Reflections after a Round at The Old Course

[jeffwarne]

Maybe I'm taking your comment too literally, Jeff, but when you take away the links turf and wind (only available to a fraction of golf courses in the world) and you take away the shared fairways for "safety" reasons and you eliminate the deepest and/or most penal of the bunkers because the punters would whine about them anywhere except on a links course...

What would you have left? Minimal use of water hazards and ginormous, flattish greens?

I would think most of what's needed to create a course "like the Old Course" is not available to the typical architect or developer...

Obviously developers and architects agree with you Brent

I meant more the width and shared fairways and actual alternate routes and for God's sake more cut grass
Deep bunkers are fine-just have less of them and make em count-punters whine anyway-at least in a penal bunker you find your ball-and quickly.
If we always cater to the lowest common denominator customer, eventually that's all we have-better to lose a few and keep the good ones rather than vice versa. We need to spend more time educating the punters, not catering to them at the expense of lovers of the game and good customers.
Turf and soil native to a particular region is fine-doesn't have to be links turf to employ a bit of preferred strategy, instead of banging you over the head with don't go there game slowing gunch, OB, and water

[Jim Nugent]

Also, you should keep in mind that the hole locations for big events are nowhere near the ones you saw on a casual round in June.  The course is probably five shots harder with the hole locations used for the Autumn Medal.

Tom, does that mean if a scratch golfer plays for the safe part of the greens, he will likely take 5 more putts with the tough pins?  

Or in trying to position his tee shots and approaches better, to get better angles, will he run into lots more trouble off the green?

  

[Anthony Fowler]

Thanks for all of the responses. This is fun.

I want to clarify one point. I don't think that a course playing easy relative to par is a knock on the course. In fact, par is completely meaningless to me. However, I enjoy courses that make me think and challenge me. Hitting to big, flat targets and hitting lots of flat putts is just not exciting.

Given your statements about the expectations of shooting par playing off scratch, why don't we see average scores lower for the +6 boys playing it at 7300 (+/-) yards?

Good question Jonathan. My sense is that the scores at TOC are pretty low for the pros, even when they stretch the tees back as far as possible, get the greens as fast as possible, and put the pins in tougher places. Obviously, I didn't play with those pin locations, and I'm sure that would have made the difference.

What did you shoot? 

I honestly didn't keep score or think about what I shot until you guys asked. My score did not directly factor into my assessments. I did not play particularly well for me. I miss hit a lot of approach shots and missed a lot of very makeable putts, and I shot 1 or 2 over par. I'm sure that my bad shots influenced by assessment more than my good ones. I hit a lot of marginal to bad shots that resulted in easy, unexciting pars.

By the way, knock your approach into either Strath or Short Hole bunker and get back to me about how easy the course is!

Where did you drive on 16?   One of the heinous things they've done is grow the rough left of the Principal's Nose and effectively neuter any strategy.  Nicklaus said playing right of the PN is "strictly for amateurs."   Now there's no choice, unless they've cut it down.   

Bill, I'm sure you're right about those bunkers, but those are pretty bad misses unless it's really windy. My only bunker was the Road Hole Bunker, and I was fortunate to be close enough to the middle that it was a relatively straightforward recovery. On 16, the wind was blowing hard into us and left to right. I hit a 5 iron short of the bunker and then hit a 6 iron onto the green. If I had tried to hit more off the tee with that wind, it would have been very tight.

I was okay with your post until you said that in spite of all your contentious positions, you still have the course in your personal top 20.  That didn't make much sense to me, but it does suggest that after a couple of more visits, you will place it much higher, as most intelligent people tend to do.

Haha, I guess you'd prefer for me to pick a side and stick with it firmly. On one hand, there are a lot of redeeeming qualities at TOC that I didn't take the time to discuss but still factor into my overall assessment. On the other hand, maybe I'm being too generous. There is a lot to like at TOC, but there are more than 20 courses that I would choose to play again over that one. It's possible that I would change my mind after more rounds, but I value challenge and excitement on the greens so much that it's hard to imagine moving it up much more.

Re the experience, who chastised you for not taking a caddy ? I'm very surprised at that as taking a caddy is not in any way expected at any course in Scotland that I can think off other than Renaissance which is certainly not your average Scottish experience. Did you report the hassle/abuse you took from the caddies to anyone at the St Andrews Links ?

