Cypress Point The Best, yes but the ball and driver may make it....

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I love Cypress Point like no other. However, 1,2,5,6,10,12 and 13 have made the holes play outside the design intent by very average golfers like me. The pros just blow around the place now. It is wrong to let another of America's gems not be a strong challenge to the better players. 1 is now driver wedge. 2 is driver long iron, 5 is driver and short wood, 6 is driver mid iron. 10 is driver mid iron, 12 and 13 unless the wind is galing is driver short iron or wedge. I can now hit all the par 5's with a good drive and anything from a 4 iron to a 3 wood. I am a ok player but this is wrong. This has never been the hardest course by any means we discuss on here. I have never been able to blow it over the tree on the right on 1 without some level of concern. Now it is easy, unless a strong wind is in my face. The better angle is from the right. You used to have to fade it around the tree or have a huge drive to get it over. The safer shot was in th gap which made for a tougher 2nd shot. Now it is a 9 iron or wedge for me to the green. I used to hit 6 irons to 4 irons with the prevailing winds. Even holes like 7, 9, 11, 14 and 16 have been soften to a degree.

[Tim_Weiman]

Tiger:

Think about it. If you are using equipment that undermines the pleasure of playing a golf course like Cypress Point, obviously you are using the wrong equipment!

The simple solution is to take your own stand against the golf technology arms race. Go to your garage and get out your old steel shaft, persimmon woods. The golf course will suddenly get 10-15% bigger and you'll have the pleasure/challenge of hitting longer irons for approach shots.

[Carlyle Rood]

You have to be really skilled to understand how to play this game. If your not skilled, nor nearly as good as a golfer as I am, your not any good at all.

If your higher then (sic) that (a 4-handicap), you shouldn't be playing golf nor reading my magazine.

I am currently a five-handicap; therefore, I am unskilled and have no comprehension of playing golf.  I would reply more directly and comprehensively to your original post; however, I am unqualified to do so.

[Mike Worth]

Carlyle

I think the Matt Wart post is a joke, most likely made by one of Matt's adoring flock  

And if there are any conspiracy buffs out there, I am not Matt Wart.

[Happy Gilmore]

Although I suspect who is, I am not Matt Wart

[Bill_McBride]

John, with regard to Cypress Point being too short, I guess you aren't talking about on a day with a wind straight off the ocean like the day we played!  #11 was a lengthy par 5 and 12, 13 and 14 weren't much easier!  And the wind also played hell with our tee balls on the 8th as I recall.  Luckily for me (and others with my talent), Cypress will never be either too short or too easy!  Still have great memories of that day, although Strawn and his partner stiffed us for the $4 we won.

[Bob_Huntley]

Tiger,

OK, yours is bigger than mine but no matter how equipment has made Cypress a walkover, I will have a bet with anyone who has been on GCA for over a year ( this to exclude Tiger Woods from  competing), that they cannot better par.

Someone here, in a recent thread suggested that thirty under par would be a winning score  at MPCC should the Tour return. I think he would be right.

I remember in the Walker Cup of 1981 at Cypress Point, Jodie Mudd was something like eight under after twelve holes, proving that the course has always been there for the taking.

 All of this is a long way of saying that equipment in the hands of the highest caliber of player has made an enormous
difference, but...... are the average to good players that much different?

Our club championship qualifying certainly didn't disprove my
theory.

[Paul Richards]

Tiger:

There's Heaven,

There's Cypress Point,

and, then, there is everything else!!!

[ForkaB]

Tiger

You must have gained LOTS of length since we last played a month or so ago!

As Bob says, CPC has always been a "pushover" to the elite golfer at the top of his form, but I'd be willing to bet that you didn't break par, even while hitting irons into 2, etc.  And, as Bill says, do not forget the effect of wind.  I remember hitting driver 7-iron to the 13th at North Berwick fairly recently, and the hole is only about 380 yards.  I can't remember what my fellow competitor did, except that it was not a pretty sight.

Yes, golf courses can be shorter now, with the new technology (and faster and firmer maintenance practices), but they surely aren't any easier (for the 99.9% of us who do not aspire to the Tour), or even the .1% or us who are but are not on our game on the day........

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Bob, Rich and the other guys are correct and by the by I am not saying it is too short for me. I respect and love every hole on the course, even 18, whose green complex has become a favorite study of mine in recent years. I never had a problem with the elite in the game being able to over power a course, any course. This is more about the ball and equipment than this most wonderful course which is near and dear to my heart. The last 2 years or so have made the elite list grow to include all the pros down to college golfers and many high school golfers. I am using Cypress as another example to try and rally the cause to get the USGA to take the equipment issue seriously.

[Paul Richards]

Tom:

Cypress is as the game was meant to be played.

Shoreacres and Prestwick are excellent courses, but not in the same vein as CPC.

Please re-read what I wrote.  I merely said that Skokie is a better golf course today than Shoreacres, although the Raters haven't quite understood that, as of yet.

[JohnV]

Bob Huntley,  I'll be happy to take you up on that bet.  I know I'll lose (by a lot), but at least I'll get a chance to play Cypress.

