CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE THOUGHTS

[Tom_Doak]

When we get the next two volumes it will be interesting to see how many 10s Tom gives to US courses, along with the other three panelists.

I know PH #2 pretty well and really like it...but really didn't imagine Sunningdale could be two notches below it.

Matt:

I do not expect my 10's to change between now and publication.  There are nine of them in the U.S. -- National, Shinnecock, Merion, Pine Valley, Pinehurst #2, Crystal Downs, Cypress Point, Sand Hills, and Pacific Dunes.

In general, what holds the heathland courses back for me is that they all feel so similar [originality is so important to me] and that they don't have great greens contouring or exceptional short-game interest.  All of the above courses do.  Should those factors be worth two points instead of one?  I don't know.  I think it could be a fair criticism that I'm too stingy with my 9's ... but if I elevated Sunningdale and St. George's Hill to that level, there would be about 30 other courses around the world I'd have to elevate, too.

Bottom line, an 8 is a very good score on the Doak scale ... better than it sounds.  If only I'd thought to rate courses from 2 to 12 when I started, perhaps everyone would be happier.

[Sean_A]

Tom

If only I'd thought to rate courses from 2 to 12 when I started, perhaps everyone would be happier. 

As best I can using your scale, the only inland course I come up with which merits a 9 is Sunny Old.  Do you think that possibly Sunny Old deserves a bump to 9 because of its turf making up for a slight lack of green interest? 

I was also wondering if the some of the big guns with the contours you like should not be knocked down a peg deducted for reduced playability due to green speeds?  I know when I played Merion I wondered how in the hell would I get on if the course were firm...it had rained 2 inches the previous day and the greens were still on the edge of reasonable imo.   

Ciao

[Stewart Abramson]

 If only I'd thought to rate courses from 2 to 12 when I started, perhaps everyone would be happier.

   That's even 1 "better" than Spinal Tap  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOO5S4vxi0o  ("These go to 11")

[Thomas Dai]

 If only I'd thought to rate courses from 2 to 12 when I started, perhaps everyone would be happier.

Spinal Tap
atb

[Mark Bourgeois]

In general, what holds the heathland courses back for me is that they all feel so similar [originality is so important to me] and that they don't have great greens contouring or exceptional short-game interest.  All of the above courses do.  

At the end of the day, the Stockbroker Belt course I have the most affection for is Woking. Its greens' internal contours are a stunning contrast to just about everything else in the London area. (Actually, to everything else in the area?)

One thing I have wondered about: I played all the other London area courses, repeatedly and furthermore over a period of years, before coming to Woking. I suspect the revelatory aspect of the course might not have been as strong without the normative experience formed by those other courses. I recall very strongly my first Woking impressions being a kind of reaction against the expectations created by that experience. Part of that was / is down to my knowing Woking as one of the earlier London courses and my assumption that greens must have "progressed" out of the Victorian Age from being less interesting to more interesting and exciting.

Woking therefore felt out of time to me. Its origin date (allowing for Low and Paton's efforts) seemed too early by far. I remember one of my first impressions of the course was that it was sort of Modernist; in comparison the others seemed Victorian. That's not correct in a strictly golf architecture schools sense, I know, but Woking feels different, more modern, more complex, more advanced.

I'm sure there are a number of other normative experiences I've had that contribute to feeling. Experiencing Mackenzie's or Ross's greens for example and thinking of them as the next link in the evolutionary chain.

[Sean_A]

At the end of the day, the Stockbroker Belt course I have the most affection for is Woking.

Mark

+1 and I do think Woking feels more modern than the other courses.

That said, in perhaps a joint tie for favourite Stockbroker Beltish course, I admire Huntercombe because of the greens, but it feels distinctly Victorian compared the other courses. 

Ciao   

[Tom_Doak]

At the end of the day, the Stockbroker Belt course I have the most affection for is Woking. Its greens' internal contours are a stunning contrast to just about everything else in the London area. (Actually, to everything else in the area?)

One thing I have wondered about: I played all the other London area courses, repeatedly and furthermore over a period of years, before coming to Woking. I suspect the revelatory aspect of the course might not have been as strong without the normative experience formed by those other courses. I recall very strongly my first Woking impressions being a kind of reaction against the expectations created by that experience. Part of that was / is down to my knowing Woking as one of the earlier London courses and my assumption that greens must have "progressed" out of the Victorian Age from being less interesting to more interesting and exciting.

Woking therefore felt out of time to me. Its origin date (allowing for Low and Paton's efforts) seemed too early by far. I remember one of my first impressions of the course was that it was sort of Modernist; in comparison the others seemed Victorian. That's not correct in a strictly golf architecture schools sense, I know, but Woking feels different, more modern, more complex, more advanced.

