[Bernie Bell]

I like the UK idiom, and it is used often here.  Cheap is self-explanatory though subjective and relative to the neighborhood.  What are the qualities that make a course/club cheerful?  Almost everyone picks humble, useful, low maintenance Mary Ann over Ginger, but both are beautiful.  Are there qualities in a course/club for which cheerfulness can compensate and others for which it can not?  Is cheerfulness itself an important factor, the absence of which dims the luster of even the "greatest" architecture?

[Ira Fishman]

I am not sure that you can get more cheerful than Kilspindie. From the check in at the tiny shop personed by two delightful elderly women, to the opening Par 3, through the stone fence on the finishing holes, to the beer on the small patio behind 18. And that does not even count the views of the water.


On the other hand, as good as the golf architecture is at Streamsong and the service, the corporate feel left us feeling less than cheerful.


Ira

[Peter Pallotta]

Good question, Bernie.
I don't have a direct answer, but your reference to the UK courses brought this to mind:
It somehow doesn't seem coincidental that for so many years Darwin wrote in such a sprightly and cheerful way, and with such easy elegance and casual erudition.
He was never heavy-handed or pompous/precious or (self) important -- and rarely seemed to be  'striving' for insight or even for 'great writing'. 
In other words: his mastery of the craft was made manifest in a light touch and an understated assuredness -- and that describes as well the design/gca of so many of the UK courses he wrote about. 

[Ira Fishman]

For a strictly US comparison, Mid Pines is cheerful with its slanted floor, dated rooms and antiquated website/reservation system. Plus the bar overlooking 18 is about as good as it gets (you can see that bars are a theme for me) in terms of story telling and laughter and classic bar food.


Pinehurst is not cheerful. Everything feels just a little “forced”.


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

For a strictly US comparison, Mid Pines is cheerful with its slanted floor, dated rooms and antiquated website/reservation system. Plus the bar overlooking 18 is about as good as it gets (you can see that bars are a theme for me) in terms of story telling and laughter and classic bar food.


Pinehurst is not cheerful. Everything feels just a little “forced”.


Ira

I am curious if anyplace can be "cheerful" by your definition if it consists of more than 18 holes.


It seems that scale can destroy intimacy.


The multiple separate pro shops at Bandon actually help it in that regard, but getting on a bus to go over to them probably doesn't.

[Ira Fishman]

For a strictly US comparison, Mid Pines is cheerful with its slanted floor, dated rooms and antiquated website/reservation system. Plus the bar overlooking 18 is about as good as it gets (you can see that bars are a theme for me) in terms of story telling and laughter and classic bar food.


Pinehurst is not cheerful. Everything feels just a little “forced”.


Ira

I am curious if anyplace can be "cheerful" by your definition if it consists of more than 18 holes.


It seems that scale can destroy intimacy.


The multiple separate pro shops at Bandon actually help it in that regard, but getting on a bus to go over to them probably doesn't.

Well, I consider MP and PN to be one place. PN just doesn’t have quite as good of a bar although the food is even better.


I do think that Bandon is more on the cheerful side than Streamsong or Pinehurst. It feels less about making money even though that clearly is important. So it is more low key and relaxed. One of the big surprises for us was that the bar restaurants (a theme as previously stated) were unhurried and quite good. We spent four nights without having to venture to one of the upscale choices.


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

Well, I consider MP and PN to be one place.

Yes, but not really.  You don't have golfers from both courses congregating in the same place.


Bandon Trails, with its little restaurant and pro shop overlooking the 18th, comes closest at Bandon to "cheerful" because of the scale of the building.  But it's not cheap.

[Ira Fishman]

Well, I consider MP and PN to be one place.

Yes, but not really.  You don't have golfers from both courses congregating in the same place.


Bandon Trails, with its little restaurant and pro shop overlooking the 18th, comes closest at Bandon to "cheerful" because of the scale of the building.  But it's not cheap.

My definition of cheerfulness is mostly about vibe regardless of the number of people. MP and PN have great vibe as does Kilspindie (many times over), and the vibe at Bandon more positive than at Streamsong or Pinehurst.


