Whjy is this Harbour Town Held in Any Esteem?

[V. Kmetz]

I fully admit to never having played or visited, but why does this course find any favor... it seems to me to violate every canon of the last 30 years' sensibilities... bowling alley, tree-lined fairways...no visible changes in elevation...almost entirely aerial play...lush conditions...


What's up with this?

[Marty Bonnar]

Pete Dye, baby!
F.


PS But the tartan lighthouse just might be a step too far........

[David_Tepper]

I believe Harbour Town was viewed as the "anti" Robert Trent Jones course when it was built, under-sized instead of RTJ over-sized.

Plus, I kind of like a course where a guy 5'6" and 145lbs. can compete against the best players in the world and win.

[Daryl David]

I don’t know If it should be held in high esteem, but it sure is fun to play. It’s all about angles and slopes. You have to be thinking all the time. It’s a joy to walk. I wouldn’t care if it had never held a tournament. It would still be one of my favorites. 

[Dan_Callahan]

I played there at the end of March. I thought it was very nice. I didn’t think it was anything special. I was also surprised (although I’m not sure why, since I see it on TV every year) that only 17 and 18 are on the water. The rest of the course reminded me of the inland holes at Pebble. Fun to play, but not really all that memorable.

[Tom_Doak]

It was celebrated when it opened because it was so, so different than anything else at the time.  It was actually in GOLF DIGEST's Top Ten right out of the box, right when an impressionable young man visited it in 1971.


Trends have certainly changed, but I think Harbour Town deserves respect because its different character has still held up to this day.  Pete Dye built a lot of fine courses, but none of the others are quite like it.  Sure, it's pretty flat and routed through a bunch of home sites; so are a thousand other courses in the southeast, and none of them have the character of Harbour Town.  It's also retained its challenge better than a lot of other courses have.

[A.G._Crockett]

I played there on two consecutive days two weeks ago, and absolutely loved it.  I thought it was a brilliant design, absolutely fair, and in no way gimmicky.  I had a hard time squaring what I had thought of it with what I experienced.

I think Harbour Town has the coolest set of par threes I've ever seen, and the risk-reward elements of the fives are Dye at his best.  I'd rank it easily as one of my top ten favorite courses.  Easily.

If that's over the top praise, so be it.  But I just loved the place.

[Peter Pallotta]

Sometimes when I'm playing very poorly, I grumble to myself this same complaint: 'What a game! So few ways to shoot a good score and so many ways to shoot a bad one'. It sure is nice, even just watching on tv, to see a golf course that, precisely because it violates the modern canon -- one that is made manifest as much on a Nicklaus or Fazio or Jones Jr. course as on a Doak or Coore or Hanse -- asks golfers to find a (different) one of those few ways.
 

[John Kavanaugh]

Every man can play it, so few men will get it. Harbour Town stands alone in my heart for this very reason.

[Terry Lavin]

I fully admit to never having played or visited, but why does this course find any favor... it seems to me to violate every canon of the last 30 years' sensibilities... bowling alley, tree-lined fairways...no visible changes in elevation...almost entirely aerial play...lush conditions...


What's up with this?

Dye’s lasting gift to GCA limited your usually prolix analysis to a paragraph of incomplete sentences, so I’d say it has inspired a minimalist point of view! 😅

[V. Kmetz]

Dye’s lasting gift to GCA limited your usually prolix analysis to a paragraph of incomplete sentences, so I’d say it has inspired a minimalist point of view! 😅

I say this in all good humor: I'm making a list of all you mf's and whenever you chirp up your revulsion at some feature that HT holds in spades, I'll be in the tall weeds waiting with your hypocrisy...


And to wit, not one of you cited a specific feature or refuted one of the minimalist charges therein... except that someone said it was a lovely walk...which I can totally see.  But let that same gentle walk come at some place that doesn't cause your panties to moisten and it's like an affront to tradition that the lands are flat...and what happened to those purist/147 Appropriators charges of the walking course not larded with cart paths, when this looks like a go-cart park from above or at eye level? 


What happened to your moanings of "playing width;" and endless banality threads about mowing lines?  Refute if you can that this place is 16 alleyways cut through now-overgrown trees.  How can anyone bemoan what's happened at Augusta with its rough and its plantings when I saw more shots played off pine straw and hard packed sand through and around trees than as in the fairway this weekend?


