Most Important Golf Courses

[Cory Brown]

I was thinking the other day about how most rankings rate mostly the same courses as the Greatest.  For example Pine Valley is generally considered the #1 Greatest golf course.  But what about the most important golf courses?  The Old Course at St. Andrews always ranks high in World's Greatest lists, but rarely takes the top spot.  Clearly in a most important ranking it would be far and away #1 as every other golf course in the world is in one way or another descended from the Old Course.

How would you rank the top most important courses in golf?  I would be much more curious to hear a few selections and reasons, than an exhaustive list.

[Matt_Ward]

Cory:

There is no singularr golf course that can be the end-all in all respects.

Digest is to be blamed for the concept that A COURSE could be rated #1.

I believe the best way to answer your question is in a group of ten. That way unique and interesting characteristics of clearly important courses would then be listed in such a fashion.

TOC would certainly be among my personal top ten in being so compelling in what it provides.

[Tom_Doak]

Is this most Important or most Self-Important ?   

I guess it depends on how you define important.  Important to the history of golf?  Important to the history of golf architecture?  Important to golf today?

[David_Tepper]

Cory Brown -

There have been past discussions on this site about which are some of the most significant courses in the history of GCA, such as which courses marked a new trend or era in golf course design.

DT

[Tim Gavrich]

How many golf courses can there be that are more important--for better or worse--than ANGC?

[M. Shea Sweeney]

How bout the course that you learned the game on.

[Phil_the_Author]

Cory,

To expand on Tom's comment, he once asked me which courses I would rank as being Tilly's most important. He was greatly surprised when I included Brackenridge Park in my list of 10, yet because of the time it was designed, for whom and its impact locally and nationally as the site of the Texas Open, it led to many other commissions for Tilly and quickly helped spread his reputation as an architect nationally at a time whenit was far more of a regional occupation.

So again, how and on what can one properly assess what is a course's true importance? There are many a lesser course that are directly responsible for architects getting commissions to do what those outside the situation would consider far greater or more important work. In many cases, one can not be had without the other.

So again, how would you define "important" in your question? How important is future its influence in defining what it was at its creation compared to how it is viewed today?

[M. Shea Sweeney]

"How many golf courses can there be that are more important--for better or worse--than ANGC?"

Tim-

Can you explain?

[Phil McDade]

Is this most Important or most Self-Important ?   

I guess it depends on how you define important.  Important to the history of golf?  Important to the history of golf architecture?  Important to golf today?

Tom:

I've mentioned this on occasion, but didn't you once write something along these lines (paraphrasing):

"The Old Course is far and away the most important golf course because every course built since is either an imitation of it, or a direct reaction to it."

If not, my apologies. But if so, it struck me as pretty much true -- that TOC and all it entails provide a framework by which one can view how a golf course should play.

[mike_beene]

  Glen Garden.If it didn't exist would the swing and thus the modern game have evolved differently?

[Tom MacWood]

Cory,

To expand on Tom's comment, he once asked me which courses I would rank as being Tilly's most important. He was greatly surprised when I included Brackenridge Park in my list of 10, yet because of the time it was designed, for whom and its impact locally and nationally as the site of the Texas Open, it led to many other commissions for Tilly and quickly helped spread his reputation as an architect nationally at a time whenit was far more of a regional occupation.

So again, how and on what can one properly assess what is a course's true importance? There are many a lesser course that are directly responsible for architects getting commissions to do what those outside the situation would consider far greater or more important work. In many cases, one can not be had without the other.

So again, how would you define "important" in your question? How important is future its influence in defining what it was at its creation compared to how it is viewed today?

Brackenridge Park? Do you think Tilly would consider BP among his most important designs? Texas Open?

[Melvyn Morrow]

TOC takes the crown in all aspects, it has to for the simple fact that all other courses are related to her. She is the original EVE and all have DNA that reflects back to her.

Although her younger consort for many years Prestwick, had that addition boost called testosterone which gave the game the contracts or should I go as far as to say new blood to force the Old Lady to changes or was it her natural age forcing her waste to expand on many of her 18 fairways, creating even more option not to mention adding a few little secrets.

Yes IMHO its TOC, but her much younger consort Prestwick added spice to her life and shape.

Melvyn

[Steve Salmen]

Cory,  these are some ideas I came up with:
Muirfield:  First course to have 2 nines ending at the clubhouse
Royal Blackheath: Oldest golf club outside Scotland
Royal Calcutta: Oldest golf club outside UK
Royal Montreal: Oldest golf club in North America
St. Andrews: First golf course in US
Chicago Golf Club: first 18 hole course in US

[TEPaul]

Cory:

I'd say if one is to take what some of us refer to as the "Golden Age of Golf Architecture" as the context, that the courses that were probably the most important and the most usual suspects on the itineraries of various significant people who began studying architecture abroad in the last decade of the 19th century and the first couple of decades of the 20th century, that the one that topped them all was obviously TOC, but right there near her as a place to study was the heathlands and those few seminal architectural creations that were happening there right around the end of the 20th century.

I think the reason the heathlands and those first few seminal courses were so important is pretty obvious----eg those men who went to study them realized that they were going to be building INLAND and those few courses of the heathlands of that time really did represent the first really good INLAND architecture in the world!

However, what is even more remarkable, at least to me, is this timeline chronology may not be all that exact. By that I mean it is possible that some really good inland architecture might have been happening over here before its creator even went abroad. If that is true it becomes a bit like the invention of the jet engine. Did you know that apparently the Germans and the Italians invented the jet engine simultaneously even though neither of them realized what the other was doing or had done at the time?

