The St Andrews (Castle) course is not everybody's cup of tea but...

[Matthew Essig]

Having played the course, I am on the fence. For about 90% of the description of a Doak 0, this course fits it word for word.

0-A course so contrived and unnatural that it may poison your mind, which I cannot recommend under any circumstances. Reserved for courses that wasted ridiculous sums of money in their construction, and probably shouldn’t have been built in the first place.

This is the little part in the middle that I don't agree with. There are 2 circumstances I can recommend playing it:

1. Seeing the Doak 0 side of things: To see what not to do. (not a good reason to play but it is good to learn from mistakes)

2. Seeing the Doak 5 side of things: It was kind of fun to play at times... Ridiculous, challenging, contrived, poison your mind, can all be said about the Castle course, too, but I had some fun playing it. Here is my reasoning: I wasn't keeping track of my score. I was just there to check it out. As the round progressed, my father and I kind of played each other. This is when I had my realization; if you play match play, it isn't THAT bad. Also, there are parts on the greens that are receptive to shots. I made a couple of birdies, and could have made a couple more. That being said, I picked up on a couple holes due to the design, too.

So, my recommendation is to try playing match play against someone you know and check out the course. See what went wrong/could have been better. Make a couple birdies, lose a couple balls, and have a friendly match. If you have the urge to erase everything you see and never play it again after your round, I won't judge you; however, if you do kind of like it and want to try it again sometime, I understand that, too.

I respect the Doak 5 and the Doak 0 ratings.

[Sean_A]

I was shocked when I first read the blurb on the Castle.  Yes, the course goes overboard and so far as I know, practically every year more work has been done to tone it down.  Still, there are some cool aspects to the course and at least we can say it isn't boring.  A 0 rating is very, very harsh, but its Doak's book.  We all don't have to agree with everything Doak writes and in this case I definitely disagree, but so what?  Its not as if there is a great love for this course and Doak just dumped on our parade. 

Ciao

[Scott Warren]

No one has combination of "seen more" & "built classics" better than Tom Doak. If he says it's a 0, there's no one in the world I would trust more than him. He may be the BOAT in his field.

But.

The bloke is extremely clever, savvy and on the pulse with regards to the golf industry and the publishing/PR industry.

He is not surprised that GOLF.com picked this up and wrote this story. He knew this would be a leading storyline from Vol 1 of his new multi-volume series and he is loving the attention this is driving towards his books.

I hope you sell a shit ton of books, Tom. But don't treat us like idiots.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I liked The Castle Course.

As I've said on here before, I'm glad something bold was built over something bland.

But perhaps it didn't need to be built at all... or maybe not on that site... or maybe with a little variety in the shaping (i.e. toned down) near the edges so it could bleed in to the landscape better..

Tom gave Tralee and Ballybunion Cashen zeroes first time round (although he rated them a rather confusing 0-5)... The zero is definitely aimed at missed opportunities / wrong decisions rather than just poor courses.

[Kevin_D]

Oddly, if it got a 3, I would probably never even think about playing it. Now, if/when I go to St Andrews, I feel like I have to play it once, just to see if it really is that bad.

[Paul_Turner]

I think Tom's point is that he gave it a 0-5.  Not a 0.  Same as Ballybunion New and Tralee.  Courses that are severe and go over the top in places.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Rich - From the R & A point of view The Castle Course has been very successful. It is pretty busy and has taken a lot of traffic from Kingsbarns. The price is inside KB. Most people seem to like it and we have several members here that rave about it, most do mention the greens being too severe.

I always rate individual holes on a 1-10 basis and rarely would I give a 9 or 10. The 17th on the Castle I would give a 10.

I think most golf architects will always think they can improve on another's work. IMO the greens are miles too severe. The course is primarely aerial, had I been given the job I would have had more running approaches. The blending and general landscaping I would say is pretty good.