These 4 par 3s are great?  WHAT?...each one an aerial carry over artifical bunkers and artifically gathered water...that's wonderful to watch pros tackle, but to play?  That 7th hole looks to be the single stupid-par 3, thisi side of a Trump course... the green an island of water and sand with trees  overhanging the left side. What the heck are you talking about...what the hell is fun about that?  Honestly Bethpage Black doesn't even have what I consider a grouping of fantastic par 3s, but at least their variety and visual confrontation is better than that...


I mean this course has so many of you intoxicated as to abandon all judgement, that frickin Tom Doak is citing GD's immediate installation of high ranking as soem data-point of specialness. (that's Tom frickin' Doak, the greatest proselyzter against rankings, who so disenchanted with ratings made his own landmark system).


Again I say these hard words with no particular hard intent, but fellows why don't one of you say why these bowling alleys are acceptable here...why these flat fairways are acceptable here...why these nearly-exclusive aerial shots are accepted here.. why these lush/plush conditions are acceptable here...why this artificial and expensive-to-keep-as-is course should receive such favor when these features are reviled in modern parlance?

[Terry Lavin]

Dye’s lasting gift to GCA limited your usually prolix analysis to a paragraph of incomplete sentences, so I’d say it has inspired a minimalist point of view! 😅

I say this in all good humor: I'm making a list of all you mf's and whenever you chirp up your revulsion at some feature that HT holds in spades, I'll be in the tall weeds waiting with your hypocrisy...


And to wit, not one of you cited a specific feature or refuted one of the minimalist charges therein... except that someone said it was a lovely walk...which I can totally see.  But let that same gentle walk come at some place that doesn't cause your panties to moisten and it's like an affront to tradition that the lands are flat...and what happened to those purist/147 Appropriators charges of the walking course not larded with cart paths, when this looks like a go-cart park from above or at eye level? 


What happened to your moanings of "playing width;" and endless banality threads about mowing lines?  Refute if you can that this place is 16 alleyways cut through now-overgrown trees.  How can anyone bemoan what's happened at Augusta with its rough and its plantings when I saw more shots played off pine straw and hard packed sand through and around trees than as in the fairway this weekend?


These 4 par 3s are great?  WHAT?...each one an aerial carry over artifical bunkers and artifically gathered water...that's wonderful to watch pros tackle, but to play?  That 7th hole looks to be the single stupid-par 3, thisi side of a Trump course... the green an island of water and sand with trees  overhanging the left side. What the heck are you talking about...what the hell is fun about that?  Honestly Bethpage Black doesn't even have what I consider a grouping of fantastic par 3s, but at least their variety and visual confrontation is better than that...


I mean this course has so many of you intoxicated as to abandon all judgement, that frickin Tom Doak is citing GD's immediate installation of high ranking as soem data-point of specialness. (that's Tom frickin' Doak, the greatest proselyzter against rankings, who so disenchanted with ratings made his own landmark system).


Again I say these hard words with no particular hard intent, but fellows why don't one of you say why these bowling alleys are acceptable here...why these flat fairways are acceptable here...why these nearly-exclusive aerial shots are accepted here.. why these lush/plush conditions are acceptable here...why this artificial and expensive-to-keep-as-is course should receive such favor when these features are reviled in modern parlance?

To thine own verbose self remain true!

[A.G._Crockett]

Dye’s lasting gift to GCA limited your usually prolix analysis to a paragraph of incomplete sentences, so I’d say it has inspired a minimalist point of view! 😅

I say this in all good humor: I'm making a list of all you mf's and whenever you chirp up your revulsion at some feature that HT holds in spades, I'll be in the tall weeds waiting with your hypocrisy...


And to wit, not one of you cited a specific feature or refuted one of the minimalist charges therein... except that someone said it was a lovely walk...which I can totally see.  But let that same gentle walk come at some place that doesn't cause your panties to moisten and it's like an affront to tradition that the lands are flat...and what happened to those purist/147 Appropriators charges of the walking course not larded with cart paths, when this looks like a go-cart park from above or at eye level? 


What happened to your moanings of "playing width;" and endless banality threads about mowing lines?  Refute if you can that this place is 16 alleyways cut through now-overgrown trees.  How can anyone bemoan what's happened at Augusta with its rough and its plantings when I saw more shots played off pine straw and hard packed sand through and around trees than as in the fairway this weekend?


