I offer the following quotes re. TOC from another forum where I participate. I don't expect everyone to love the place but this level of distaste does surprise me.
I'm looking at this course and thinking that if I had to play this everyday I'd lose interest in the game. It looks like the surface of the moon.....flat, boring and lot's of craters. No hills, no trees.....lots of hidden trouble and really disorienting.
The design of the course is certainly not "genius" as it was designed to be played the OTHER way and was reversed. The bunkers were chosen by sheep. You have to hit the ball over hotels and a perfect shot into the green on 17 can end up trickling off into a place where it's virtually unplayable. Why not just hang a tire in front of the tee box and make players hit their shots through that?
Really...it's fun to watch players struggle with such anachronistic stupidity but I wouldn't want to play it. Just because golf was born there doesn't mean it hasn't come a long way for the better since. I'll take Augusta, Winged foot, Oakmont, or my own club's course all day, every day over playing St. Andrews on a daily basis.
Honestly I couldnt agree more. I love the history of the game as much as anyone but that doesnt mean I have any desire whatsoever to play that course. Basketball was played with peach baskets too - it doesnt mean I want to play with them now. I dont find that course fantastic or interesting. Sorry but if there was a course in the US where you had to hit over a BUILDING to get into the fairway people would be endlessly mocking it. But ooh ooh its St Andrews so this kind of thing becomes "quirky" and "historical". Whatever.
Love watching it but no interest in playing whatsoever. If I was there on vacation I would want to go to the town because I love historical old towns like that - but I would still have *zero* interest in playing.
I'm not a fan of the course either, but not for the same reasons as you, The things you hate are endemic to pretty much all British links layouts. It's goofy golf compared to the way Americans play the game entirely through the air, but it does have some merits and it does test a players imagination and ability to judge different shots.
What I hate about St. Andrews is that it's a crappy venue for the professional game because on most holes the ability to bomb the ball takes all the trouble out of play. With those double-wide fairways you can hit the ball 50 yards left and have a perfect lie and a perfect angle as long as you carry the trouble and for most guys that's not too hard to do. It's almost a pitch and putt for those guys, the ability to hit a tee ball accurately or make intelligent choices is negated. Just crank it and miss left and nothing bad will happen on at least 12 holes.
Just because something is old and revered doesn't mean it didn't evolve for a reason. I could not a agree more about the 18th hole....has to be the worst finishing hole in a major. Straight, flat, drivable, no real trouble, boring....no risk reward.....payoff to the big hitters who can reach it (put a finger in my mouth and pop a whoopee for emphasis here). Yes "Valley of Sin" is a great name but it really doesn't look so "sinful" to me.
O.K.....golf was "born here" but it evolved for a reason into what it is. Many great American golfers came to St. Andrews for the first time and thought it was a "goat tract". A famous example is Sam Snead who said years after he won his Claret jug there "down home we wouldn't plant bow beets on land like that". When he first saw the course from the train coming in he thought it was an old abandoned golf course....until he found out that yes....that's where they were playing the British Open! Scott Hoch called it the "worst piece of mess he'd ever played" and Jack Nicklaus' father told his son that it was the "worst golf course he'd ever seen.....what a cow pasture with horrible conditions" according to Jack. Many other players like Westwood wouldn't put it in their list of the top 200 courses to play even now. Many grow to love it after playing it over and over again but those guys play the most beautiful courses all they want and are paid to do it so getting a crack at something completely different is going to be something they either love or hate.....certainly it's going to bring out more emotion that just another beautiful American target golf course.
For me however....I don't get to play as much as I'd like and I like those beautiful American target golf courses with lush fairways, well defined greens, beautiful views and elevation changes, trees, flowers and different cuts of rough etc. I learned to play on what golf has become, not what it was a few hundred years ago and I'd rather pay to play Pebble Beach than St. Andrews (although I'd rather visit Scotland than California).
For me, St. Andrews is flat, boring, ugly and looks burnt out with rock hard fairways and I'd rather put 500 bucks toward my club membership than pay it to play there. The double greens are dangerous and hold up play and the overly penal bunkers....well it's funny to see great players stuck in them while your drinking at the local pub watching on the telly but I enjoy the art and craft of a great bunker shot and having a restricted swing with your ball up against a vertical mud wall really isn't my idea of fun. Hitting balls over hotels and to a hole with a road behind the green?..........
There's a reason there's only one hole like that.
It IS a pitch and putt... until the wind blows.
Thursday was what happens when the wind doesn't show up. Weather is the ONLY defense of this overhyped executive course.
It's a goat/sheep ranch plain and simple.