St. Andrews Beach - Gunnamatta Course: A Pictorial!!! (All holes posted)

[Mike_Clayton]

Mark

Matt Griffen,Chris Kane and I played 14 off that cleared space for the back tee. It is so much better from there because the options and the bunkers work perfectly. I am not sure if those who maintain the course even know it's there but they need to make sure the tea-tree does not overgrow that shot - as it threatens to do.

[Mark_F]

Matt Griffen,Chris Kane and I played 14 off that cleared space for the back tee. It is so much better from there because the options and the bunkers work perfectly. I am not sure if those who maintain the course even know it's there but they need to make sure the tea-tree does not overgrow that shot - as it threatens to do.

Mike.

It's good to know you can still play from there.  It gives the teeshot such a different look - the bunker in the centre looks much, much further away, and the bailout into the bowl on the right becomes partially hidden.

It's a pity that those in charge of the course are only concentrating on the in play areas, which are superb, and leaving the off fairway areas, which are close to out of control on more than a few holes - 7, 10, 13, 14 and 17 at least.

[Ben Attwood]

I least enjoyed driving here as the combination of wide fairways and obvious target areas failed to capture my imagination. Most of the time the whole fairway was visible from the tee and it was often quite wide. 

That is an interesting perspective, Ben.  Many people wonder what the correct line on the 5th is supposed to be.  Some people, including an architect who used to post on here, thought the 10th was best approached from the left.  Is the 9th best approached from the top of the ridge or the valley further on? Which side of the 1st you hit to depends on what you are able to achieve.

It's a pity the proper tee for the 14th was never built.  It gave quite a different look to the hole. 
[/quote]

Perhaps what I say tells you more about my golf than the course! Nevertheless, although my view has to be qualified I am confident in its validity. I did pay the price when I missed the wrong part of the fairway (14 was a good example where I ended up rolling all the way down beneath the bunker, when staying left would have clearly have left a better approach) but there was not enough challenge to hitting the successful tee shot. I have no problems with generous fairways but too often the feeling was the same as when I am on the range - I could see the whole wide fairway and could just swing and let loose. I also played Royal Melbourne west in the same trip and whilst the fairways were similarly generous the feeling off the tee was completely different. There, the ideal line often involved taking on a bunker or a dogleg, or hitting to a blind part of the fairway. This led to uncertainty and therefore made the tee shot much more challenging. I felt greater reward when I hit the right line but often bailed to the safer part. Perhaps I am used to more penal fairways and enjoy that but I think when the fairways are generous there needs to be more challenge visually.

(I am of course being hyper critical. I would play this course every week and it would surely it would get better with age. Amazing green sites and complexes)

[Scott Warren]

Bumping due to St Andrews Beach getting some well-deserved kudos in Tom Doak's "Rate My Courses" thread.

[jonathan_becker]

Bumping due to St Andrews Beach getting some well-deserved kudos in Tom Doak's "Rate My Courses" thread.

Tom said on the other thread that he might not have had a better site for golf than SAB.  I'm not sure how much dirt was moved around in construction, but off of only a single play, I remember parts of the property looking like golf holes were just meant to be out there.

People who never get down to play SAB, will ultimately, IMO, miss out on what we (on this board) rave about and dream about in our supposed wants out of a golf course.  Tons of width and I mean tons of it with preferred angles of play still existing, great short par 4s, a great variety of greensites, lots of wind, firm and FAST turf, it's walkable,there's beautiful scenery, and if I remember correctly, I paid a mere $59 to play it.  

It's too bad that it's in such an isolated spot on earth (or maybe that's the best part) and it's still hard for me to believe that I have it ranked 6th on the other thread!

[Mark Bourgeois]

I don't know what this means exactly but it is one of those courses that seems pretty good when you play it -- but when you recount your first rounds and start thinking about it, somehow it gets better and better. It's almost like the thinking of it is better than the playing of it (at least until you get back to play it after you done thunk on it).

[Tom_Doak]

I don't know what this means exactly but it is one of those courses that seems pretty good when you play it -- but when you recount your first rounds and start thinking about it, somehow it gets better and better. It's almost like the thinking of it is better than the playing of it (at least until you get back to play it after you done thunk on it).

I think that means it's subtle.  And subtle is a tough sell in the modern world.

Also, I should note that the course is an hour's drive away from a city of three million people.  It may be a long way from where Jonathan Becker is typing, but it's not nearly as isolated as the majority of my other courses.

[jonathan_becker]

I don't know what this means exactly but it is one of those courses that seems pretty good when you play it -- but when you recount your first rounds and start thinking about it, somehow it gets better and better. It's almost like the thinking of it is better than the playing of it (at least until you get back to play it after you done thunk on it).

I agree with you that courses can get better in your mind after you've played it, but I think I would equally enjoy this course, if not enjoy it more on another play.

Playing RMW three times, Kingston Heath, Victoria, Woodlands, RME, and a trip to Tasmania in a week's time while playing SAB during that same week can make one's head spin a little.  I'm embarrassed to say this, but there were a couple times right after I returned home that I went, "Oh yeah....SAB".  Not to say I forgot about it, but it got mixed in the shuffle a bit.