These 4 par 3s are great?  WHAT?...each one an aerial carry over artifical bunkers and artifically gathered water...that's wonderful to watch pros tackle, but to play?  That 7th hole looks to be the single stupid-par 3, thisi side of a Trump course... the green an island of water and sand with trees  overhanging the left side. What the heck are you talking about...what the hell is fun about that?  Honestly Bethpage Black doesn't even have what I consider a grouping of fantastic par 3s, but at least their variety and visual confrontation is better than that...


I mean this course has so many of you intoxicated as to abandon all judgement, that frickin Tom Doak is citing GD's immediate installation of high ranking as soem data-point of specialness. (that's Tom frickin' Doak, the greatest proselyzter against rankings, who so disenchanted with ratings made his own landmark system).


Again I say these hard words with no particular hard intent, but fellows why don't one of you say why these bowling alleys are acceptable here...why these flat fairways are acceptable here...why these nearly-exclusive aerial shots are accepted here.. why these lush/plush conditions are acceptable here...why this artificial and expensive-to-keep-as-is course should receive such favor when these features are reviled in modern parlance?

I'm not sure I understand what has you upset, but you certainly seem to be.  You asked the question, "Why does this place find any favor..." in reference to a place you have never played or visited.  I just tried to answer.
Harbour Town exceeded my expectations, and by a LOT.  In part, that may have been based on years of listening to TV broadcasts about it being narrow or quirky or whatever, none of which did I find to be accurate.  Some of that may have been based on previous experiences with Dye courses, some of which I have loved, some of which I have not.  But whatever the case, I found HT to be completely deserving of the rankings I'd seen.

I did not find Harbour Town to be at all "bowling alley" in terms of width.  Yes, there are beautiful (and very large!) live oaks all over the grounds, but the course didn't take driver out of our hands on the 4s and 5s.  If you hit a tree at Harbour Town, you've hit a bad shot by ANY reasonable standard.  I also felt that the opportunity to recover when you missed was more than adequate.  It is by NO means narrow for courses carved through ancient live oak forests, and it isn't accurate to say that the trees are "now overgrown"; those trees are hundreds of years old.

The fairways are flat because you are on an island, which by definition is near the coast.  Sea level courses are just flat.
I loved the par threes; it's pretty clear that you hate them. 

The course conditions are overseeded rye tee to green, which is in the process of burning out right now; it'll likely be completely gone by this time next month.  Rye grass is really, really green, but you can't play tournament golf on dormant bermuda this time of year without the risk of being in a mud flat for four days.  That's not overmaintained; it's just simple agronomy for resort courses, with or without PGA tournaments.

Go play it and see what you think of HT for yourself, especially if you are going to bash people who give sincere answers your questions.

[George Pazin]

I will start by saying I thought Terry’s quip was hilarious.


But I will also say, my take is the same as yours, VK. I have no real desire to ever play it, though that’s admittedly from tv viewing. Unique and departing from prior norms do little to inspire me, given the visuals. Muirhead’s shark hole is both and I’ll take a pass on that, too.


I understand and agree with preferred shot lengths and angles, when the consequences are hazards to carry, blindness or lack thereof, greens angled away from you, etc. When the consequences are being blocked by trees, we’ll, that doesn’t jibe with my preferences.


And if I’m wrong in that assessment, well, I can live with missing out on a nice but really expensive play, don’t feel the need to notch the bedpost to impress others.

[Terry Lavin]

Hilton Head is a great destination and Harbour Town is an iconic Dye that is surely worth the time, effort and money to play.

[John Kavanaugh]

don’t feel the need to notch the bedpost to impress others.

Grow up.

[V. Kmetz]

I'm not sure I understand what has you upset, but you certainly seem to be.  You asked the question, "Why does this place find any favor..." in reference to a place you have never played or visited.  I just tried to answer.
Harbour Town exceeded my expectations, and by a LOT.  In part, that may have been based on years of listening to TV broadcasts about it being narrow or quirky or whatever, none of which did I find to be accurate.  Some of that may have been based on previous experiences with Dye courses, some of which I have loved, some of which I have not.  But whatever the case, I found HT to be completely deserving of the rankings I'd seen.

