Lookout Mountain Club - Lookout Mountain, GASeth Raynor/Charles Banks 1925, Brian Silva 1998
Doak Scale Score - 6
At Lookout Mountain, it's the templates with a twist (and glorious views) as in this "Short" sixth from a rocky-top tee with death lurking closely to the right.In theory, Lookout Mountain should be a knockout. A recently restored Seth Raynor designed/Charles Banks constructed course at the height of both men's powers on a high promontory in northern Georgia with views for what seem to be thousands of miles. But alas, nothing is so easy.
The course is built on very hilly, nay, mountainous terrain that can be overwhelming and even disorienting to one's equilibrium as every stance is unbalanced. This can lead to some intense severity as the shot requirements coming into the greens are quite exacting. At that elevation, bedrock is just below the surface which made excavation a significant challenge. Thus, many of the bunkers planned by Raynor were never originally built and many remain that way in the Brian Silva "restoration" the club performed in the 1990s.
There are few more lovely places to play the game and for how hilly the course is it is still quite walkable given the intimacy and thoughtful routing. The course plays along a long, broad slope from north falling south, but there is more than enough dips and valleys throughout as to disguise the overall landform and create internal interest on virtually every single hole.
As I thought about it, perhaps this was a course where Raynor should have let the land dictate more of the challenge than being slavish to incorporating templates. Indeed, two of the best holes on the course are the only two par fives, 10 & 14 and they remind me of nothing I've seen before from Raynor. The long par four 7th is another terrific hole that just utilizes the existing natural features brilliantly.
Each of the "template" holes falls just short of perfect execution. The Biarritz is lacking a maintained front section (precisely as Raynor evidently drew) but his ambitious bunkering couldn't be realized probably due to subsurface rock and ongoing maintainability. The redan looks wonderful but the green does not have sufficient right to left fall for the proper playability at the angle it's played as the tee was moved left at some time to accommodate a parking roundabout. The short is attractive played from a stone structure, but does not offer the width and variability of green-size that is optimum. The Eden is significantly, almost steeply uphill with a green featuring almost certain three-putt (more likely off the green) as the penalty for anything beyond the hole location, which is particularly daunting given the required trajectory of the approach for the average golfer. The Road Hole has opportunity for improvement as it seems about half the green fill pad has never been recovered as green-space, making the placement of the key "road hole" greenside bunker almost superfluous. I do have to concede that the Alps is quite inspiring and as one comes over the top of the hill looking out for hundreds of miles it's a goosebump moment.
The greens are, in a word, bewildering. Given their maintained speeds, firmness, and throw in ever-present wind, bermuda grain, the "mountain effect", and their slope and contouring, I don't know any course where local knowledge isn't more at a premium. I can't think of another course where one is made to look almost pathetically silly given the putting variables.
Still, Lookout Mountain remains a lovely place to play in a unique setting that just exposes any weakness in anyone's game and does it with seeming glee.
(Note - I purposefully did not read the recent GCA thread started by Mark Chalfant on Lookout Mountain as I didn't want my impressions colored by other judgements. I will read it now.)