We were chastised by the person that we checked in with, the starter on the tee, and the caddies in our group. We seriously contemplated talking to someone about our experiences with the caddies, but we figured it wasn't worth our time. Instead, we walked through the town and drove over to The Castle Course for a nice dinner in a beautiful location. Interestingly, we had no issues like that at Renaissance even though you say that there is a greater norm around caddies. They asked if we wanted caddies, we said no, and that was it. They were surprised that I wanted to play from the back tees, but nobody objected.

The part that really got my dander up was the way Anthony's wife was treated.  She's an amazingly nice person and I can't imagine how or why anybody would treat her poorly.   (PS - I knew I'd like her when she showed up at French Creek wearing a Cabot Links shirt!)

Thanks Dan! I hope you're doing well. I showed this to Gloria and she really appreciated the kind words.

[Bill_McBride]

Anthony, if you play safely past the front pin on 11 it's quite possible to putt into that Strath Bunker!   .  That's when the fun begins. 

[Ryan Coles]

I honestly think a good links course should play easy. IF the wind doesn't blow. One Club wind means calm in my book.

The greens shouldn't be too sloping as they will be unplayable in a wind. The fairways shouldn't be lined with knee deep hay as the course will be miserable in the wind.

Difficulty should mostly be determined by conditions, not design on the old links courses. Lots of modern technology becomes pretty useless in the wind. High soft landing hybrids. 64 degree wedges. DMD"s - throw them all in the bin if it blows.

Pinehurst was warm and flat calm. And the best players in the world couldn't break 280 over 4 rounds. I think I prefer the weather to be the biggest factor of difficulty.

[Ryan Coles]

I don't know how long Anthony hits his irons but just based on watching Open Championships over recent years it seems a lot of the "strategy" concerns disappear for long hitters.

But unlike many USA courses of my acquaintance, at courses like the Old Course or Hoylake what matters isn't ones driver distance. And it matters hardly at all what tees one chooses. What does matter is how capable the player is of hitting 220 yard irons shots accurately. That seems to be the modern "strategy" at many Opens, hit less than driver (even 5-iron if necessary) to absolutely, positively play short of the most penal trouble and then bomb 4-irons and 3-irons over all that trouble on the approach shot.

That seems to me a fundamental limitation of the build-longer-tees approach to "modernizing" a links course. What would really be needed is to move any hazards that are 150-220 yards out from the green and place them 180-250 yards out instead. But that's just a TV viewer's perspective talking...

3 or 4 irons into firm small greens with the wind blowing is interesting and a refreshing change from the usual weekly fare of bomb and guage.  Also, the strategy you describe is what those unable to hit consistently accurate drives reduce themselves to in the Open. Again this differs from the usual tournament with bunkers that aren't hazards. Real bunkers genuinely have to be avoided. That means an accurate drive, or a longer second shot as a result of laying back. Preferable to me than watching pro's hit 5 and 6 irons out of manicured long jump pits.

[Gary Slatter]

Anthony, I enjoyed your comments, during my few years of playing the Old Course, mostly Thursday mornings at 8:30 with the St Andrews GC Thursday Club, I probably have experienced everything that you did, and more.
the Old Course is too easy.  I think that it's not difficult, it is really enjoyable under all conditions.  Playing Thursdays year round I experienced every weather condition possible, and amazingly scoring was always within a five shot spread, I started scratch, ended up 2, based only on my Thu Club rounds over 3 years.  You can't go wrong assuming most putts are straight, however short putts require a pure roll.  one of our Thu Club players is said to have the most par or better rounds on the Old in the past 30 years.  wee Raymond says the Old greens are toughest under ten feet, maybe because the average wind affects putting.  I never got bored with pin placements,  I found we got to play every possible location.
Rough was an issue, usually easier around competition dates. During the summers it was thinner due to the weather and traffic.  We never had a round longer than 4 hours.
The experience can be different than found at any other course in the world.  The Old is not a resort course.  I seldom took a caddie and often played on other days than Thursday with people who did take them.  There are some good ones, the majority have no patience, don't give good advice and are a distraction.  The Links Trust expect all players to be golfers requiring minimal service.  Unfortunately most of their players, after 10 am, tend to be bad actors.  One day I had two errant shots actually brush my trousers as they whizzed past.  I put that down as something that can happen on a course that has been in use for over 400 years.