I did not find Harbour Town to be at all "bowling alley" in terms of width.  Yes, there are beautiful (and very large!) live oaks all over the grounds, but the course didn't take driver out of our hands on the 4s and 5s.  If you hit a tree at Harbour Town, you've hit a bad shot by ANY reasonable standard.  I also felt that the opportunity to recover when you missed was more than adequate.  It is by NO means narrow for courses carved through ancient live oak forests, and it isn't accurate to say that the trees are "now overgrown"; those trees are hundreds of years old.

The fairways are flat because you are on an island, which by definition is near the coast.  Sea level courses are just flat.
I loved the par threes; it's pretty clear that you hate them. 

The course conditions are overseeded rye tee to green, which is in the process of burning out right now; it'll likely be completely gone by this time next month.  Rye grass is really, really green, but you can't play tournament golf on dormant bermuda this time of year without the risk of being in a mud flat for four days.  That's not overmaintained; it's just simple agronomy for resort courses, with or without PGA tournaments.

Go play it and see what you think of HT for yourself, especially if you are going to bash people who give sincere answers your questions.

I promise you I'm not upset at all, it's just a playful antagonism, because no one will SAY what they like about it when many will criticize so many other courses for failings that are plain to see here.

[Mark_Fine]

Some of my favorite golf courses in the world are links courses (not a tree anywhere to be seen), but I love Harbour Town!  That is the beauty of golf - so many varied playing fields.  This aspect of our game should be embraced not rejected.


Harbour Town is a shot makers golf course.  Unless you are exceptionally accurate, you will have to shape golf shots and control trajectory as well as be creative around the greens if you want to score well there.  I love it even though it can be frustrating if your game is off.



I am lucky in that I get to Hilton Head often and I try to play there at least once or twice a year.  It is one of those courses (like most great designs) that the more you play it the more you learn and the more you appreciate just how good it really is.  Every round is different.  That alone makes it special. 


Mark

[George Pazin]

don’t feel the need to notch the bedpost to impress others.

Grow up.

Sorry, John, always tough to guess when you’ll laugh or not. Guessed wrong this time, as I usually do with you.


As VK says, I’m not angry, just a bit perplexed like him.

[Mike Hendren]

Is it possible that HT proves that today’s golf architectural cognoscenti and the doyens of this very site are full of sh#t and all the talk of a second golden age is  mere hyperbole?


After all those same groups would have you believe the Biarritz at Yale is a great golf hole and the quintessential example of that template.  Let’s leave that for another thread.

[Pat Burke]

HT was an interesting moment for me as a player.  I didn’t play well enough to qualify for the tournament my first few years, and finally got in the event in 1996.
I was excited to play, I had heard how great he course was, and I always felt I was a horses for courses kind of player.  I looked forward to playing a “ball control” course.


While playing my first practice round, all I could think was how silly the course seemed.  The trees encroached on so many shots that I literally was working balls around or even under trees to get at some hole locations, and that was on what I felt were reasonable tee  shots  in fairways. 


The next year I played, they had started to do some tree work, and it did improve, but in many spots, was still claustrophobic imo. 
Funny thing was, the things I didn’t like, made it a better course for me and my game. I was comfortable hitting draws/fades/high/low, but the course just seemed less than I expected.
Interestingly, I love the TPC Sawgrass, and many other Dye courses.  For tournament golf, I’m ok with the idea of demanding shots of players, and punishing a miss, not all the time, but for some events, challenging ball control is ok.


I understand they have widened the corridors quite a bit from the time I played, seems it’d be a course I liked more now than at the time I played in the 90s

[Tommy Williamsen]

Dye’s lasting gift to GCA limited your usually prolix analysis to a paragraph of incomplete sentences, so I’d say it has inspired a minimalist point of view! 😅

I say this in all good humor: I'm making a list of all you mf's and whenever you chirp up your revulsion at some feature that HT holds in spades, I'll be in the tall weeds waiting with your hypocrisy...


And to wit, not one of you cited a specific feature or refuted one of the minimalist charges therein... except that someone said it was a lovely walk...which I can totally see.  But let that same gentle walk come at some place that doesn't cause your panties to moisten and it's like an affront to tradition that the lands are flat...and what happened to those purist/147 Appropriators charges of the walking course not larded with cart paths, when this looks like a go-cart park from above or at eye level? 


What happened to your moanings of "playing width;" and endless banality threads about mowing lines?  Refute if you can that this place is 16 alleyways cut through now-overgrown trees.  How can anyone bemoan what's happened at Augusta with its rough and its plantings when I saw more shots played off pine straw and hard packed sand through and around trees than as in the fairway this weekend?


