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Paul_Turner

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Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« on: September 18, 2003, 12:39:23 PM »
Thanks to Andy Levett for mentioning this new book and NAF for sending me the website.  Looks a must have, plus a few pics lifted from the site:

http://www.bestbetbooks.co.uk/extraordinary_golf.cfm


Our beloved Painswick


Silverdale


Colt's most rudimentary course-Fort Augustus


Heaton Park


W Ho! 4th

« Last Edit: September 18, 2003, 02:17:49 PM by P_Turner »
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

GeoffreyC

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2003, 12:43:15 PM »
Paul

Awesome stuff.  Those photos illustrate how golf can be such a thrill.

What is the last photo? Why is that cartpath in the picture?

ForkaB

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2003, 12:52:37 PM »
Is the cover picture not North Berwick, East Links, with Bass Rock in the background?  I can just sort of see it from my living room window.........

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2003, 01:08:28 PM »
Thanks for pointing it out - must have it!

Heaton Park I know well.  It was a municipal course (designed, I believe, by J.H. Taylor) and was in a pretty lamentable state but it was (if my memory serves me correctly) taken over a few years ago and is now run as an inexpensive pay-and-play course.  There are several other more extreme holes than the one illustrated.  That one is an all-or-nothing long iron over a pond far below with impenetrable rhododendron bushes as well if you don't make the carry.  There's also a hump-back par 5 where you drive up a steep hill and almost all of us will then be playing totally blind over the summit.  The ground then plunges down even more steeply into a great chasm, the green being perched somewhere on the far side.  But the maddest is a right-angle dog-leg played totally blind over a bank of rhododendrons with the green driveable if you know the correct angle and terrible fates awaiting the ball only a few degrees off line.  When I first played there many years ago there was a gipsy encampment in the low ground in the angle of the dog-leg and it took great courage to risk the carry...... There are rather too many blind shots for safety with the mix of abilities found on an unrestricted course, but it is full of character.

Bill_McBride

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2003, 01:10:01 PM »
Two thoughts:
The Heaton photo with the heather in bloom may well be the most beautiful golf photo I've ever seen!

The Silverdale hole has a lot in common with #8 Cypress Point given the angle of the tee ball over a blind dune (in this case what looks like a rocky hillside, same effect).

A third thought:  Painswick looks like more fun than is allowable on the golf course!

Bill_McBride

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2003, 01:14:31 PM »
Whoops!  On further study I see that I was looking at the Silverdale hole backwards!  I thought the red line was the tee ball coming over the hill from the right, now I see the red line going up hill to the green.  I thought the golfer was headed toward a green tucked around the corner up ahead after hitting his tee ball down close to where he was standing.  That would make it similar to #8 CPC.  Oh well, isn't it fun to visualize different ways to play golf holes (say 15 tee to 13 green?)?   :P

Norbert P

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2003, 01:16:48 PM »
  Looks like a great book to have.  But will Painswick become an UNhidden gem?
"Golf is only meant to be a small part of one’s life, centering around health, relaxation and having fun with friends/family." R"C"M

Paul_Turner

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2003, 01:28:05 PM »
 Looks like a great book to have.  But will Painswick become an UNhidden gem?

Oh I hope not, Slag.  I like their colourful description of the course on the website; it's spot on.
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

Kelly_Blake_Moran

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2003, 01:42:18 PM »
Rich,

You can see that from your living room???Are you shitten me? If not, can I come live with you?

ForkaB

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #9 on: September 18, 2003, 01:50:39 PM »
A.  Yes, Kelly, although as it's about 10 miles acorss the water it doesn't look like much without a high-powered telescope, and even with that equipment Tom MacWood wouldn't be able to tell who the designer was without a scorecard.

B.  You can stay at my house as long as you keep you hands off my wimmen and let me help design the next golf course in your pipeline.  I'll make Painswick look like Sunnyvale Muni!


Paul_Turner

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #10 on: September 18, 2003, 01:55:02 PM »
Rich

I think I've played Sunnyvale muni.  Is it the one with dwarf copper beech trees at 150 yds?
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

Kelly_Blake_Moran

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #11 on: September 18, 2003, 02:18:53 PM »
Rich,

You misunderstood, I am bringing the whole family.  But, just in case send me a picture of your woman (I assume the other one(s) are underage), if she looks too tempting then I won't bother coming over.  This almosts feels like the dmoriarty thread doesn't it...better step back.  As for the rest of the deal you can be my codesigner!!  That setting is extraordinary.  By the way can I bring my Johnny Cash CD's?  I have been on an awful binge listening to him since he died.

THuckaby2

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #12 on: September 18, 2003, 02:21:37 PM »
KBM:

Dunno about dwarf beech trees at 150s at Sunnyvale..
But I'm somewhat embarassed to say, it too is
among my regular haunts.  If you have played it,
you'd remember it though,for these things:

flat as a pancake
right next to one of the world's busiest freeways (101)
across from the HUGE hangars at Moffett Field
airplane marker buoys run through several holes

It's not as completely devoid of interest as Rich
likely remembers, either... they re-did a few holes
a couple years ago and it is a bit improved.