[Thomas Dai]

Time to cross-reference to numerous photos of the Castle Course, a few years old though they may be. Namely -

Kyle's photo-tour from 2009 - http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,40204.0/

and

Franks GAP site - http://www.golfarchitecturepictures.com/Web%20Galleries/Scotland/St.Andrews%20Castle/index.html

plus,

here's what it costs an adult to play (per the StA website - standard 18-hole price)

Mar 1-31 - £60
Apr 1-13 - £84
Apr 14-Oct 19 - £120
Oct 20-31 - £84
Nov 1-3 - £60

The course is closed from early Nov to 1st March.

atb

[Adam Lawrence]

Rich - From the R & A point of view The Castle Course has been very successful.

Just a quick, pedantic correction - the Castle is nothing to do with the R&A per se, it was the Links Trust that built it.

[Mark Chaplin]

Adrian do you mean success for the Links Trust?

I loved 17 especially as i hit a 6 iron straight at a far right pin and ended up 10 feet away. There was also a lovely par 4 on the front nine possibly the 7th with a semi blind drive and green hard to the cliff with green views.

The service and staff were fantastic as with all the Links Trust staff, bar TOC rangers who are positively rude to R&A groups.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian do you mean success for the Links Trust?

I loved 17 especially as i hit a 6 iron straight at a far right pin and ended up 10 feet away. There was also a lovely par 4 on the front nine possibly the 7th with a semi blind drive and green hard to the cliff with green views.

The service and staff were fantastic as with all the Links Trust staff, bar TOC rangers who are positively rude to R&A groups.

Yes sorry meant Links Trust.

[Tim Pitner]

As I understand it, the "0" rating in the Doak scale is a special category--rating the Castle Course a 0 isn't quite the same as calling it the worst course in Scotland. 

[Tom_Doak]

A response in four points.

1.  My honest opinion.  The book promises my honest opinions of every golf course I've seen, and that's what I wrote about the Castle Course, whether you agree or not.  Has anyone doubted this?  Partly, this discussion is about whether I should still express my opinion even when it's controversial, or swallow it for political reasons.  Anyone who speculates about my ulterior motives is essentially calling me dishonest; but in fact, they are saying I should have been dishonest in reporting my opinion.

2.  The zero rating.  It would have been much easier to just eliminate the "0" rating from the Doak Scale and avoid this controversy, except I had already set a precedent 20 years ago, and many people would have accused me of copping out by eliminating it.  And that's exactly what it would have been, a cop-out.
     The "zero" is not one point below a "1".  It's reserved for a small group of courses which I feel are completely beyond the pale, that cost a lot of money to build and to play.  When I'm considering giving a course a 0, it's usually either a 0 or a 5 … because if I didn't find the course in question offensive, it's probably big and well-conditioned and all of that.
     The problem with the 0's is that they are all going to be modern courses.  If James Braid had built one, it would probably be long gone by now, and for sure he wouldn't have wasted a king's ransom to build it.  So anytime I use this grade, it's going to be for a course designed by a contemporary of mine, which is easy to turn into a controversy.
     If I'd given the Castle Course a 5, I would have been rating it even with Crail and Dunbar and Gullane #2 and the Eden Course at St. Andrews, among many others.  I think you should play all of those before you consider spending $200 to play the Castle Course.

3.  The Castle Course itself.  Those who express shock that anyone would dislike the course are being a bit disingenuous; it's hardly a beloved institution in St. Andrews.  I have walked it twice -- once during construction and once on a tour with a bunch of other architects -- so my review is not just a knee-jerk reaction.  Since the course opened, they've modified several greens and taken a bunch of lumpy mounds out of the middle of the fairways, that were part of the original design I saw.

4.  The magazine business.  I rated 288 courses, and the first magazine article about the book focuses on the LOWEST-rated course out of 288.  Why is that?  It's because I've given the magazine a free option -- they can finally publish a negative review of a golf course that will attract a lot of attention, and I take all the heat for it.  That's the way they operate, and I know that better than anyone; but I still didn't expect it to be the first thing out of the gate, before anyone had read any of the other reviews for balance.  If you think I'm deliberately using that to promote my book, I'll refer you back to #1.