The Old Course is a treasure, like an ancient fort being assaulted with modern weapons. Amazingly it survives.  I miss it EVERY day!

[Jeff Taylor]

"The Old Course is a treasure, like an ancient fort being assaulted with modern weapons. Amazingly it survives.  I miss it EVERY day!"

Poetic.

[Niall C]

Anthony

I'm reluctant to say this since I don't want to derail an interesting thread on design but I'm amazed about your treatment over the caddies, and by the caddies themselves. It's fairly evident that in this country that we don't do service very well however there is a big difference between poor service and giving someone a hard time. Do you mind me asking, but in what way did they chastise you ? Also, am I right in saying you are American ? It occurs to me that wouldn't have tried any nonsense with a UK golfer.

Niall 

[Anthony Fowler]

It's fairly evident that in this country that we don't do service very well however there is a big difference between poor service and giving someone a hard time. Do you mind me asking, but in what way did they chastise you ? Also, am I right in saying you are American? It occurs to me that wouldn't have tried any nonsense with a UK golfer.

Hi Niall,
I'll respond via PM because I don't want derail the discussion of the course. I am an American, and I should point out that my wife and I had a great time in Scotland, we were treated very well everywhere we went (in restaurants, museums, cabs, other golf courses, and just walking down the street), and we are eager to return! Our experience at The Old Course was surely anomalous.   

[Tony_Muldoon]

Well said Anthony if nothing else it might take peoples expectations down a notch or two which I think is a good thinkg.


There's much I can agree on.  The last time I played TOC i paid up for a caddie for my firend who was making his first round as a birthday present from his wife. The guy was a royal pain in the arse, with chips on his shoulders so big it's amazing he could fit a golf strap on at all. I've been over the ground 6 times and I'm still not sure I could draw holes 2,3,4 & 5.  And I won't mention 9 and 10 at all.   Possibly it wasn't the longest time I've ever had to wait on a golf course, but standing on the the 7th fairway waiting for an opportuity to hit while golfers passed left to right and right to left whilst "the hard done by" caddie droned on and on, sure felt like it. And yet by the end of the round all this was pretty much forgotten and I will go again, and hopefully soon.

However watching your wife being picked on must have been intolerable.

[Bob_Huntley]

Anthony,

I have been fortunate enough to play many rounds on the Old Course in Club Competitions. I have always used a caddie as it adds to the enjoyment of the round. However, no matter what, after the disgraceful behavior of the miscreants you should have gone either to the Caddie Master or the Links Trust  and complained.

In my experience it has generally been the golfer that has behaved boorishly. 

Bob 

[Bill Brightly]

I'll be visiting St. Andrews this August with 4 couples. I thought we would take two caddies on TOC per foursome, one per couple, and would expect the caddies to help the two taking a trolley, and give them a little extra. Can someone PM with an appropriate range to pay the caddies? Thanks.

[Bill_McBride]

I'll be visiting St. Andrews this August with 4 couples. I thought we would take two caddies on TOC per foursome, one per couple, and would expect the caddies to help the two taking a trolley, and give them a little extra. Can someone PM with an appropriate range to pay the caddies? Thanks.

£40-50 plus a tip. I have a great guy I pay £80. 

[Bob_Huntley]

I'll be visiting St. Andrews this August with 4 couples. I thought we would take two caddies on TOC per foursome, one per couple, and would expect the caddies to help the two taking a trolley, and give them a little extra. Can someone PM with an appropriate range to pay the caddies? Thanks.

Bill,

Do not hold your breath if you find that this is not  done at St. Andrews. It has always been one bag one master and those declining the use of a caddie take the hindmost.

A most democratic society.

Bob

[Mark Chaplin]

Never had caddies and never needed them at TOC. As Bob rightly says don't expect any help from another man or woman's caddie.

Anthony I for one prefer pencil thin fairways, surrounded by lush 4" rough, rock hard greens surrounded by the same and if the holes are positioned up and down and all around 470 yards it's perfect......

BTW "greens fast as possible" will be 10.5 on the stimp for the 2015 Open.

[cary lichtenstein]

Maybe you should be playing St. Andrews with old clubs and balls that went nowhere and then tell us about your experience. The course was built 600 years ago before they invented anything other than the wheel.