Tom, that's true.  There are plenty of people that can access SAB within 90 minutes....most of us aren't so lucky though

[Mark Bourgeois]

I don't know what this means exactly but it is one of those courses that seems pretty good when you play it -- but when you recount your first rounds and start thinking about it, somehow it gets better and better. It's almost like the thinking of it is better than the playing of it (at least until you get back to play it after you done thunk on it).

I think that means it's subtle.  And subtle is a tough sell in the modern world.

Do you mean subtlety as a feature / attribute or subtlety as a barrier to understanding and therefore to someone buying a round or a membership? Subtle as a feature might well be a tough sell these days (I'm not certain of that, particularly post 9/11) but subtlety as a barrier actually might be less of a challenge these days than in the past. Well, it should be less of a barrier.

[Thomas Dai]

People who never get down to play SAB, will ultimately, IMO, miss out on what we (on this board) rave about and dream about in our supposed wants out of a golf course.  Tons of width and I mean tons of it with preferred angles of play still existing, great short par 4s, a great variety of greensites, lots of wind, firm and FAST turf, it's walkable,there's beautiful scenery, and if I remember correctly, I paid a mere $59 to play it.  

The Melbourne area for golf is brilliant and Jonathan, if as you say, you like tons of width, tons of it with preferred angles of play still existing, great short par 4s, a great variety of greensites, lots of wind, firm and fast turf, walkability, beautiful scenery then, if you haven't already, you need to come to England and play Minchinhampton Old, yip the cattle and horses course. And when I played there last week it only cost me £12.
All the best

[Tom_Doak]

I don't know what this means exactly but it is one of those courses that seems pretty good when you play it -- but when you recount your first rounds and start thinking about it, somehow it gets better and better. It's almost like the thinking of it is better than the playing of it (at least until you get back to play it after you done thunk on it).

I think that means it's subtle.  And subtle is a tough sell in the modern world.

Do you mean subtlety as a feature / attribute or subtlety as a barrier to understanding and therefore to someone buying a round or a membership? Subtle as a feature might well be a tough sell these days (I'm not certain of that, particularly post 9/11) but subtlety as a barrier actually might be less of a challenge these days than in the past. Well, it should be less of a barrier.

I just meant it must be subtle because it grows on you instead of jumping right out in your face.  It is the sort of thing that appeals greatly to a membership over time, but only if recognize a bit of it in the beginning so they decide to join.  But it's the dead opposite of the ranking game where most people are judging the course on the basis of one play, and, as Jonathan says, judging it alongside several other great courses in a compressed trip.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Well, as an aside, subtle courses that do well in rankings such as TOC and #2 (yeah yeah, Pete Dye's comment about the 1st green notwithstanding) almost certainly do so because rankers essentially have been conditioned to like it and because in the echo chamber of modern life it is hard for them to think independently much less arrive at an original thought unmolested by the madding cybercrowd.

So perhaps new subtle courses that depend on rankings are screwed -- unless they have something like ocean views, exclusivity or other non-architectural things. Then a different aspect of rankings "saves" them.

All that said, there might be ways to market a subtle course of quality to give it at least a fighting chance, especially if it's a private course. The goal would be to keep both members and opinion makers from making judgments or sharing opinions until they've personally experienced the course across at least, what, 10 rounds? Maybe stuff like this?

Opinion makers: be very restrictive (in the initial years at least)
1) Ban / discourage rankers -- or maybe just require them to play a minimum of 5 rounds on any visit
2) Ban / discourage rankings -- call up the magazines
3) Restrict photo taking by anyone as much as possible
4) Don't invite magazines to profile the course

Real people: be very open
4) Actually train founding members and staff in the architecture of the course, for example walk the course with the architect
5) Offer 10-round "exploding" memberships (must play 10 rounds within a given amount of time -- idea is to get enough rounds under their belts before opinions from elsewhere start leaking into their brains)
6) The marketing is the method -- share details of construction, use media in creative ways to share "the making of" type info
7) heck, maybe even create a video game for limited distribution

The goal basically is to give real people enough time to come to an honest assessment -- to experience the good thoroughly enough to really appreciate its quality. No, not easy. But could it be any worse than the current approach? Seems to me it's either doing stuff like this or just giving up entirely on minimalism -- assuming you believe rankings drive the bus.

[Tom_Doak]

The goal basically is to give real people enough time to come to an honest assessment -- to experience the good thoroughly enough to really appreciate its quality. No, not easy. But could it be any worse than the current approach? Seems to me it's either doing stuff like this or just giving up entirely on minimalism -- assuming you believe rankings drive the bus.

Yes, that's the goal, and maybe it's a bit easier to achieve again now because there are not so many new course openings to compete with.

I certainly don't plan to give up entirely on minimalism, in fact I've been looking for ways to reassert it.  I've been very fortunate (as has Bill Coore) that we got to practice it on some very sexy sites that attracted attention on their own merits.  But, it's not as easy for sites without ocean views. 

I've often wondered what the ranking of St. Andrews Beach might be if the one big dune between it and the water weren't there.