James,
I suggest we have a game of beach cricket during next year’s BUDA on the beaches of Gower Peninsula so that Mr Warren could show us how Aussies play cricket! And also to show the Yanks how to play a proper bat and ball game!
Not a bad idea, that!
Scott,
Did you say that you worked for the Daily Mail? – My sister was in a Mail on Sunday magazine article on 22nd Nov. What part of journalism do you specialise in?
I've spent the past year sub-editing on London Lite, and just recently started working at the Mail Online (same company) after Lite folded. For three years before I left Aus I was editing suburban newspapers and before that was the sports editor at a regional bi-weekly.
I'd still say sport's my speciality, and definitely what I see myself returning to long-term.
If you are interested about Golf Journalism – I have a friend who was the ex editor of Today’s Golfer and Fore (now extinct) magazines. He now runs the Golf Magic website – www.golfmagic.com
I'll drop you a PM!
Going back to NSW – having seen the photos on GCA and watching the Australian Open this morning on Sky Sports – I get the general feeling that the revetted bunkers do not fit in with this course. They are more suited to the links courses of GB & I. What would I do with them – I would create waste like areas and deep camouflage bunkers which would give it a more natural look – examples would be Barnbougle Dunes, Friars Head and Pacific Dunes.
You may well be right. Waste bunkers have come in or been extended on 4, 5, 9, 10, so perhaps that's in in their plans?
The 3rd hole is a quirky hole – would it be better if some of the trees on the left were removed and the hole shortened into a risk and reward short par 4???
I don't think so. For starters clearing scrub is far from easy because it's a national park, secondly, it's still a pretty wide corridor, which narrows a bit the closer you get to the green, but if you take the line down the path off the tee and accept a 160m second, you are hitting into an open area the size of a cricket field. It's enormous.
You could remove the LHS greenside bunker to make it more attractive to flirt with the left off the tee, but really, anyone who doesn't know where there is and isn't space after one or two plays only has themselves to blame.
It's already a risk/reward par four, because the green is infinitely easier to hit with a 8i-W than a 5i or 6i (much moreso than the way any hole is easier with a shorter club), so there is a reason to try to cut off as much of the corner as you can.
I understand that you are a fervent supporter of NSW as it is in your backyard. I would be the same for Carnoustie and Royal Porthcawl! But St Enodoc?
it is one of the best and most fun links courses I have ever played!! I played it before McEvoy changed the 16th urrrghh! And I am not a fan of 13 and 14th holes but the rest of the course is awesome and unusual you wont find anything like this on the planet. May be a second visit there with fellow GCAers would help to change your mind.
I would quite like to play it again, but I don't see why they needed such thich rough immediately adjoining such narrow fairways.
For instance there is that tallish dune about 180m from the third tee, on the left. It's covered in 'lost ball' rough. Now if they cut that rough back, you find your pill and have a blind 130m or so shot from rough with the ball below your feet or on some other sort of uneven lie. From memory it would be to a green that slopes away from you ever so slightly?
Why is that not preferable to hitting three off the tee for all involved? The course has still taken a pound of flesh for a mis-hit drive, but the golfer is given the chance to recover and keep moving.
Any golfer, particularly a 15+ hcp is going to miss plenty of those narrow fairways, so why then roger them with a lost ball, given that in the example I mention above, they are still quite likely to make a bogey on a hole where par is not to difficult?
Without dragging over too much old ground, I thought 4 wasn't even nearly tempting enough to be a great reachable par four, 9 is pretty bland, 10 is ridiculously narrow (again - lost ball rough on a severe slope right with a creek flanking the left: mow it a bit, let them find it then sweat like hell hoping they don't hook it with the ball above their feet straight into the creek), 13-14 I didn't strongly dislike, but they were fairly out of character with the rest (especially 14), 15 suffered for having a road right in front of the green, I thought.
It's not a huge amount of crap, but I thought it just kept interrupting the flow, for me. Loved 1 and 2 has a great green despite being too narrow - then 3 and 4 slowed me up. 5-8 I really enjoyed, then 9-10 slowed me up. 11-12 were fun and suble, then 13-15 slowed me up. 16-18 was probably, neck and neck with RSG, the best finish I have played in the UK behind Deal.
Those are just the observations I made playing it once. I may we way off-line. Though I was alone and stuck behind a slow two-ball, so I had plenty of time for observation and thinking.
If you ever plan to play Brancaster and Hunstanton or Luffenham Heath and Rutland Water give me a shout.
Will do.