So Rich - what's up with that path in the
last pic?

TH

Paul_Turner

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #13 on: September 18, 2003, 02:27:46 PM »
Tom

That's the one.  I had some fun there-tricky finishing hole.

A GCAer should get cracking on a US version of this book.  The litmus test being: if Matt Ward hates it, then it's automatically in  :D

can't get to heaven with a three chord song

GeoffreyC

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #14 on: September 18, 2003, 02:37:56 PM »
I figured that last photo included either Ailsa Craig, Bass Rock or that big rock off the coast near Ballyliffin.

If that's North Berwick when did they put in that UGLY cartpath? It wasn't there when I was last at NB.

ForkaB

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #15 on: September 18, 2003, 03:35:57 PM »
Geoff

The hole (if I'm right) is on the East Links at NB (i.e. the place where most tourists do not tread).  It is(?) the 15th(?), a nice drop shot par-3, and I guess the path is because the course is very hilly (most of it is up on the bluff overlooking Bass Rock), so carts would not be completely dmanable there.

Paul

Sunnyvale Muni is the one in the flight path of Moffat Field--one of the few course in he wrold where you can (could?) watch U-2's take off like rockets over your head.

Kelly

Why don't we get our lawyers to write up a contract.  I'll tkae Shivas, you can have Moriarty.

Stan Dodd

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #16 on: September 18, 2003, 04:22:29 PM »
The picture of the Sea Hole at the Glen in North Berwick shows a surfaced walking path.  The ground is broken there and that path is the only way to get trolleys from tee to green.  there were nocarts when I played there but that may have changed.
Cheers
Stan

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #17 on: September 18, 2003, 05:54:50 PM »
Have a peep at

http://www.glengolfclub.co.uk/

All will be revealed.

Paul_Turner

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #18 on: September 18, 2003, 08:57:32 PM »
Mark R, kindly sent me this pic.  I assume the line of play is from the left!  Otherwise it's The Pit on steroids!



In Mark's own words:

Leasowe is a funny little seaside course between Royal Liverpool and Wallasey and almost wholly unlike either.  For the most part it is flat and uniteresting, but there's something romantic about pitching into these battlements on the 252-yard par-4 1st.  (It plays into the prevailing wind, so quell thoughts of driving it!)  The 'Castle' is new - 16th century - and was one of the homes of the Stanley family who had connections with the Shakespearean stage and The Derby horse race.  It also contains part of the Star Chamber which was removed from the Palace of Westminster in 1634.  When I took the photo it was a convalescent home for retired railway workers, but I have a feeling it is now a hotel.
 
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #19 on: September 19, 2003, 06:38:42 AM »
Quite right, play is from the left of the picture.

In another thread I mention the Painswick web site with Paul's photo and a complete description of the course:
http://www.pasturegolf.com/courses/painswick.htm

Silverdale also has one with a few pictures:
http://www.silverdalegolfclub.co.uk/

The Heaton Park web site has no photos, but it suggests that I may have been premature in thinking that it had been sold off.

http://www.manchester.gov.uk/leisure/parks/golf.htm

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #20 on: September 23, 2003, 05:33:28 AM »
I've received my copy of the book and it is without doubt a 'must have'.  They're not all crazy holes (some are) and it actually gives quite a good cross section of British golf at all sorts of different levels and styles.  I'm delighted that Painswick has grabbed the attention enough to spawn a GCA Ryder Cup meet.  I suspect that many participants will want to extend their visit to other courses represented in the book on the strength of the photographs alone.  

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #21 on: September 26, 2003, 08:39:47 AM »
Further to Bill McBride's comments about the Heaton Park photo, having looked at the photo full size in the book I'm afraid they are rhododendron bushes, not heather.  It's still a wicked hole, though.

NAF

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #22 on: September 30, 2003, 12:13:07 PM »
I just got my copy of the book.  It is small and easy to carry around.  We really need Paul Turner to get a copy of it because I havent heard of half of the courses.  Some of the pictures are excellent, some ordinary.  Coolest shot I've seen so far is Magadalene Fields on Berwick on Tweed.  A clifftop to clifftop spectacle par 3 of 160 yards.. The 8th hole. Looks  way cool.


NAF

Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #23 on: September 30, 2003, 12:29:19 PM »
BTW, the most extraordinary hole according to the authors in the UK is the par 3 Eyemouth #6 par 170 yards over a chasm

Brian_Ewen

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Re:Britain's 100 Extraordinary Golf Holes
« Reply #24 on: September 30, 2003, 05:01:06 PM »
Just got my copy today also and was surprised to see a hole from my home course - The 15th at Stonehaven GC- The site of my one and only hole in one .

Brian