HarbourTown = Bowling Alley

[V. Kmetz]

Each of the last two years, I've tried to find out what magic juju beans this course has to relieve it of the critiques that are so vehemently laid on dozens of Top 300 courses past and present....


1. Why don't playing corridors and playing width matter here?
2. Why don't bowling alley trees from tee to green not a concern for turf health, air and light here?
3. How is this, entirely "wrought" artifically-imposed-upon-the-land housing development rated World Top 50 course, site of an annual tournament for 40 years not a horrible beacon for unsustainable fantasyland course design, like the charge levied so often at Augusta National?
4. How come the obvious plus-maintenance this course requires not a stain?
5. Why doesn't flat ground doesn't matter here?
6. How come balls ricocheting off the cart paths 15 yards from fairways and green not an outrage to the natural sensibility here?
7. Why doesn't a tree in the middle of 390 yard dog leg hole (with trees on either side) not an unnatural stupidity here?


Though I've never played it, I like the course. I like watching the pros tackle it on TV, even moreso because this year its NOT following the Masters and the field is just a bit better, and the raw action of watching golf a bit more precious.


To be sure, I don't really truck with all the 7 critiques above, they are more "this boards' consensus critiques" and the common love I hear cast here doesn't compute when I see the scorn about these points when applied to most other courses... perhaps the only ones that really stir me when I'm thinking about the best designs are #1 and 2...playing width and turf health balanced against the natural environment of trees...


But this site... endless threads about all 7 of these critiques/factual aspects...24-7... I think whenever I see such a critiques about other courses, I'm going to ask the poster his opinion of this course to get it in context.

[Dan_Callahan]

Harbour Town has many fans on this site. I played it a year ago and thought it was fine but nothing special. Very tight. Cart paths and OB all over the place. I wouldn’t turn down another round, but I would t go out of my way to play there again either.

[jeffwarne]

I enjoy it as a Tour site due to its unique challenge vs so many other yawners on Tour.
Not really a fan of the course, though there are some cool holes and shots(just too much of same).
Long Cove is far better IMHO, and there are multiple other places on Hilton Head and surrounds I would prefer to play.

[Pat Burke]

I mostly agree with both posts above


I believe it is a good tournament course from a tour standpoint.  Requires precision and execution on hitting specific targets.  As basically an outlier, I think it is good to simply require tournament players to have to execute each shot.  I feel like long cove as mentioned and the TPC so much the same but better, but a few events demanding this is good IMO


I felt my game was pretty well suited to HT.  I could move the ball both ways, hit it low/high.  But without being a jerk, my expectations were so high that when i played my first Tournament practice round, I was disappointed. Back then, the trees had really overgrown and as I understand, the greens had shrunk quite a bit, but it was pretty weird to be working shots around trees or under them going into some greens.


I didn’t play well my first year, let it get to me a bit.  More experience and learning, I had fun with it the next time I played, and just took on the quirky stuff
Again, not every week, but I like the requirements HT gives them

[Kevin Stark]

I suspect they're on a severe restriction on what they can do with their trees. The town restricts this severely for property owners (see here: https://hiltonheadislandsc.gov/departments/commdev/natresources.cfm#:~:text=The%20tree%20ordinance%20encourages%20the,required%20buffers%20and%20wetland%20areas.)


I thought that Mr. Dye created a tremendous amount of strategy and subtle landforms from a pool table-flat site.

[Matt_Cohn]

A few educated guesses on why it's well-liked despite being narrow, highly-treed, etc. I have not played it:

1. Yes lots of trees, but they're natural trees, not planted.
1B. Yes flat, but it's natural flat, not bulldozed.
2. It was so different from anything built at the time that it became kind of important.
3. It requires players to work the ball in both directions.
4. It makes length relatively unimportant.

[V. Kmetz]

The first handful of responses make me re-state that I (without having played) like the course and mostly agree with how it comports with a professional game and is far more interesting than a healthy load professional venues...


