Oh Kyle, don’t be so sensitive. I didn’t insult you. I just pointed out the irony in your previous post. There’s a whole population of people who believe the joke is to blame if they don’t get it. Consider my previous post a useful insight to how the rest of us view that line of thinking.
Let’s talk about Rustic Canyon though. I always hear how great it is, and I enjoyed playing it. I do think it’s dramatically overrated though, and your statement that it’s “greatest affordable, public course built in the US in a long, long time” only further contributes to that. You’re not alone in considering it so highly, of course. But a statement like that is REALLY lofty. In fact, it sounds a bit like the text message I mentioned sending in the original post, when I effectively suggested that Paul George might be better than Lebron.
Rustic Canyon is a nice course in a setting that was never going to produce a poor one. But it’s overrated, and here’s why:
1. I frequently see Hanse lauded for “use of the canyon” and the way the course’s surroundings affect a player’s ability to judge the break on greens, or even whether a shot is uphill or downhill. But I don’t believe for an instant that Hanse deserves credit for the intrinsic qualities of the course surroundings. With that land parcel, the holes were always going to be routed up and down the canyon regardless of who did the design. As a result, the perception skewing is an intrinsic quality of the site and not a quality of the design itself. It’s still cool, but Hanse’s role in fostering the effect of the canyon has been greatly overstated.
2. The course is extremely penal with the proximity of native areas to many holes. If those native areas were replaced with water, the playing characteristics of the course would not change for those who respect the environment but the perception on this site would be dramatically different. If you believe lost balls are a bad thing, then how do you give Rustic Canyon a pass for the extreme number that it is likely to extract from an honest 15 handicapper?
We’re all very binary these days. Everyone seems to believe Reese Bobby’s motto “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” I’m guilty of it myself, as I admitted in the original post. But Reese Bobby was high when he said that. Hanse and Rustic Canyon are both closer to first than last, but to put them #1 is to ignore courses like Wild Horse and The Harvester. Hanse is part of a long list of architects who do nice renovation work and have designed some really nice courses. He absolutely belongs in the discussion with DeVries, Prichard, Forse, and Brands, and he's probably at the top of that list. Maybe he’ll hit a home run if his design at The Prairie Club is completed. If he’s able to crank out the best course at that resort and do something outstanding with the Olympic course, he’ll vault well up the list in my mind. But let’s at least ask him to pull it off before we give him the credit for it.