[Patrick_Mucci]

you've played ?

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

Bethpage Red
Wannamoiset
Plainfield

[Mark Pearce]

Muirfield, Hoylake, Silloth

[Scott Warren]

Pine Valley
Prairie Dunes
Morfontaine

Longer clubs into tough greens and a great punishment if you don't drive straight.

[Ryan Coles]

All the B's:

Burnham & Berrow
Birkdale
Berkshire Blue

[Tom_Doak]

Crystal Downs  [some might dispute whether the green is "eminently fair"]
Pine Valley
Muirfield

[Garland Bayley]

I thought fair was the F word.

[Kevin Lynch]

Good topic. I didn't appreciate how pervasive the "gentle handshake" was until I started going through a number of designs in my head.

Oakmont - plenty of length and challenge to judge the run out of the hill on 2nd shot

Ballyhack - not very long, but a mental challenge to get over the intimidation of the gorge (easier than it looks).  The huge false front catches many who underestimate the uphill approach

Arrowhead (Clarence, NY) - Scott Witter Design.  A short to mid Par 5, which would normally be gentle.  This has 2nd shot to visualize (whether laying up or going for it).  Also, very hard to resist temptation of getting home in 2, despite very narrow target & danger.

[Jerry Kluger]

Sand Hills
Galloway National
Ballyneal

[Jonathan Mallard]

Streamsong Red
Belmont (before the flood removed the green)
Royal Aberdeen

[Terry Lavin]

My O My team:

Oakmont: a cupcake nestled amid maneaters.
Olympia Fields South:  split the bunkers and place your second shot appropriately and you'll be fairly treated. Then brace yourself for the pain.
Old Macdonald:  a piece of cake followed by random bliss and bollocks.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I recall Bob O Link near Chicago starts out with the No. 1 handicap hole.  Nothing too hard overall, not going to get the big score, but may not make par.

[BCrosby]

I thought fair was the F word.

Good point. We've been through this before. There is a problem with calling inanimate things 'fair'. You wouldn't call a bicycle 'fair'. Or a bench or an apple. These are category confusions that get people flunked out of Phil. 101.

The only time a hole can be 'unfair' is when human agents set it up to be played differently by different competitors in the same competition.

No hole is 'unfair' if everyone plays the same hole.

It is almost always better to describe a hole is 'too hard' or 'too easy' or 'dull' and so forth. That is information about the design quality of the hole. It is possible to learn something from such comments. Saying a hole is 'fair' conveys no such information.

Bob

[Tom_Doak]

It is almost always better to describe a hole is 'too hard' or 'too easy' or 'dull' and so forth. That is information about the design quality of the hole. It is possible to learn something from such comments. Saying a hole is 'fair' conveys no such information.

Saying a hole is "fair" conveys information about the observer, not the hole.

"Too hard" or "too easy" or "dull" are pretty much the same, though.

[Sean_A]

Hoylake (real routing)
Birkdale
Prestwick

Ciao

[BCrosby]

"Saying a hole is "fair" conveys information about the observer, not the hole."

Yes, it tells us - awkwardly - that he thinks the hole is not too hard.

""Too hard" or "too easy" or "dull" are pretty much the same, though."

Not sure I follow. A hole golfers think is too hard is not usually a hole golfers also think is too easy.

Bob  

[Bill Shotzbarger]

re: Pine Valley


I couldn't disagree more. Does having a wide fairway automatically make a hole "fair?"  You can't miss it right; you definitely can't miss it left.  Up at the green, you can't miss long, left, or right.

I don't think the hole is fair, let alone "eminently fair."  I love PV — but I wouldn't use the word "fair" to describe it.

[jeffwarne]

The Island (only opening par 4 in competition I ever planned in advance to play 5 wood, 9 iron, wedge)
Bethpage Red
NGLA-the challenge is the multiple options so early in a round- topped off by a nasty green

[Mac Plumart]

Dismal Doak
Sand Hills
Royal County Down

[Patrick_Mucci]

I thought fair was the F word.

Garland,

By "fair" I meant not gimmickie

[BCowan]

Orchard Lake
OSU- Scarlet
Scioto

[Mark Johnson]

Princeville
Olympia Field  (South I think, i get the courses confused)
Kinloch


Honorable: mention:   Oakmont,  Butler, Old Mac, Medinah #1, Bethpage Red


Princeville by far is my favorite first hole.   Look the view and it requires two very solidly struck shots and to be able to navigate the crosswinds.   If you stay below the hole, there are a bunch of birdies out there

[Bill Brightly]

Pat,

I've said before that your home course, Mountain Ridge, has the best opening hole in New Jersey. Beautiful to look at with an elevated tee and a great view of the ridge in the distance, classic Ross fairway bunkering, and attractive fescue far left. A very challenging par but also quite fair. Allows you to be aggressive off the tee and think about attacking tough pin positions to make birdie, or play it safe off the tee and aim for the middle of a very interesting green with your second shot. An ideal opener in my mind.

I also was lucky enough to pay Friars Head today. Wow, that is a great opener! Extremely wide fairway, perhaps 60 yards IF you choose to lay back and accept a 150 yard second shot up a very steep hill to the green. But if you choose to hit driver to get closer, the right bunker cuts the fairway size in half (and you CANNOT miss the fairway left.) The green is huge, but you need to be on the proper section to ensure a two putt. Perhaps the best Coore and Crenshaw opener I have ever played. The look from the tee is SO enticing. The clubhouse is at your back, you see a huge fairway with a gorgeous "scrape" of a bunker on the right, and a beautiful green complex set at the top of the hill. You get the feeling that you are about to embark on a magical journey. (And you are.) My playing partners thought I was a little weird when, after an excellent 3-rescue opening shot,  I said that I felt like skipping down the fairway. (I restrained myself!)

[Tom_Doak]

"Saying a hole is "fair" conveys information about the observer, not the hole."

Yes, it tells us - awkwardly - that he thinks the hole is not too hard.

""Too hard" or "too easy" or "dull" are pretty much the same, though."

Not sure I follow. A hole golfers think is too hard is not usually a hole golfers also think is too easy.

I meant that all of them are as much about the observer than about the hole.  One guy's "too hard" is another's unfair; one "too easy" is another's dull.  Sometimes they even cross over; Mark Johnson says the 1st at The Prince Course is his favorite opener, while I would place it as one of my least favorite.

[Jim Nugent]

"Saying a hole is "fair" conveys information about the observer, not the hole."

Yes, it tells us - awkwardly - that he thinks the hole is not too hard.

For real good golfers it can mean "not random."  i.e. it rewards good shots and penalizes bad ones.  I used to read some pro's complain about British Open courses that they could drive it down the middle, only to see their ball take a crazy bounce into the rough.  To them the course was not 'fair.' 

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