One of the reasons (although not the primary one) that Castle Stuart and Kingsbarns rank lower for me is the empty vibe. In contrast, Golspie and Brora are pure vibe, including a great bar overlooking 18 at Brora.


Ira

[Sean_A]

My wheelhouse is cheap and cheerful 😎.

Cheerful for me has more to do with smiling while hitting shots than it does the vibe of the house. Cheap is probably under 40 quid on a generous day. Kilspindie is not something I would call cheap. Do ya need to ask? Kington is cheap and cheerful.

Ciao

[Ronald Montesano]

OH MY GOD IM SHOUTING


The bar at Pine Needles is legendary. So kitschy, 1960s bar staff below you. They have the same at Peek'n Peak in Clymer, NY, and I love it. I've not been in the bar at MP (although I love that course better) but I'd take the PN bar 11 times out of 10, unless you tell me that the MP one is also split-level mid 20th century.

[Bernie Bell]

Can you elaborate Sean or are you worried that if you give away the key, clubs will try to game the Arble rankings?   

I can't smile when hitting shots out of muck here in the Mid-Atlantic.  Is drainage a component of cheerful?  For me it is; otherwise I think a course around here can only be cheerful on a hit-or-miss basis, and I don't consider myself a stickler for conditioning.  Or is hit-or-miss inherent in cheap and cheerful?

[Ira Fishman]

OH MY GOD IM SHOUTING


The bar at Pine Needles is legendary. So kitschy, 1960s bar staff below you. They have the same at Peek'n Peak in Clymer, NY, and I love it. I've not been in the bar at MP (although I love that course better) but I'd take the PN bar 11 times out of 10, unless you tell me that the MP one is also split-level mid 20th century.

No, the bar at MP is not split level, but it has a view looking right down number 18. On nice days, it evokes the old saying “If G-d is not a Tar Heel, then why did He make the sky Carolina Blue?” And I am a DePaul fan.


Ira

[Jon Wiggett]

Cheerful is an atmosphere. Cheerful is an ambience. Cheerful comes from the interaction you have with other people. Its social.

[Bernie Bell]

I loved everything about Pine Needles, including the bar, but it is not cheap.  Great value, but not cheap.  In Sandhills, I've not yet played Whispering Pines or Midland CC, but posters here have found them cheerful.  If you agree, what qualities make them so? 

[Tim Gallant]

Surely the most cheap and cheerful course has to be on the Bruntsfield Links!! Cheap: Either free, or, if you don't have any clubs, you can rent them from the pub for £3.


Cheerful? The Golf Tavern has good beers, decent food, and always has golf on the channel. In the summer, you can take your drink out and sit on the links, and watch as golfers of all abilities chip, putt and have a blast across the park.

[Sean_A]

Can you elaborate Sean or are you worried that if you give away the key, clubs will try to game the Arble rankings?   

I can't smile when hitting shots out of muck here in the Mid-Atlantic.  Is drainage a component of cheerful?  For me it is; otherwise I think a course around here can only be cheerful on a hit-or-miss basis, and I don't consider myself a stickler for conditioning.  Or is hit-or-miss inherent in cheap and cheerful?

To be fair, cheap & cheerful in the UK is say a tenner (lets go £15 for inflation  ) out the door for very average food with a drink or two and some banter.  I do expect more quality in the golf version, but probably less laughs...still, I want to leave happy even if I never set foot in the house.  Good banter in the house is a bonus!  Most courses worth playing fail the cheap test. 

Tim

Bruntsfield & Himalayas would make my C&C c&c list. But man must live on more than wedge & putter golf 

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

The Himalayas at St Andrews .... family and friends, togetherness, fun, smiles, laughter.
Almost every public park in the UK seemed in the past to have a putting green or a pitch-n-putt course where families and friends could play, have fun together and experience the game, often for the first time. Alas such facilities are mostly long gone. A great shame.

Atb

[Scott Warren]

For me “cheap and cheerful” describes anywhere that has a simple mission and delivers on it unselfconsciously.