Or, as a friend in a 12-step program is fond of saying, "Your opinion of me is none of my god-damned business."

[Mark Bourgeois]

A response in four points.

1.  My honest opinion.  The book promises my honest opinions of every golf course I've seen, and that's what I wrote about the Castle Course, whether you agree or not.  Has anyone doubted this?  Partly, this discussion is about whether I should still express my opinion even when it's controversial, or swallow it for political reasons.  Anyone who speculates about my ulterior motives is essentially calling me dishonest; but in fact, they are saying I should have been dishonest in reporting my opinion.

Thank you.


In other news, it appears I have gotten the music right but not the words:

Ever since Peter Pallotta endorsed the Meta Thread Movement by starting his own navel gazer, I've been wracking my brain for a thumbsucker, for my Napoleon to his Beef Wellington (Woody Allen joke).

I predict GCA.com will implode when the new version of TCG comes out. The devastation destination will be the same - a boatload of commentary on the numbers that completely ignores the writing (or pays it just enough lip service to wrap the commentary in ersatz 'thoughtfulness' - but posters will use three routes to immolation:

1) "All four guys gave [insert course] a 5. Are these people idiots?? I have played [insert course] way more than them. It's a 6, minimum."

2) "Nice to see W gave this course a 7, not sure what X, Y and Z were thinking to give it 6s. Pretty much confirms my belief this course is underrated." (Note: we already saw a variant of this when Doak posted ONE review.)

3) If Dismley Cinqueports scores less than 8 the GCA.com spaceship will cross the event horizon.

Plenty of time for the prophecy to come true, though. It's only the first review out there. We're barely to the Prologue section in the GCA Book of Revelation!

[Carl Nichols]

Having played the course, I am on the fence. For about 90% of the description of a Doak 0, this course fits it word for word.

0-A course so contrived and unnatural that it may poison your mind, which I cannot recommend under any circumstances. Reserved for courses that wasted ridiculous sums of money in their construction, and probably shouldn’t have been built in the first place.

This is the little part in the middle that I don't agree with. There are 2 circumstances I can recommend playing it:

1. Seeing the Doak 0 side of things: To see what not to do. (not a good reason to play but it is good to learn from mistakes)

2. Seeing the Doak 5 side of things: It was kind of fun to play at times... Ridiculous, challenging, contrived, poison your mind, can all be said about the Castle course, too, but I had some fun playing it. Here is my reasoning: I wasn't keeping track of my score. I was just there to check it out. As the round progressed, my father and I kind of played each other. This is when I had my realization; if you play match play, it isn't THAT bad. Also, there are parts on the greens that are receptive to shots. I made a couple of birdies, and could have made a couple more. That being said, I picked up on a couple holes due to the design, too.

So, my recommendation is to try playing match play against someone you know and check out the course. See what went wrong/could have been better. Make a couple birdies, lose a couple balls, and have a friendly match. If you have the urge to erase everything you see and never play it again after your round, I won't judge you; however, if you do kind of like it and want to try it again sometime, I understand that, too.

I respect the Doak 5 and the Doak 0 ratings.

I don't think your first point works, since you seem to be saying that, even though a course may be the biggest monstrosity ever, it couldn't warrant a "0" because it should be seen and studied to see how to avoid monstrosities. Such an approach would yield no "0" ratings -- or it would be limited to only those monstrosities the study of which would yield no insight (which seems like a null set, but perhaps I'm not thinking of the right possibility).

[Sean_A]

Tom

Its very easy to argue a ton of new courses were ridiculously (very subjective) expensive to build and shouldn't have been built in the first place.  The entire cart course concept could be thrown into this category.  Desert courses are another prime example (the epitome of contrived and unnatural).  Dare I say Trump Aberdeen and Old Head are two other examples.  The list can go on and on.  Maybe we will see a huge list of 0s when the N American books come out. 