And I also would amplify that I'm not framing objections I would uniformly make... I like carts, am blithely unconcerned with cart paths and argue no single invention has done more to make the game grow beyond wealthy private clubs than the golf cart.  I neither like or dislike flatter grounds, let me see what's been done with a flat site... I can feature trees in the middle of a dogleg fairway... I like radical new takes and manufactured complications...to me that aspect can be as much of feature of pleasing genius design as the "natural" virtues so often extolled.

I'm just at a loss to know how a course with all these admitted features doesn't bring howls of protest on those critique points on this site...Ran must weep when he hears the very name "HarbourTown"...

[Edward Glidewell]

Although I have not personally played it, a friend played there last year and said that while the course was solid, it wasn't remotely worth the $300 green fee he paid nor was it anywhere he felt like he needed to play again, even for a much reduced rate. Another person I know who played there several times in the 90s (although not since) had similar thoughts. He enjoyed the course, but said it wasn't somewhere he'd go out of his way to play, nor would he rank it among the best courses he's played.

It looks exceptionally tight on TV and not especially fun if you aren't a low handicap player who is in complete control of their ball on the vast majority of swings.

[V. Kmetz]

I'd be interested to hear the Doak rating on this...


...And where does it currently rank in the traditional lists?


...And are there any ardent defenders/haters? I thought I was hearing a lot of cream on this course, on this board, in the not so distant past... which seems impossible to me, given the topical factors that are in focus...

[Sean_A]

I am decidedly not a fan. I don't see much creativity in hitting down bowling alleys. Without question HT is one of the WTF highly rated courses I have seen. I have zero interest in revisiting the lumber yard unless someone is picking up the cost. That said, for such a dreadful driving course, the greens and surrounds are pretty cool 😎.

Ciao

[Mark Pearce]

I am decidedly not a fan. I don't see much creativity in hitting down bowling alleys. Without question HT is one of the WTF highly rated courses I have seen. I have zero interest in revisiting the lumber yard unless someone is picking up the cost. That said, for such a dreadful driving course, the greens and surrounds are pretty cool 😎.

Ciao

Thanks Sean, you typed my response for me.  I just don't have any interest in playing there, which is my test.

[Thomas Dai]

I’m usually in favour of open aspect golf but in saying that ‘bowling alley’ is okay occasionally ... occasionally.
What might be an acceptable length ‘bowling alley’ for shorter hitters who will still be using Drivers from the tee is likely to be a festival of these days mid-iron tee-shots for longer hitters unless they, the longer hitters that is, are okay playing smash it and hopefully find it golf. And at tree canopy height holes are usually narrower than at tree trunk height.
And of course there are other issues with ‘bowling alleys’ especially maintenance and conditioning related factors like shade, tree roots in drains, frost etc etc.
Atb

[Ben Stephens]

I am decidedly not a fan. I don't see much creativity in hitting down bowling alleys. Without question HT is one of the WTF highly rated courses I have seen. I have zero interest in revisiting the lumber yard unless someone is picking up the cost. That said, for such a dreadful driving course, the greens and surrounds are pretty cool 😎.

Ciao

Thanks Sean, you typed my response for me.  I just don't have any interest in playing there, which is my test.

Sean,


Surprised that you said this - I have played there before and the fairways are wider than they look on TV however if you are in the wrong part of the fairway the tree blocks your shot to the green meaning that you have to be creative in your shotmaking - isn't that what Pete Dye set out.


There are a few holes that are wide. I wouldn't say it is a bowling alley - Woburn's Dukes/Duchess and Forest Pines is tighter and resembles a bowling alley. The are other courses on HHI that are tighter. Might be why Ian Poulter plays well at HT.


The fairways on most courses on Hilton Head are predominately flat and Dye did some great work creating subtle creativity with the greens and surrounds. 