Just don't make it for too much money ok.

[shank]

I'll take the bet, I'm playing CPC at 9am Friday Sept the 19th and will post results here upon our return of the 22nd.  Also taking bets at SFGC!!!!

Brian

[Paul Richards]

Tom:

The simple answer is that while CPC is short, it is still very, very challenging.  I think it would hold up against the best MUCH better than either Shoreacres or Prestwick.

[Bob_Huntley]

Brian Dillard,

Thank you for letting me know the date and time of your round.

I have spoken to Keith, Jim Langley's asistant at CPC and he has assured me that you will have as your caddie one Dopey Willie. He has the unfortunate habit of giving the wrong line on putts, abominable yardages and has the uncanny habit of producing a shrill whisltle when exhaling, which he does to rid himself of the noxious fumes of the foulest cigarettes this side of Gitanes.

My dear boy, if you can break par with this baggage, you are indeed a fine player.

[T_MacWood]

shivas
I have only played SA and CPC once....you've obviously played both many many times and therefore are an expert on the wind--frequency and prevailing. I suppose you are going to tell us Prestwick doesn't get much wind either.

I'm sure there are quite few courses that might benefit from an omnipresent 'three club wind'.  

With or without wind, they are all short by modern standards.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Bill,

#11 was a lengthy par 5?  Isn't #11 a par 4, or were you saying it played like a lenghty par 5?

[Joel_Stewart]

Name the weak or obsolete holes at CPC.  

Go ahead.  

Name some.  

For the pros and low handicap players, #2,5,6,10 which are all par 5's.

I played Cypress Point last Friday and will post a few things (some are disturbing) once Tommy and I figure out a few technical problems with photos.

I've played CP many-many times, far more than I should be allowed and #1 and #11 get harder the more times I play it.

[Tommy Williamsen]

It is difficult to compare the three courses (CPC, SA, and Prestwick because each is unique and unlike almost anything else.  All three catch your attention because of the land each occupies, the routing, and the greens complexes.  Playing the first seven holes at CPC in the forest among the deer an then coming to two great short holes and playing through 14 in the dunes, walking across the road to 15 and through the trees to 16 and 17 makes my heart skip a beat.  It is not a question of easy or difficult.  Where else can you find such diversity, turf, bunkering, a par 5 like #5 or back to back par threes like15 and 16.  I haven't played CPC in ten years yet I remember every feature and can smell the ocean in my  Norwegian nostrils.  There is no place like it. How lucky we are to have a sport that gives us playing fields that are more grand and awe inspiring than even the great cathedrals of Europe!

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

Haven't set foot on CPC, but would make the pilgimage to test the theorem posded above.

Shivas -

A great opportunity to demo the latest.  While "It's not the plane, it's the pilot," (And many others), your wife is away...she'll never know you fooled around (with other clubs).

KLP

[T_MacWood]

Based on your theory that great golf courses must be a modern championship tests...all four of the par-5s are obsolete.

You said: "It's fun and quaint and really neat to play in part because it's so damn different than 99% of the courses one would play throughout the year and all that, and I think it's a blast to play and always have a ton of fun playing it.  But it truly is more of a museum piece than a "test"."

Seems to me that could be said about CPC, SA and Prestwick.

I believe you brought up the wind...not me.

[JohnV]

So lets just call all the par 5s Cypress Point par 4s and it will no longer be obsolete.

It reminds me of the lovely example of the Hawaiian Open where all they did was change the number on the card for two holes from 5 to 4 and some announcer said something like, "The changes on these holes are great.  Last year they were the easiest two holes on the course.  This year they are the hardest ones."

Why should it matter if par goes to 68 if it makes the course "strong" again?

[THuckaby2]

Great point, JV - it's the same thing TEPaul has been saying for a long time about NGLA - just call three of the current par fives there par fours and voila, you have a stern test at par 70.

Re CPC though, I'd say that #2 and #7 can hold their own as par fives... enough such that the par 70 would hold up well enough.  There's just something about less than 70 par that gives negative impression... Might be the reason Rye doesn't get the acclaim that guys like Shivas think it should...

In any case, CPC has always held up just fine to my puny game.  I understand what JB is saying, but hell, pros don't play there anyway, so they aren't even a small minority anymore, they are a ZERO in this equation...  

TH

[Scott_Burroughs]

Tom,

I think you meant #6 as a par 5, not the par 3 #7.

The pros used to play there (and loved it), but that was before the onslaught of big distance increases in the game.  I wonder what the average scores were back when the AT&T/Crosby was there?  That's a good way to see what a rolled-back ball would do there.  It was also played in early February, when the weather was more iffy and a little cooler (less distance).

[THuckaby2]

Yikes - bad typo - thanks, Scott!

So yes, #6 can hold up it's head as a decent par 5.  Of course I've made a couple 5s on #7 also, so maybe that works... maybe this was a freudian slip...  

Make it par 70, get any wind at all, and CPC wouldn't get "killed", anyway.  That's my take and I'm sticking to it.

TH