[Grant Saunders]

Should playing every great course be like trying to work out a Sudoku puzzle?

What are the “easiest” great courses to figure out?

[Chris Cupit]

Obviously weather is the huge factor but on the occasional rare, windless day, TOC can be had.  Certainly not a course you figure out easily re all the strategies, but without wind you can post a good number.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Should playing every great course be like trying to work out a Sudoku puzzle?

What are the “easiest” great courses to figure out?

By "figure out", do you mean, "score on" ?

If so, NGLA could satisfy your requirement from the appropriate tees

[Niall C]

Easiest great course to figure out ? Carnoustie. Now playing it is another matter.

Niall

[archie_struthers]

   

At certain times of the year I might say Seminole ! But I haven't played it enough to be an expert.

[J_ Crisham]

I found Garden City to be pretty easy. Keep it in play and you shouldn't score any big numbers.

[Grant Saunders]

Should playing every great course be like trying to work out a Sudoku puzzle?

What are the “easiest” great courses to figure out?

By "figure out", do you mean, "score on" ?

If so, NGLA could satisfy your requirement from the appropriate tees

By figure out I mean the ability to decipher the strategies and to a degree be able to execute them. Not so much in the resort course sense of having everything laid out in front of you but also not a course with elements that continue to baffle after multiple plays.  

A lot of courses are praised for their plethora of options and are almost viewed as a battle of wits between player and architect. While that level of mental discipline required is to be commended, sometimes its nice to just play golf and not feel you are being under examination for your thought process.
 

[John Kavanaugh]

I played my finest winter round ever at Pacific Dunes on a beautiful calm day.  The greens are slow and the tees are moved up as part of a curse of the public.  I get it and enjoyed playing well.  Having all those par threes to finish on also makes it easy to score.  Nothing more simple that hitting a green with an iron off a tee.  Drivers and putters are the choke tools.

[Matt Glore]

Sand Hills to me was easier than I imagined.  My playing companion who shoots mid to high 80s shot 36 on the front, only to follow it up with a back nine 47.  Then our second round we started on 10 and he quit after 17 only to rejoin the fun on 1 for our last 9 holes.  He shot 37.

I think I was my normal 40-43 9 hole scores, but for the first time out on those greens, and in the wind.  It was a pretty easy round.  That made it very enjoyable.

[Tom_Doak]

Easiest to score on is not the same as easiest to figure out.

If we're really trying to figure out the latter, The Old Course would be one of the last courses I'd rate, not one of the first.

Chris should keep in mind that The Old Course the tourists play is not the same course as The Old Course they play for the fall meeting of the R & A, or for championships.  The use of different hole locations changes the course completely, and there are a lot of days they just dumb it down for public consumption.  Even then, it's only easy to figure out if you've got a caddie telling you where to go on every shot.

edit - Also, all links courses are designed for wind [including mine].  If you catch a links course on a calm, sunny day, almost all of them can be had -- except Carnoustie.  But that's what makes Carnoustie over the top 80% of the time, and the others just right.

[John Kavanaugh]

Sand Hills to me was easier than I imagined.  My playing companion who shoots mid to high 80s shot 36 on the front, only to follow it up with a back nine 47.  Then our second round we started on 10 and he quit after 17 only to rejoin the fun on 1 for our last 9 holes.  He shot 37.

I think I was my normal 40-43 9 hole scores, but for the first time out on those greens, and in the wind.  It was a pretty easy round.  That made it very enjoyable.

Matt,

I think many of us play above our heads in the Sand Hills.  The elevation and firm fairways create a sense of security difficult to replicate in the muck and mud at home.  I can not tell you how many times I have thanked God that the courses of the region do not require the posting of scores.  I know on the plane ride out that I'm going low and nobody needs to know.