[mark chalfant]

North Berwick,

It has so many fun and unique holes in a beautful setting.  N. Berwick is open to all, affordable.  It has the Redan Hole which has become a model/paradigm. I have spoken with many golf architects and almost all of them  mention North Berwick and refer to this design as  "inspiring."

[TEPaul]

You know, Mark, Charles Blair Macdonald's brief description in his autobiography about his visit to North Berwick in 1906 to study it is pretty touching and pretty telling and seems to support what you just said.

However, it may've raised more questions than it answered as there is this ongoing debate about whether or not THAT is where he got the idea for the massive and prominent swale that he designed into all his biarritzes.

It may not be just idle conjecture that North Berwick itself back then was sometimes referred to as "The Biarritz of the North."

[Jud_T]

Bandon Dunes,

For sparking an interest in links golf on this side of the pond...

Sand Hills...

The course that made folks stand up and take the modern minimalist movement seriously

[Melvyn Morrow]

Lets look at the whole picture, TOC was never a short course, North Berwick was a 9 hole, Prestwick was 12, they all settled for the 18 of TOC. North Berwick was going to be extended to 19 hole in 1876 but settle to match St Andrews in 1877.

Yet I still would not put NB before Prestwick.

Melvyn

[Anthony Gray]

  Sawgrass is in my top 10.Because it was built in a place that was worth a buck and started the TPC thing and helped grow golf after the big 3 peeked.Important in many ways.And it pushed foward modern architecture.

   Anthony

[Cory Brown]

I wasn't really thinking specifically related to any one thing I purposely left the question open ended as to spark a little debate.  Prestwick was definitely one I was thinking of.  Another thought I had was that NGLA and Shinnecock are right next door to each other and I would say each have been very important to American golf.  However if I asked most casual golfers or golf fans, most would know something about Shinnecock and very few would know anything about NGLA.  Does that mean Shinnecock is a more imortant course?  I would say not, but I could be wrong.

Not really any right or wrong answers on this one, I just think it's an interesting question that contains many different factors. 

[Tim Gavrich]

"How many golf courses can there be that are more important--for better or worse--than ANGC?"

Tim-

Can you explain?

Here are my reasons from, admittedly, a probably pretty thin historically informed perspective:

- The original collaboration of A. Mackenzie and B. Jones was something that is copied nowadays: a big-time player with a big-time architect teaming up to create a great golf course.
- The "National Golf Club" model--I'm sure ANGC wasn't the first but many clubs that have come after have based their membership structures and aims at exclusivity around those at ANGC.
- TV--ANGC is probably the most recognizable golf course in the world because it is on television every single year.  The meticulous maintenance of the place and consequent course conditioning that is the stuff of lore has driven golfers' desires in what they want from courses they actually can play.  Bright white sand.
- The idea that a popular current architect can come in and make huge changes to the original design of an already-great course.  I'm thinking here of RTJ's work on the course.  As for Fazio...
- Lengthening--When ANGC went from about 6,900 yards to 7,400 yards it triggered the widely-adopted notion that a golf course isn't worth its salt unless it's really, really long and difficult.  This is of course, in most of our opinions, a fallacy, but it prevails across the world golf consciousness.

That's all I can think of now.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

[Cory Brown]

I like the idea of the course you learned to play the game on, because I would say that is probably very influential on everyone who has ever played the game.  However I was more thinking along the lines of most important, influential, groundbreaking as it relates to the game of golf as a whole.

[Norbert P]

     ". . . At the beginning of the 20th century more than 250 Carnoustie trained golfers "spread the gospel of golf" around the world. Carnoustie claims its evangelicals have left a legacy of more than 250 American clubs it influenced at that time. Carnoustie’s Stewart Maiden made his contribution to golf by teaching Bobby Jones the game. By the time the British Open was first played at Carnoustie (1931) golf missionaries from Carnoustie had won national open tournaments in seven different countries, including Britain and America.         . . . "

       Carnoustie

  Son, never ask a man where he's from. Because, if he's from Carnoustie, he'll tell you. If he aint, don't embarrass him.

[Tim Martin]

"How many golf courses can there be that are more important--for better or worse--than ANGC?"

Tim-

Can you explain?

Here are my reasons from, admittedly, a probably pretty thin historically informed perspective:

- The original collaboration of A. Mackenzie and B. Jones was something that is copied nowadays: a big-time player with a big-time architect teaming up to create a great golf course.
- The "National Golf Club" model--I'm sure ANGC wasn't the first but many clubs that have come after have based their membership structures and aims at exclusivity around those at ANGC.
- TV--ANGC is probably the most recognizable golf course in the world because it is on television every single year.  The meticulous maintenance of the place and consequent course conditioning that is the stuff of lore has driven golfers' desires in what they want from courses they actually can play.  Bright white sand.
- The idea that a popular current architect can come in and make huge changes to the original design of an already-great course.  I'm thinking here of RTJ's work on the course.  As for Fazio...
- Lengthening--When ANGC went from about 6,900 yards to 7,400 yards it triggered the widely-adopted notion that a golf course isn't worth its salt unless it's really, really long and difficult.  This is of course, in most of our opinions, a fallacy, but it prevails across the world golf consciousness.

That's all I can think of now.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Tim-Great post and a very well thought out answer to Mr. Sweeney`s question.

[TEPaul]

Slag, that's some interesting info you just hung up here on Carnoustie. I never knew that. Was the town or area sort of depressed by chance when that kind of massive golf related emigration occured?

I ask that because my wife's heritage is Irish and when over there a few years ago we visited Cobh---the major emigration point in the old days from Ireland. There is a fantastic museum there that tracks the entire thing and to say it was an eye-opener and incredibly moving would be an understatement.