The “cheap” and the “cheerful” are a job lot. You can’t separate them.

Somewhere cheap and cheerful doesn’t add unnecessary bells and whistles to the product/service it offers — the product/service has all of the essentials without the excesses that inflate cost.

Golf resorts are, by definition, not cheap and cheerful.

Golspie is cheap and cheerful.

Painswick is cheap and cheerful.

Randwick Golf Club in Sydney is cheap and cheerful.

Judging by their social media & other coverage, the types of US golf that are cheap and cheerful might be places like Winter Park, Goat Hill Park, Jax Beach Muni.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I have played a few courses that I thought were that way.  Like bars and restaurants, many times the return visit is a bit of a disappointment, mostly because whatever combo of friends I was with was the real source of cheer.  Or, sometimes it's something like a cold, grey (steel blue?) sky or early morning sunrise that gave the place it's appeal.


I also wonder if the "cheap" which is usually unassuming plays into it just because your expectations are lowered naturally, so it is easy to exceed them?

[Peter Pallotta]

I think you're onto something with your last point, JB -- but I wonder sometimes what those expectations are & are based on. Around here they are likely based on seeing/appreciating 'quality golf course architecture' instead of merely finding/experiencing a good game of golf. The irony, it seems to me, is that if the gca is so obvious that it can so immediately be seen and appreciated, it may not be of the kind/quality to provide the best game of golf possible. Or to put it another way: I wonder how many times we've walked off a cheap and cheerful course having had a wonderful game and not once considered the possibility that it was because the gca there was really really good.
P

[Jeff_Brauer]

Peter,


I believe some of the charm of older courses is that, over time, they have managed to create shot challenges that may not have originally been intended.  And not just famous ones, the kind of "under designed" course we see so often.  They might have steep banks around the greens because they wanted to save initial construction cost.  Yet, when you are faced with a delicate chip where you must just carry to the fringe to stay close to the pin (or on the green) its a great experience, regardless of the designers intent.  (which was probably to save money, get it grassed, and get the course open and revenues flowing...…)


Or, when you know you have to be "below the hole" due to green speeds never imagined.  It's purely random, and certainly not anticipated by any architect as something to design up. 


Might be just me, but I think some of the unseen, not obvious architecture arises just because of the random place your ball lands, relative to where the pin is set, etc.  It's not obvious until your ball lands in that exact right place to reveal it, LOL.

[Peter Pallotta]

JB - thanks, and you're probably right about that too. But that is why (again, ironically) in deference to the architects here I've often tried to explore/evaluate 'architecture' divorced from the course and further divorced from the setting -- despite the fact that, in the final analysis, it's important only that a golf course *does* play well, not  *how* and *why* it does, or *who* was responsible for it.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think Scott’s closest: You can’t separate cheap and cheerful: It is one saying.


But it also means the golf cannot be top class. In many ways, it’s a backhanded compliment for a snob. One that says “I really liked it but don’t go thinking that I consider this my bag. I fly in higher circles”.

[Sean_A]

For me “cheap and cheerful” describes anywhere that has a simple mission and delivers on it unselfconsciously.

The “cheap” and the “cheerful” are a job lot. You can’t separate them.

Somewhere cheap and cheerful doesn’t add unnecessary bells and whistles to the product/service it offers — the product/service has all of the essentials without the excesses that inflate cost.

Golf resorts are, by definition, not cheap and cheerful.

Golspie is cheap and cheerful.

Painswick is cheap and cheerful.

Randwick Golf Club in Sydney is cheap and cheerful.

Judging by their social media & other coverage, the types of US golf that are cheap and cheerful might be places like Winter Park, Goat Hill Park, Jax Beach Muni.

Time does fly. Golspie is now closer to £100 than £50 for a round in summer.

Ciao

[Jon Wiggett]

Sean,


like you I did not think Golspie was in the 'cheap' bracket and at £80 I am afraid it is in the overpriced one in my opinion. A couple of seasons ago it was at £45 which I thought for the standard rack rate was about right.

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