[Thomas Dai]

Maybe you should be playing St. Andrews with old clubs and balls that went nowhere and then tell us about your experience. The course was built 600 years ago before they invented anything other than the wheel.

Pretty much the point I was attempting to make in post 20 above, namely : anyone herein played TOC sometime in the last few years not with modern equipment, but with hickories (or wooden heads/balata)?

Time to ignite the blue touch paper and retire to a safe distance -

TOC played with modern titanium/graphite clubs and ProV1's or equivalents = outdated relic?
TOC played with wooden headed woods and blades and balata = still valid?
TOC played with hickories and other yee olde period stuff = very valid?

Note the use of '?' above.

atb

[Anthony Fowler]

Anthony I for one prefer pencil thin fairways, surrounded by lush 4" rough, rock hard greens surrounded by the same and if the holes are positioned up and down and all around 470 yards it's perfect......

Haha, come on Mark, that's obviously not what I'm advocating for. My critique is not that TOC plays easy relative to par. It's that many of the shots and holes are unexciting, require little thinking, and are devoid of strategy. The hypothetical course that you describe is similarly boring and devoid of strategy but for different reasons.

Maybe you should be playing St. Andrews with old clubs and balls that went nowhere and then tell us about your experience. The course was built 600 years ago before they invented anything other than the wheel.

Pretty much the point I was attempting to make in post 20 above, namely : anyone herein played TOC sometime in the last few years not with modern equipment, but with hickories (or wooden heads/balata)?

I see the appeal of the arguments about equipment. Obviously, any course plays differently with old equipment. It's harder to hit the ball straight and into the wind with persimmon and balata (and I'm sure even harder with older equipment). However, length is not much of a factor at TOC. Maybe instead of hitting 2 iron + sand wedge on a lot of holes, maybe you'd hit 3 wood + pitching wedge with 1990 technology. That wouldn't make the course much more interesting. Moreover, my biggest concern is probably the flat putting surfaces which are still flat regardless of the technology and would have been even less interesting with the slower green speeds and spinnier golf balls of previous eras.

[billb]

Anthony:

You say "I … missed a lot of very makeable putts" and "I value challenge and excitement on the greens".

Most TOC threads talk about the difficulty of putting from 10 feet and in.

Maybe those putts you missed weren't as makeable as they looked?

[David Davis]

Anthony,

I kind of laughed as I was reading your comments expecting you to get reamed a bit. My first and only play of TOC was really before I started to fall in love with GCA and that first trip was the first trip golfing abroad for me. I had a similar experience, though you are a far better golfer than me. I played the worst at TOC of all the courses I played, was a little insulted at times with the way in my view people were treated, also had quite the turn-off from the caddies I seen and though the course was flat and dull. Probably had about the same wind as you too, which to be fair is next to none, if you are mentioning a 1-2 club wind. I'd say that's relatively benign for St. Andrews and for links courses in general. It was by far the worst course and experience on my trip, although to be fair we played: Carnoustie, North Berwick, Gullane 1, Muirfield and Kingsbarns none of which are less that excellent in my opinion.

I've not yet been back and I guess that was 8 years ago. I'm dying to go and experience what I missed. In fact love to see them all again as I'm a lot better player now and have developed a love of GCA.

I'm not sure if you've travelled abroad a lot but as an American living overseas for 20 years it's not uncommon to see people having experience where they are taken aback from how people react to them or things that people say etc. Caddies, especially Scottish caddies can be full of dry sarcasm and snotty remarks. Some even consider it one of the charms of the experience, listing to some sarcastic bastard rant and rave and tell of their glory days or all the other American guests they've had. It's really all to be taken with a grain of salt.

In some places in Europe you learn to have "thick skin" as the niceties are left out, people can be far more direct and even rude. What you experienced at St. Andrews might be an everyday normal expectation here in The Netherlands. I'm glad you enjoyed the rest of your trip.

I guess the fact that Dan vouched for you indicates you are quite a nice fellow. I would be curious to know what the situation around your wife was as that just sounds wrong. PM me if you care to share that as I help people quite a lot with golf trips and have not heard of something like that.

[Anthony Fowler]

You say "I … missed a lot of very makeable putts" and "I value challenge and excitement on the greens".

Most TOC threads talk about the difficulty of putting from 10 feet and in.