Mark:

I agree with all of that, and I think if you read my review of Woking [without the numbers at the end] that feeling comes through, even though you did a better job of expressing it.

My wife suggested that I write the book without the numbers -- she finds them "too judgmental" -- and though I liked the idea in theory, I knew that most readers would not.  [Plus, the whole idea of having collaborators would have been compromised, since it would be hard to represent who thought what.]  Maybe I should just listen to my wife all the time, though it would also mean designing fewer golf courses.

[Noel Freeman]

Paul

How many great courses, in your opinion, aren't great/exceptionally attractive to look at? Ie name a few examples?

Paul

I have long held that often times the biggest difference between great and good is a sense of grandeur (however that may exist).  The actual difference in the quality of the holes can be quite scant.  Hence the reason there are so many wonderful 2nd and 3rd tier in GB&I.  

You have created a false dichotomy.  Now you are talking about great courses with views.  Why not talk about mediocre courses with great views?  Oh, yes, Nefyn    

Great courses without anything close to exceptional views (interior and/or exterior)

Merion
TOC - posterchild for not having to pay for the view  
Prestwick
Formby
Muirfield
Woking
Sacred 9
Deal
St Georges Hill
Ganton
Royal Aberdeen

I would pay full whack for at least half of these.  I must be mad if the views aren't exceptional  

In truth, there are very few courses which the views really stand out for me and I think for the most part, it is those courses with cool interior views (quite rare).  

Sunny Old
Renaissance Club
Walton Heath
Old Town
Notts

There are likely a few others.  


22. Wallasey: I remain very surprised that Doak has yet to see Wallasey....and its not on his hit list.  What is the story Tom?

Ciao

Oh lord Arbs.. Here we go again.. Excuse my Deal apologist bent.. But Deal has great views from:

1) The 4th tee up towards the cliffs at Ramsgate
2) The tees on #7, #9 and #11 all offering views of Pegwell Bay and Chalk Cliffs..
3) The view down 16 with its gun turret pillbox and clubhouse in the distance
4) The famed view from the porch besides the bar where you can overlook the links, ruins of Sandown Castle, Goodwin Sands etc


And also +1 for Woking for moi.. I love it..

[Ryan Coles]

Re: Tom Doak's point about green contours and short game interest, I suppose the same could be said for the vast majority of our links courses.

Are the greens Doak prefers therefore very much an American characteristic?

Those fortunate to have played some of the greats both in GB&I and the US, generally speaking do you find that the greens in the UK lack interest, or that those in the States are just OTT?

British understatement v American brashness?

Or taking someone else's idea and just greatly improving on it?

[Matt MacIver]

[/quote
In general, what holds the heathland courses back for me is that they all feel so similar [originality is so important to me] and that they don't have great greens contouring or exceptional short-game interest.

Tom - thank, as mentioned I've never been and didn't appreciate these two "issues", which could probably be a thread of its own.

However despite no 10s nor 9s I would imagine no other area (worldwide?) has as many high quality courses (8+) as the heathlands. Will be a fun exercise over the next four volumes.

[Tom_Doak]

Re: Tom Doak's point about green contours and short game interest, I suppose the same could be said for the vast majority of our links courses.

Are the greens Doak prefers therefore very much an American characteristic?

Ryan:

I would say that's only half right.  Most links courses have less in the way of green contours, but most of them have quite a bit of short game interest.  With rare exceptions [Waterville, Birkdale], the ball rolls away from the greens and you have to play all kinds of pitches and runs and bank shots to recover, and the bunkers can require all sorts of stances and shots -- including playing backwards, or playing around a nasty bunker instead of over it.

Some of the best [St. Andrews, North Berwick, Prestwick, Machrihanish, Dornoch, Portrush] add in cool greens contours and jump up to the highest level.

However, not many of the heathland courses can compare in that regard.

[Thomas Dai]

When we get the next two volumes it will be interesting to see how many 10s Tom gives to US courses, along with the other three panelists.
I know PH #2 pretty well and really like it...but really didn't imagine Sunningdale could be two notches below it.

Matt:
I do not expect my 10's to change between now and publication.  There are nine of them in the U.S. -- National, Shinnecock, Merion, Pine Valley, Pinehurst #2, Crystal Downs, Cypress Point, Sand Hills, and Pacific Dunes.
In general, what holds the heathland courses back for me is that they all feel so similar [originality is so important to me] and that they don't have great greens contouring or exceptional short-game interest.  All of the above courses do.  Should those factors be worth two points instead of one?  I don't know.  I think it could be a fair criticism that I'm too stingy with my 9's ... but if I elevated Sunningdale and St. George's Hill to that level, there would be about 30 other courses around the world I'd have to elevate, too.
Bottom line, an 8 is a very good score on the Doak scale ... better than it sounds.  If only I'd thought to rate courses from 2 to 12 when I started, perhaps everyone would be happier.

