitely see myself turning up on the 1st again. 

Which coruse will you profile next?

Ciao 

[Kyle Henderson]

A bump to help interested parties orient themselves during the Senior Open this week.

[Colin Macqueen]

Kyle,
You cannot imagine the thrill that looking at these photographs of Carnoustie gave me as I sit here in Australia sipping my red wine. I have caddied on this course probably 100 times as a youth and to see and have a photograph or two of each hole is just wonderful.
Two wee stories.
The first happened on the 6th on Hogan’s Alley. The chap I was caddying for, Uncle Ivor, hit his second with a fairway wood and nobody saw the ball flight at all. Consternation all round. As the foursome tried to make some sense of this the wee caddy, my good self, picked up the divot, returned to the scar and stamped it down with my foot. I felt what seemed like a round pebble beneath my foot as I did this and in a moment of inspiration realised that it could well be the ball; which indeed it was! Top marks to the caddy and an extra Mars bar at the tea house (after the 10th. hole?).
More interesting by far, for me, is if you look in your first photo of the 18th. hole on the tee described as
“Driving over and staying between the elegant curves of the Burn is job #1.”
on the extreme left, about half-way up your frame and scrolled to the left,  you can make out a small two-storey white house with a bay window in the upper storey.  The house was called “Lismore” and we lived there as a family for 2-3 years. In that bay-window in 1953 I sat as a three year old on my Mum’s knee and witnessed “The Wee Ice Mon”, Ben Hogan, putt out on the eighteenth green for his one and only Open.

So many memories of countless evenings “roaming in the gloaming” were evoked of by your masterful presentation.
Once again a thousand thanks for this delightful sequence of photographs.

Cheers Colin

[Kyle Henderson]

Great stories, Colin, and thanks for the kind words. I'm glad I could evoke such pleasant memories.

I'll see you at the Boomerang!

Kyle,
You cannot imagine the thrill that looking at these photographs of Carnoustie gave me as I sit here in Australia sipping my red wine. I have caddied on this course probably 100 times as a youth and to see and have a photograph or two of each hole is just wonderful.
Two wee stories.
The first happened on the 6th on Hogan’s Alley. The chap I was caddying for, Uncle Ivor, hit his second with a fairway wood and nobody saw the ball flight at all. Consternation all round. As the foursome tried to make some sense of this the wee caddy, my good self, picked up the divot, returned to the scar and stamped it down with my foot. I felt what seemed like a round pebble beneath my foot as I did this and in a moment of inspiration realised that it could well be the ball; which indeed it was! Top marks to the caddy and an extra Mars bar at the tea house (after the 10th. hole?).
More interesting by far, for me, is if you look in your first photo of the 18th. hole on the tee described as
“Driving over and staying between the elegant curves of the Burn is job #1.”
on the extreme left, about half-way up your frame and scrolled to the left,  you can make out a small two-storey white house with a bay window in the upper storey.  The house was called “Lismore” and we lived there as a family for 2-3 years. In that bay-window in 1953 I sat as a three year old on my Mum’s knee and witnessed “The Wee Ice Mon”, Ben Hogan, putt out on the eighteenth green for his one and only Open.

So many memories of countless evenings “roaming in the gloaming” were evoked of by your masterful presentation.
Once again a thousand thanks for this delightful sequence of photographs.

Cheers Colin

[Thomas Dai]

With The Open being played at Carnoustie next week it seems an appropriate time to bump this photo-Tour thread.
Atb