These 4 par 3s are great?  WHAT?...each one an aerial carry over artifical bunkers and artifically gathered water...that's wonderful to watch pros tackle, but to play?  That 7th hole looks to be the single stupid-par 3, thisi side of a Trump course... the green an island of water and sand with trees  overhanging the left side. What the heck are you talking about...what the hell is fun about that?  Honestly Bethpage Black doesn't even have what I consider a grouping of fantastic par 3s, but at least their variety and visual confrontation is better than that...


I mean this course has so many of you intoxicated as to abandon all judgement, that frickin Tom Doak is citing GD's immediate installation of high ranking as soem data-point of specialness. (that's Tom frickin' Doak, the greatest proselyzter against rankings, who so disenchanted with ratings made his own landmark system).


Again I say these hard words with no particular hard intent, but fellows why don't one of you say why these bowling alleys are acceptable here...why these flat fairways are acceptable here...why these nearly-exclusive aerial shots are accepted here.. why these lush/plush conditions are acceptable here...why this artificial and expensive-to-keep-as-is course should receive such favor when these features are reviled in modern parlance?

Why are you so angry? 
I find HT a refreshing change of pace. The first hole is very tight with OB on the left. Standing on the tee you are aware that your tee shot must be straight. Probably not the best start. It is short hole though so if you're not feeling comfortable hit something 200 yards. Yous till only have a short iron left. I am one that doesn't think every course should have width. Number eleven is very tight but from the member tees it is only a short in into the green.Hit is crooked though. Pick your poison from the tee. This might be my least favorite hole. Number nine is a wonderful short par four. I found that laying bak gave me a better shot at making a birdie. Longer hitter hit it in the greenside bunker. I find the par fives great fun. Number two is reachable for me and number five holds interest on all three shots. Fifteen is really plenty wide and reachable but the green has a lot of movement so being on the correct side of the pin is imperative.
The par threes keep you on your toes. Some may think the water is over -used on them but they sure do keep you on your toes and depending on the pin placement expect you you either hit something left to right or right to left. The green on 17 is not as deep as it appears on tv and into the wind is scary, followed of course by the tough 18th. I particularly like 13. The tee shot needs to be left and long to get the best shot into little flip wedge into a well guarded green. I can't remember if the tree on the left of 16 is still there. I seem to recall that it came down. The tree caused me trouble. I couldn't get [passed it so it hit short of it and had to hit  along shot over that great expanse of waste area. I don't know if it is a great course or not but it certainly is fun and makes you think on every shot. The greens and greens complexes require good execution and imagination.


The first time I played (1985) was in a pro-am. I was paired with my best friend and Arnie. It was fascinating to see how differently Arnie and played it. Our Strategies were vastly different. We played the back nine first. I host 39 and Arnie 38. I thought, "well this could get fun." Alas, I shot 40 on the front and he shot 31. Oh, well. He could have shot 29. He missed a couple five footers.

[Jeff Schley]

From an amateur's point of view it is still plenty long.  We played it on a calm day in June and actually was pleasant for that time of the year, wasn't crazy humid.

Tight, very tight if you aren't in the fairway which for amateurs who are a little wayward like myself, pretty tough. Flat, which was nice for a walk and I like the holes along the water, especially 18 which was pretty iconic.  Aim at the lighthouse off the tee, etc.

My dad broke 80 IIRC as he was in the fairway all day and hit greens as he won the money that day by quite a bit. I would like to see them hack some trees down, but in terms of the hazards I welcome the water and sand which makes it a demanding course regardless of how wide the fairways are.

[Carl Rogers]

HT is on my bucket list.
Does HT offer the best strategic use of trees of any course in North America?

[jeffwarne]

Variety is the spice of life and I never want to see all courses follow the same trend.
Harbour Town has some cool holes and was different when it was built.


That said, I never enjoyed the course that much as I'm not a good enough ball striker to enjoy it.
Secondly the few times I did go in the late 80's it was always in abysmal shape in the summer(shade and heavy overseed crowding out bermuda's recovery)
Finally, it was always painfully slow and after a 3 hour front nine we generally packed it in.
Admittedly I was a bit spoiled working at Long Cove which was geared a bit more to year round conditining as opposed to HT's peak in spring.
I just always felt like LC had much variety than HT-which I found highly one dimensional with the exception of 18.