Tom,

I'm curious to know which other courses - any type of course, any location - would have the "greens contouring or exceptional short-game interest" that National, Shinnecock, Merion, Pine Valley, Pinehurst #2, Crystal Downs, Cypress Point, Sand Hills, and Pacific Dunes have?

Whichever ones they are and wherever they are located, I'm sure it would be great fun and very educational to take a few balls, a putter plus a few wedges and other clubs and try out all sorts of different shots from on and around them

atb

[Tom_Doak]

Thomas:

In the back of The Anatomy of a Golf Course, there are lists of courses worth study with regard to Routing, Greens, and Bunkering.  I'm not around the book this evening, but I think I listed about 40-50 courses back then that I thought had exceptional greens.  I've seen a few more since that book was written, and some great ones have been added to the conversation at Bandon Trails, Friars Head, Ballyneal and Barnbougle Dunes, among others.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Tom:

Yes, I've read the description in both editions (the first many times).

I am not sure if you've changed the definition of the Scale since the first edition. I read the scoring system as designed to help the traveler decide how much of an effort to make to get to a course or area and what to play when he visits that area. Thus, a course's score in part depends on the quality of its neighbors.

So I don't put too fine a point on the numbers; I just treat them as a codicil to the writeups not as a globally consistent ranking system. The writeups more than the numbers are what have gotten me out to see courses.

Yes/no/maybe?

[Jim Nugent]

I'm curious to know which courses Tom would have given a 12 to.  All of today's 10s? 

Even though he doesn't tell, I bet he doesn't personally rank all the 10s as equal. 

[Mark Chaplin]

I'm confused that The Red and Blue are 6s? Woking has some great holes but starts weakly on 1&2, has a huge missed opportunity over the stream (6?) and two awful holes up the hill and the par 3 afterwards. SGH is my least favourite of the well known heaths.

I know the greens were heavily sanded the day I played Cypress Point so I didn't notice internal contouring and great short game, did I miss it due to the conditions?

Ryan if links greens get too goofy they become unplayable in a decent breeze, I've yet to play an inland course where the wind was a factor on the greens. 364 day a year golf is something we like in Europe, we even like to play on Mondays.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Seems to me that the guide is living up to its potential: stirring up a lot of interest simply because its author is brave enough to admit his opinions (well, four authors, you know what I mean.) None of us will actually agree about whether x should be a 4 or 6, or why y was given a 3 when it's only worth a 1. It provokes critical debate, which is no bad thing. The only difference from other public ranking lists is that here the goal posts are set by people who are prepared to put their names to their rankings, and don't hide behind some anonymous panel. I'm not going to complain. I don't have to agree. It's up to me. But they have been brave enough to share with us what they actually think.

[Sean_A]

Woking has some great holes but starts weakly on 1&2, has a huge missed opportunity over the stream (6?) and two awful holes up the hill and the par 3 afterwards.

Wow, harsh judge.  You are the first I have heard which thinks 2 & 8 are weak or awful holes.  Not sure what is wrong with 10 either.  I do agree though that 6 is a missed opportunity.  I really thought that the redo would create something superior...very disappointed the water wasn't well used. Still, Woking has comfortably the most interesting greens in the heathlands and some of the best bunker placement in the country.  The big tick for me is the parkland like conditions, but Woking isn't far behind the other heathlands in this regard...except for Walton Heath...but then the motor way noise there is very harsh.  Nothing is perfect  

Mark R

Good point, but I don't honestly think anybody is upset when they disagree.  Its just a difference of opinion...no big deal. 

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

Seems to me that the guide is living up to its potential: stirring up a lot of interest simply because its author is brave enough to admit his opinions (well, four authors, you know what I mean.) None of us will actually agree about whether x should be a 4 or 6, or why y was given a 3 when it's only worth a 1. It provokes critical debate, which is no bad thing. The only difference from other public ranking lists is that here the goal posts are set by people who are prepared to put their names to their rankings, and don't hide behind some anonymous panel. I'm not going to complain. I don't have to agree. It's up to me. But they have been brave enough to share with us what they actually think.

Mark:

Thank you.

Actually, it's somewhat disappointing that it seems most of the debate is over the numbers, and why Course Y was not favored over Course X.  There seem to be fewer pointed debates over the actual reviews of courses, or the holes we mentioned as favorites.