One of my favourite golf moments was on the first hole when the caddy said he would go up to the fairway to keep an eye on the balls. I hit my first tee shot right down the middle. The caddy put both arms out wide and then I walked up to him what did he mean he said 'that means safe' I then said 'in my country thats wide!!'


(I already knew the rules of baseball) 


The worst was pushing a drive miles right over an apartment block on 18!


For me Harbour Town is underrated and you need to play it a number of times to understand what Mr Dye is asking you. Boy I need to play Long Cove next time I am in HHI.


Cheers
Ben

[Mark_Fine]

The beauty of golf as I have said many times is the variety of the playing fields.  Sand Hills is completely different from Augusta National which is completely different from Merion (talk about a tight driving course which by the way has trees as well) which is completely different from Brookline which is completely different from Harbour Town.  But that is what is so great about golf. Yet all these courses present their own kinds of challenges.   Harbour Town, if you play it enough times, is a great golf course.  You would think the pros for example would hate it because they like “fairness” and with all those trees and tight fairways, how could it possibly be fair for them yet it is consistently ranked by almost all of them as one of their favorite golf courses that they play.  The reason is because it requires shot making of all kinds and it also has a truly great and underrated (by some) set of green complexes.  There are some very tight holes but there is as Ben just said plenty of room to play golf.  It has a lot of character and many unique holes.

By the way, if you really want to see bowling allies, play the 120+ year old New Course at St. Andrews.  Not much chance of recovery from the gorse on each side. 

[Tim_Weiman]

OP:


I played Harbor Town 3-4 times back in the early 1980s. That meant persimmon and balata. I don’t recall feeling the golf course was a bowling alley. Not at all.


Does anyone know if tree growth has significantly changed width over the past 30-40 years?


Mark Fine:


I agree with your sentiment. Appreciating golf architecture requires travel. When you do travel, you want to find something different, a course with its own character.


Though in roughly the same area and designed by the same architect, I found Harbor Town and Long Cove to meet the “its own character” test.

[V. Kmetz]

MF and TW,

I repeat: I like and respect the course (from afar); I would want to play it if circumstances came together (one of those being not having to pay $300 for any course).. and I certainly understand variety and different environments; except for the obvious lack of driving width, none of those other original critiques bother me in the least.

I just cannot fathom how the organic, natural, pure, bunkerless, walk-out-and-play-with-your-dog-leashed-to-a-pull-cart preponderance of posters can not be pepper-spraying and taking a knee on this course... no, in fact, over the years it has ardent supporters and Dye-is-unique apologists.  If you want the devil incarnate... here it is (for them).

MF, you mention the diffeering, necessary varieties...but HarbourTown doesn''t get that "unsustainable poor leadership model" heat ANGC does... it doesn't get the charges of USGA disfigurement and pandering that Merion did/does... why doesn't HarbourTown, one of Dye's earliest signature efforts, which has hosted a tournament on TV for 40 years and a model for resort development not be crucified for how unnatural, and manufactured and everything else bad that a Fazio or RTJ does?

And I'm still wondering what its Doak score is in the updated CG...as well as the major national rankings.

[Carl Rogers]

HT is on my bucket list.  I bet that it is a lot more interesting in person than it is on the tube.
The tree pruning and thinning seems to be very beneficial.
I, too, like the broadcast better without the fans.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom Doak had given it an 8 but I don't know if he changed his opinion on that or not?  I have it right there in that range as well.  It is also kept in much better condition than it used to be.  Forgot the cost to play because that is an unfair assessment of a golf course's quality.  Also forget the flat ground as many courses that are considered great have minimal topography change/low profiles (Pinehurst #2 immediately comes to mind).  Harbour Town is one of those courses that the more you play it, the more you appreciate just how good it really is.  It is not a 10 but it really is an outstanding design.  I go back to the green complexes; they really are special. They are always described as "small" but more should be discussed about their shapes/design.  Just because they don't feature buried elephants doesn't mean they are not contoured and challenging.  The set of par threes is exceptional and some of the short fours are as good as you will find anywhere.  I will admit, not every hole is outstanding but if they all were it would be a 10.  Yes the course was "manufactured" but ALL Pete Dye courses are.  I love Long Cove as well but it is also a manufactured Pete Dye design.  Harbour Town has done a lot of tree clearing in recent times (the Oaks on the island are protected so it is not easy to do).  Harbour Town is not claustrophobic although accuracy and shot shaping are required to play well on most of the holes.  Nothing wrong with that. 

