I decided to tape the last round of Sebonack USGA Women's Open (since InBee was almost a forgone conclusion) and take a long overdue look at Sweetgrass Golf Course, a Paul Albanese ASGCA golf design. I'm somewhat embarrassed that I only live 1.5 hours from there and haven't seen or played it since it opened a few years ago. Paul was an occasional contributor to GolfClubAtlas.com for a few years. I wish he'd jump back in for some commentary.
I wasn't able to take photos as the tournament was still in progress. What I did was start on #1 and walk up the tees, FWs and greens an hour after the last group cleared, catching the last group leaders by the time they got to 13. So, I felt I was able to see where the good players hit the ball and moreso how this course played on a very windy day ranging from constant 1 club sind to gust up to 3 clubs. The set up for these ladies was somewhere mixing white member, gold senior, and a few blue, low handi, tees. There are also a set of blacks that stretch the course out to 7200+ yards.
Let me first post a link to a nice pictorial GCA post, done by Jon Heise a couple years ago:
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,45435.0.htmlThe photos are very good, but.... IMHO they don't quite capture the intensity of the grading contours achieved by Albanese's design. This course is one of the best manufactured, fully graded and contoured projects I have seen. It isn't just that the grading is intense and frequent with created FW humps and ridges and mounds, it is that they are so well designed and thought out to provide an amazing array of locations and desired angles and places to work tee balls, and approach shots to take advantage of speed slots and kickplates. And, I will say that while I only watched the last group of women, who were the day's leaders, these ladies really did play some excellent golf for the wind conditions that they faced.
I would welcome if anyone can add just how the water feature is engineered throughout this property. The 9th and 18th finish around an enormous centerpiece of a series of cascading ledgerock waterfalls, that while many here roll their eyes at, I must say this design with the two par 5s around the center landscape of waterfalls is particularly beautiful, well placed and plays just enough of a playing hazard to be useful, but for a resort - makes for the kind of WOW finish they would want for the customers. But, what I'd really like to know is the engineering of the feature as it then end into a wooded area between the tees of 9 and 18 and turns into a stream and a series of 'backbone of the design, lakes and more streams as it courses through the rest of the property. I want to know if this water system is part of the hotel effluent treated water, mixed with high cap well water. The system with waterfalls and lake after dammed lake seems likd a settling system, yet at every step of the watercourse, the water appears very clean. So maybe it isn't effluent and starts as high cap fresh water from the start. Either way, it is impressive, IMO.
The series of lakes were obviously used for borrow and contouring material used not only for feature shaping with the soils appearing to be sandy or gravel, but also used to create a property perimeter berm for hole isolation. holes 1 and 10 are also framed around the very impressive practice grounds. Yet, the corridors formed by berms are effective, and appear very natural (almost like you'd see in sand hills of Carolinas or out west) Yes, there is no question it is manufactured. But the distribution and irregular natural placement sensibilities of the architect designer achieve a very good look, and not overly artificial at all.
Greens are also greatly contoured. I noted a tendancy to use several front to back sloping schemes on the front 9 with many internal poofs and noses in and tied into the greens from surrounds. Again, I'd have to say that the architects sense of how and where to bring into the green complex, ridges, mounds, hollows and collection areas from green slope runaways is among the best work I've seen.
The maintenence meld and turf conditions were excellent as well. The greens appeared that they may have been taken down a notch in height of cut and extra verticut and groomed for the tournament to get speeds up and roll true and excellent. The fairways were also excellent and healthy with very few exceptions. The fescue roughs are beautiful and the way one would like a project of fescue to mature after a few years. There are some areas where undergrowth of blue is getting thick, but it is as good as the native areas I've seen at Wild Horse, which is a different composition of native grasses, but mostly playable to find and get a ball back into play. The FW corridors are properly wide, with many well placed waste areas before native roughs, and LZs are well planned out for width and constriction where appropriate. The intermediate bluegrass roughs and bunker surrounds are also well kept, and proper heights, including green surrounds.
Here is the link to the Sweetgrass web page:
http://www.sweetgrassgolfclub.com/course-overview As mentioned in previous threads, this is part of a three course rota of special deals that you can buy stay and play packages, paired with Timberstone (scenic and dramatic but not all that), Greywalls (a DeVreis masterpiece) and Sweetgrass (which I'm willing to call a superior golf course that should not be missed if you are looking for great golf on a resort week getaway) I am definitely planning to play it on a stay and play package later this year. And, after seeing the course played by these talented ladies, I'm willing to say that it would be an excellent course for the Web.com tour or NCAA tournament, played from the tips would be all they could handle and a very stern - fair test of golf. No doubt in my mind about that.
But, I will offer two minor criticism's. While the previous comments talked about the bold 12th par 3, combination of Biarritz or double plateau, as being a signature kind of hole, I disagree. I think it is the worst design hole on the course. It is followed a few holes later by a semi-Island green par 3 that is a better hole in that genre of par 3 signature hole sort of model. The problem with 12 is that the back portion after a very deep trough (similar to the one at Arcadia Bluffs) is not big enough and ends too abruptly to hold any long iron shots. One can try to land on the up slope of the trough if a pin is on the back hump-plateau, but the trough is too deep, and the plateau is too small, with fallaway steep to rear and right side, while there is beach and lake to the full left of the green. The cart path leading upt to the green also is in great need of repositioning. The pin was on the first plateau before the trough, and then the fall off to the right had but little blue grass rough - then immediately onto the cart path, followed by rough and a part of the water flowage feature and a small wooded area. The path could easily be moved further right to cross the shallow - often dry water course feature that is about 12 ft wide, by traversing it with a simple wooden bridge and run the path behind the small wooded area. The diversion would only be a about 150-200ft, simple and not expensive. Then the place where the cart path is now, could just be resodded to blue grass, and case closed.
The other only flaw I saw was the very long par 5 6th, while a fair hole even from its long length and three of the tees have a seriously long carry over a wetland (not unfair however), the length of the surface to catch basin water runs have left a few lows that are not healthy turf and are just a little long of a run for water to run before being captured in a drain basin. Nothing too egregious, just a bit of a flaw, IMHO.
The course is quite walkable, although the frequency of FW grading ups and downs will probably tire you out. Not any seriously long green to tee walks, only a few moderate strolls. I'd walk it. Maybe I'd take a cart on a second play of the day, because it is one of those courses that after finishing, you will rush to the first tee to have a second go!