Maybe those putts you missed weren't as makeable as they looked?

Haha, yes. I expected this response. I guess I can't say for sure that the putts were boring. I had a lot of almost-flat putts that misread. Maybe I played it just outside the cup and it didn't break. Maybe I played it just inside the cup and it broke a little more than I expected. However, I don't think that's anyone's idea of exciting or interesting greens. I think I've played enough to say whether a missed putt came because I mishit it, because I misread it slightly, or because it was just a challenging putt that required the perfect combination of line and pace. There were none of the latter at TOC. If pressed, I'll go ahead and blame the missed putts on the distracting environment  .

I kind of laughed as I was reading your comments expecting you to get reamed a bit. My first and only play of TOC was really before I started to fall in love with GCA and that first trip was the first trip golfing abroad for me. I had a similar experience, though you are a far better golfer than me. I played the worst at TOC of all the courses I played, was a little insulted at times with the way in my view people were treated, also had quite the turn-off from the caddies I seen and though the course was flat and dull. Probably had about the same wind as you too, which to be fair is next to none, if you are mentioning a 1-2 club wind. I'd say that's relatively benign for St. Andrews and for links courses in general. It was by far the worst course and experience on my trip, although to be fair we played: Carnoustie, North Berwick, Gullane 1, Muirfield and Kingsbarns none of which are less that excellent in my opinion.

I also expected to get reamed, and I'm pleasantly surprised to hear that you and other GCAers had similar reactions. The point about wind is well taken, but I think a lot of people are leaning too heavily on that. If I had to guess, I'd say that the wind I experienced was not atypically calm. I'd bet that North Berwick, Lost Farm, and Kittansett (just to provide a few examples) are just as windy if not more so than TOC, and that was incorporated into the design of those courses. Yet, they're all interesting and exciting to play even on a calm day. You can't say that a course is one of the very best in the world but it's only fun to play when it's really windy, when the pins are placed in atypical locations, when you've played the course 100 times, etc.

I'm not sure if you've travelled abroad a lot but as an American living overseas for 20 years it's not uncommon to see people having experience where they are taken aback from how people react to them or things that people say etc. Caddies, especially Scottish caddies can be full of dry sarcasm and snotty remarks. Some even consider it one of the charms of the experience, listing to some sarcastic bastard rant and rave and tell of their glory days or all the other American guests they've had. It's really all to be taken with a grain of salt.

In some places in Europe you learn to have "thick skin" as the niceties are left out, people can be far more direct and even rude. What you experienced at St. Andrews might be an everyday normal expectation here in The Netherlands. I'm glad you enjoyed the rest of your trip.

I don't to fixate too much on the rudeness of the playing partners and caddies as I'm sure that was an atypical experience. I've spent a lot of time in Australia and the UK and I've never had an experience like that, so I don't think it was just thin skin. Blatantly sexist comments and blatantly rude behavior can't be chalked up to a different culture. Nontheless, my taste in snotty caddies surely differs from the tastes of others. For some, I'm sure that's part of the fun, but I wanted to focus on the golf.

 

[billb]

Andrew,
"I don't think that's anyone's idea of exciting or interesting greens."
I agree, but the word you used was "challenging".
Like you, I only played TOC one time. I was a long way from scratch (an 8 at the time), I had played every day for two weeks and had a good feel with the putter.
I also had a lot of almost flat putts that I hit well and then took an entirely different direction than expected.

[Sean_A]

I too was deceived more than once with what looked to be quite straight and makeable putts. 

I finding it difficult to figure out how anyone could say the greens aren't special.  I take your main point though, TOC is undoubtably much easier than most championship links and comfortably the easiest in the Open rota.  I had 44 points off 9 my last time there and that was with a 1.5ish club wind.  I did, however, note the many awful places holes could be located, even though we had our share of great locations.  That said, the shots faced and pulled off by the pros are among the most interesting I see at Open venues.  If we drop the championship label, I think TOC has just about a perfect balance of challenge, funk and birdie holes for the average joe.  Besides, I don't take much notice of "too easy" until guys are breaking par on a regular basis.  Why should it be the case that some great courses can't more easily be had than others?

Ciao 

[Ally Mcintosh]

I'm heading out for a walk on TOC this Sunday morning. First time there since 2010 so looking forward to seeing the changes and reminding myself of a few features that are hazy....