[Sean_A]

Tom

To be fair, a lot of the reviews are very difficult to discuss.  A decent percentage is factual, a decent percentage is description.  I have mentioned some quotes in reviews, but they garnered no response.  Its tough to discuss with one person. 

Though, I can try again.  "...too short to attract visitors.  The best of the holes are in the 400-420 yard range - strong holes for shorter hitters, but easily overpowered by the bomb & gouge set." 

Couldn't this be said about a ton of very cool courses?  It seems strange to suddenly focus on the lack of yardage here, where that is the case in much of the country. 

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

Tom

To be fair, a lot of the reviews are very difficult to discuss.  A decent percentage is factual, a decent percentage is description.  I have mentioned some quotes in reviews, but they garnered no response.  Its tough to discuss with one person. 

Though, I can try again.  "...too short to attract visitors.  The best of the holes are in the 400-420 yard range - strong holes for shorter hitters, but easily overpowered by the bomb & gouge set." 

Couldn't this be said about a ton of very cool courses?  It seems strange to suddenly focus on the lack of yardage here, where that is the case in much of the country. 

It could be said about a ton of courses; I don't know how many very cool ones.  It seems like it ought to be simple for such a course to vary the yardages a bit more, and push some hole or other out to 440-450 yards for the sake of variety.

P.S.  I don't remember which course that review was for, so I can't address its lack of variety specifically!

[Sean_A]

Tom

To be fair, a lot of the reviews are very difficult to discuss.  A decent percentage is factual, a decent percentage is description.  I have mentioned some quotes in reviews, but they garnered no response.  Its tough to discuss with one person. 

Though, I can try again.  "...too short to attract visitors.  The best of the holes are in the 400-420 yard range - strong holes for shorter hitters, but easily overpowered by the bomb & gouge set." 

Couldn't this be said about a ton of very cool courses?  It seems strange to suddenly focus on the lack of yardage here, where that is the case in much of the country. 

It could be said about a ton of courses; I don't know how many very cool ones.  It seems like it ought to be simple for such a course to vary the yardages a bit more, and push some hole or other out to 440-450 yards for the sake of variety.

P.S.  I don't remember which course that review was for, so I can't address its lack of variety specifically!

Tom

I'm not sure how much space Harborne has to push tees back.  You are right that there is a bit of a gap in the longest 4s to the 5s of 40 yards.  That said, there are a few big par 3s and a tempting par 4 or two which can bolster the long shot making. 

As a comparison, Cavendish has only one par 4 stretching to 440 and thats only a few yards longer than the few longer 4s at Harborne.  That 50 yard gap with the par 5 still exists. 

I just found the lack of yardage quite odd for Harborne when in my experience it isn't unusual at all...and I suspect a great many very fine courses have a gap between the long 4s and 5s. 

In general though, I agree that if a course is looking for more yards, often times the first place to look is on longish 4s.  Is there space to stretch these already fairly difficult holes out 20 or 30 yards?  Unfortunately, sometimes the shorter 4s get lengthened an that only serves to reduce the variety because holes in the 340 to 380 range are plentiful already.  Those 450-460 yarders are lacking unless we are talking about championship golf, then there tends too be too many holes of this general length and not enough ambiguous length short 4s.

Ciao   

[Paul_Turner]

The heathland greens tend to be more "lay of the land" than the famous 9 and 10s in USA (Winged Foot et al)....but that's just a matter of taste if it's a negative.  Tom favors strongly contoured greens as does Ran and it's the prevailing preference on GCA

But in fact this kind of "lay of the land" green is getting rarer and rarer.  Today nobody wants to build simple tilted greens like say the 10th at Whittington Heath, 2nd at Sunnningdale Old, 9th at Royal Ashdown.

[Tom_Doak]

this kind of "lay of the land" green is getting rarer and rarer.  Today nobody wants to build simple tilted greens like say the 10th at Whittington Heath, 2nd at Sunnningdale Old, 9th at Royal Ashdown.

Paul:

It is getting rarer, because it's hard to pick an amount of tilt that's acceptable at modern green speeds.  Even 3% across the whole green is probably too much today ... but 2% is barely even noticeable.  We have to have a back-up plan for when the green speeds go to 12 and 13.  Mr. Colt didn't have to think about that, and you're lucky that most clubs in the U.K. still don't have that aspiration.

[Matt MacIver]

So I guess I wonder whether it would "worth it" for a heathland 6 or 7 to materially alter its green contours and surrounds...? Or not worth it, or worse yet sacrilege based on history and ODGs work (see: TOC)?  Of course, understanding that 6s and 7s are quite good...