[Michael Ryan]

I recently played my first round at Cypress Point last month.  Granted I teed off at 7:30 am and didn't feel a breath of wind until the 13th tee and for the rest of the round it was 5 to 10 mph at most, but I found it to be very playable.  I play off of a 6 handicap and tell everyone that I never think golf is "easy", but CP was the closest to it amongst the elite golf courses I have played.  I thought through as close to apples to apples in terms of conditions (little to no wind, greens that were rolling well but not scary firm) and I found it to be the least intimidating amongst courses such as Winged Foot, Merion, Pine Valley, etc.  I'm not trying to compare them architecturally-I'm simply saying the resistance to scoring was the least amongst the top 10 courses I have played.  I have had friends tell me they played Seminole on days with little to no wind and "didn't see what the fuss was about" but I encountered 25 mph winds that were steady the entire day-it was a brute.


I would guess courses designed in areas where wind is an integral part of the mix would be the ones most likely to make it into this conversation depending on the day(s) someone experienced them.

Mike

[Chris Cupit]

Easiest to score on is not the same as easiest to figure out.

If we're really trying to figure out the latter, The Old Course would be one of the last courses I'd rate, not one of the first.

Chris should keep in mind that The Old Course the tourists play is not the same course as The Old Course they play for the fall meeting of the R & A, or for championships.  The use of different hole locations changes the course completely, and there are a lot of days they just dumb it down for public consumption.  Even then, it's only easy to figure out if you've got a caddie telling you where to go on every shot.

edit - Also, all links courses are designed for wind [including mine].  If you catch a links course on a calm, sunny day, almost all of them can be had -- except Carnoustie.  But that's what makes Carnoustie over the top 80% of the time, and the others just right.

I was trying to say that while one can shoot a good score on TOC, truly understanding all the strategies could take years if not a lifetime which is why I think it is great and one of my favorite courses ever--I would never tire of playing it.

I have played it as a tourist and in championship conditions from the tips during the St. Andrews Links event prior to The Amateur Championship.  Played the event in all kinds of weather with rounds of 77 on the old (afternoon round on the New was cancelled due to wind and rain so severe the ball would not stay on the greens)!  The next day was 36 on the old course.  Same day I shot 81-67  The 67 was with bogies on 15 and 17 coming in  

I also think that playing safe (left) as tourists are encouraged to do, can mean a pretty good score assuming one has a good short game and their lag putting is very good--very doable unlike some tests that demand unreal length and strength.

[Kyle Casella]

I would agree that CPC, without wind and with soft greens, is extremely "scoreable," especially for a good player. If you are hitting your irons well and the greens are soft, you can get it pretty close to a lot of holes, most of the time with a short iron.

PS- Meadow Club, although not as "great" as some of the prior clubs mentioned, is really not that difficult. Just look at the scores from the annual Cal event they have there. Those guys tear it up.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

I too say CPC without the wind.  Fairly small greens.  Except for 8, 9, 16 and 17, pretty straight forward stuff.  Of course good conditioning there also helps scoring.  Some decent caddie advice which I am not used to also assists.

Maybe that was why Mackenzie was baffled by the lack of criticism.  Everyone was happy with their score!

[Mark_F]

Easiest to score on is not the same as easiest to figure out.

If we're really trying to figure out the latter, The Old Course would be one of the last courses I'd rate, not one of the first.

Chris should keep in mind that The Old Course the tourists play is not the same course as The Old Course they play for the fall meeting of the R & A, or for championships.  The use of different hole locations changes the course completely, and there are a lot of days they just dumb it down for public consumption.  Even then, it's only easy to figure out if you've got a caddie telling you where to go on every shot.

Tom,

Which is one of the reasons that TOC being sacred ground is a crock.  A great course should be interesting all day every day, not just the half dozen times the pins are in the most difficult locations.

[Greg Taylor]

CPC and TOC... for sure.

Both need the wind to add a defence.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Which is one of the reasons that TOC being sacred ground is a crock.  

A great course should be interesting all day every day, not just the half dozen times the pins are in the most difficult locations.
Mark,

I think that's a valid point

[Mark Chaplin]

TOC could not be described as boring on run of the mill days, Patrick the same could be said of National I played and scored really well in a light breeze and to very much "pins of the day". I had no doubt it could have been 5+ shots harder with more challenging pins. If the greens had been RMW hard it would have been 10 shots with sporty pins.

