Tom Doak, while I've never played Crystal Downs, many posters keep saying the greens stimp too fast, and that makes the course less fun/playable than it should be. Any reactions to that?
Jim:
Hopefully this answers your question (and Mac's as well).
I do think that for the last 6-7 years -- before this year, when it changed a bit -- the greens at the Downs were maintained too fast for the contours of the greens. Really, the ideal speed on those greens is 8.5 or 9, but sadly golfers just aren't satisfied with those speeds anymore, so the only time of the year you play them ideal is early in the spring. They're still great up to about 10; after that, they are pretty severe even for someone who putts well and knows them well. I've said so here, and I've said so at the club.
However, that does NOT affect my rating of the golf course much at all. The green speed changes from day to day and month to month, and it could change [for good] at any time they decide for it to change. If what's on the ground is perfect [to me], and it's just a matter of getting the set-up right, my ratings in The Confidential Guide assume that they will get the set-up right. And don't forget, when I wrote my book in the mid-90's, the set-up WAS right.
Likewise, back then, they still had that one stupid cherry tree in place on #17, but I didn't hold that against the course either -- and it would have been pretty silly in hindsight had I done so, since the tree is now a distant memory.
The ratings in The Confidential Guide generally give the course the benefit of the doubt as far as conditioning and set-up. I felt this was only fair, because I had seen most of the courses only once or twice, and that wasn't enough to make judgments about their ideal maintenance meld. And because the book is supposed to be about golf courses, not conditioning.
P.S. to Mac: I'm supposed to get over there once I get over the flu, and mark out expanded mowing lines on three of the holes. They do intend to widen things out on many holes to what Mike and I recommended a year ago -- although the two of us do not want to see them do it as justification for a whole new irrigation system that we will have to pay for. I don't know why you are wasting your spare time "researching" why Crystal Downs should not be a 10, but suggest you find something more fun, and more productive!