Out of curiosity, did any of the other panelists give a course a 0?

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

Out of curiosity, did any of the other panelists give a course a 0?

Not for Volume 1, anyway.  (The numbers for future volumes are not yet cast in stone.)  I think it's fair to say they are sheepish about using the "0" because of the controversy it generates ... although none of them have said they thought it shouldn't be a rating on the scale.

I would never go so far as to think that every course in a certain category should get a 0 rating ... I may not like courses that require a cart, and it may hurt their rating in my book, but there are no automatic disqualifications.

[Thomas Dai]

Let's remind ourselves of the full definition of a '0-zero' within the Doak Scale -

"0-A course so contrived and unnatural that it may poison your mind, which I cannot recommend under any circumstances. Reserved for courses that wasted ridiculous sums of money in their construction, and probably shouldn’t have been built in the first place."

Let's break these paragraphs down a little -

* A course so contrived and unnatural that it may poison your mind, which I cannot recommend under any circumstances.
* Reserved for courses that wasted ridiculous sums of money in their construction, and probably shouldn’t have been built in the first place.

Does the Castle course fall within both of these? Just asking.

atb

[Jud_T]

Forget about the Castle and hurting DMK's feelings, I'm just glad to hear Tom hasn't lost any of the chutzpah that made the original such a great read.  This is but the opening salvo in what will likely be hundreds of threads debating the merits of the various reviews.  Those who've never read the original should refrain from comment until they get the whole 0-5 concept.  Frankly he could have bagged the number, all he had to do was put it in the same sentence with Ballybunion New and I'd have given it the widest of berths...

[Sean_A]

Tom

Thanks.  

Not that you would have thought the 0 rating for Castle was the first lede in the what is sure to be a long public saga of your new editions, but at the very least, once you saw a bunch of guys in the RC house looking sideways, or smirking, or looking shocked or laughing out loud, you must have known the 0 rating would be very controversial...yes?

atb

Without a doubt (except for the poison bit  ), the Castle can fit that description....but so can many, many other courses. 

Ciao

[Ulrich Mayring]

So, what about the 1s? The 1 seems far more scathing than a 0

Ulrich

[Chris DeToro]

I actually agree with the premise of the 0 that someone else noted.  Ironically, it makes me want to play the course more just to see what's so bad about it.  If it had received a 1-4, I wouldn't even bother and strike it from my list to play.  But a 0.  I want to see that

[Brian Phillips]

Tom,

Seeing as your 0 is not really a zero could you not change it to an F for failure or failed instead?

0 gives the totally wrong impression than what you have explained.

Brian

[Adrian_Stiff]

Tom,

Seeing as your 0 is not really a zero could you not change it to an F for failure or failed instead?

0 gives the totally wrong impression than what you have explained.

Brian

I tend to agree with Brian on that too. Now that you have explained the '0' it is more understandable, other book buyers may not understand.

[Paul Gray]

My understanding of the Doak scale--at least at the lower end--is to identify some golf courses that are blatantly contrived and shouldn't have been built. If anyone can give a solid reason why St. Andrews needed another course that is geographically separate from its others and sited on a junky piece of land, you're smarter than me. Tom's review read more like he felt sorry for Kidd than anything else.

As for all the hubbub surrounding this first book, a little controversy was bound to occur. It should take the edge off the impending meltdowns that some in the business will have following the second and third installments. It's all very delicious for those of us that love golf courses.

Surely all golf courses are, by definition, contrived.

Not sure that Southampton 'needed' another course, either.

There is almost a rite of passage about someone young giving the establishment a bit of a kicking, as the original guide does in places. The confidential premise of the original was to many endearing in its honesty.

When you are the establishment and you've clearly already won the argument but continue to kick, IMO, it is gratuitous.

Ryan,

I do see your point but for me it would be wrong to go all 'establishment' simply because you have become the establishment. Far better to have the balls to say what you think.