[DMoriarty]

Anyone else notice a pattern here?  NGLA . . . CPC . . . TOC . . . Sand Hills, etc.  How about we just say the "Easiest Great Course" is any truly Great Course on a rare calm day.  

Golf is meant to played in the wind, and on a great courses wind is almost always a major factor.  If a course is meant to be playable in the wind then it is probably going to be relatively easy on a calm day.

Mark Ferguson notes that a course ought to be interesting all day every day, and I'd say these courses (at least the three I have played) are interesting all day every day.   They just aren't as hard when it is calm.  

We become so used to benign conditions that we forget about the importance of wind to golf.  What if we turn it around?  If a course is extremely difficult on a calm day, is that course really going to be "interesting" when the wind his howling?  Or is it going to be unplayable?

[Chip Gaskins]

Cypress and NGLA

[Patrick_Mucci]

TOC could not be described as boring on run of the mill days,

Patrick the same could be said of National I played and scored really well in a light breeze and to very much "pins of the day". I had no doubt it could have been 5+ shots harder with more challenging pins. If the greens had been RMW hard it would have been 10 shots with sporty pins.

Mark Chaplin,

I think you're confusing two seperate issues.

Mark Ferguson referenced "INTEREST", not "DIFFICULTY".

Without the wind, NGLA remains an incredibly interesting golf course.

The first green has to be the most frightening green in golf in a medal play qualifier.
A harmless, short opener that can send you to the parking lot, literally.

Do holes get more interesting than #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 ?
Only # 9 seems a little bland without wind.

The terrain, the rolling, pronounced fairway tilts, the putting surfaces ( 1, 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 15)

The blind shots, the variety in approach shots from the same location.

The bunkering.

It's a pretty interesting golf course, with or without wind,.

Wind is just the icing on the cake.

[jeffwarne]

North Berwick, NGLA, Maidstone, Brora

[Grant Saunders]

People seem to have gravitated towards courses "easy" to score on. This isn't quite what I was getting at. I am talking about the courses which are easier to read in terms of picking your options based on what is presented. Clear strategies that allow the player to formulate the plan and then move on to the execution phase without continually second guessing yourself.

I’m not knocking courses with multiple options that require repeated plays for you to explore and gradually build a game plan. Sometimes though, a course or hole can be too complicated and overly reliant on the mental challenges.

[Peter Pallotta]

Grant - your first post raises an issue that I've thought about before, but I come at it from a different angle. I have played few great courses, but even an average golfer like me plays a lot of golf holes over 20 years -- and, well, I just have rarely come across ANY golf hole that on ANY GIVEN DAY takes more than a few seconds to 'figure out'. Sure, that same hole on another day and with differing wind and turf conditions presents a DIFFERENT set of choices/options, but again it only takes a few seconds to figure THOSE out too. And that's because I'm not EVERY golfer playing under EVERY possible condition -- i.e. I'm just ME, playing RIGHT NOW, and I know my game well enough to know that I DON'T have 3 or 4 choices off the tee, I have 2 -- and one will be easier to execute but leave me a harder second and the other will be harder but will leave an easier/better angled second shot. And then I have to try to hit those shots well, which sometimes i do and sometimes I don't.

In other  words: I think we tend to confuse a WELL DESIGNED hole, i.e. one that indeed does present different challenges to different players on different days, with a golf hole that is INTERESTING TO PLAY.  The latter can be (and as I suggest, almost always IS) good and even great even though it takes the individual golfer on a specific day  mere seconds to 'figure out'.

EDIT: Indeed, I'd suggest that many a golf hole and golf course in the modern era has been OVER DESIGNED precisely because the architect is attempting to make sure that EVERY golfer playing the course on ANY given day/condition will IMMEDIATELY AND ALWAYS come to the conclusion that the course "provides many options and strategic choices" - so fashionable and important and marketable has that phrase and concept become for just about everyone in the industry, including the majority of lazy and mediocre golf writers. And that's when we then get what appear to be Sudoku puzzles (wannabe Pete Dye courses, without Mr. Dye's talent and without his goal/context of challenging the world's best players) but that are in fact just over bunkered and over contoured and over everything, the net effect being they make NO ONE really happy, EVER.  

Peter

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