[William_G]

-this week it's playing wider than normal for the pros as there are no fans
-it's a housing development and essentially sucks

-I've played there once and it's all about position and hitting the shot, the greens are not interesting in terms of contours or size
-many other places to play that are more fun, but this is a Pete Dye, and has some intrinsic cool things

-CBS still couldn't bring themselves to eliminate the tower behind 17 
-keep the fans away. I like it LOL

[Mark_Fine]

William,
Your post is a good example of why the greatest courses need to be studied to be learned.  One time around is not enough.  Kind of like Bobby Jones walking off The Old Course the first time thinking it was a cow pasture before finally falling in love and trying to design his own course after it. 


Your comment about the greens I am sorry is so wrong.  You need to play it a few more times and look a little closer.  The genius is in the subtlety of the design especially for a low profile site. Most of the greens/greensites reflect this as well as how they tie into their surrounding hazards.  We can agree to differ but honestly you must have been focused too much on your own game and not on the architecture.  In some ways I don’t blame you when you are paying that much to play your one round.  But the golf course is much better than you are stating. 

[Ronald Montesano]

You've all inspired me to begin a concurrent thread. Happy Father's Day

[Sean_A]

Ben

I don't tend to be a big fan of courses which lack variety. To me HT is far too heavily weighted with play between trees and a lot of hacking out recovery. That sort of golf doesn't hold my attention. I don't feel any desire need or obligation to return to see if my 6 opinion is undervalued. There are tons more places I would rather see.

Ciao

[Jerry Kluger]

I would ask those who have played Harbour Town and Long Cove, which is close by, which course they prefer.  I really liked Long Cove and found it to be far more interesting than HT with far more variety of holes.  My recollection is great enough to be more specific but I wonder what others think.

[Mark_Fine]

Sean,
The trees at Harbour Town (if you are watching the Heritage) do allow for creative recovery shots.  We were talking about Pine Valley on the other thread and no doubt the corridors there are MUCH wider but miss them and there is little to no recovery if you can find your ball.  Most of the caddies don’t even bother to look when a ball goes in the trees. 


For golfers who are not so accurate or can’t work the ball both ways or control flight trajectory, Harbour Town will be challenging.  But that said, it fills up with resort players of all abilities and play moves around that course in very respectable times for a PGA Tour course. 


This thread is a great example of why there is so much disparity in golf course rankings.  It is such a subjective thing with no right or wrong opinions - only strong ones 😉

Sean,
I am curious, what Doak number do you give The New Course at St. Andrews.  My guess is 4 at best. 

Jerry,
I spend a lot of time on HHI and have played both dozens of times.  They are different but both are special.  Both courses have recently undergone renovation and regrassing work and it improved both courses.  I expect to see Long Cove jump up in the rankings.

[Tom_Doak]

I'd be interested to hear the Doak rating on this...

VK:


I went to my review from the 1996 edition of The Confidential Guide, for perspective.  [The course got an 8 then, I think I demoted it to a 7 this time, in concert with demoting Long Cove from a 9 to an 8.]  Here was my review:


"Harbour Town holds a special place in my heart, because it was the first really good golf course I saw, and it gave an impressionable youth a taste for golf architecture.  It is rightly famous among American courses for marking a turning point in the history of golf architecture, away from the Trent Jones school to the Pete Dye school, and there are an enormous number of good strategic holes despite the flattish ground and lack of total length.  There is indeed a fine set of short holes, although I do not agree that they are the best set in the world -- they're much too similar.


However, I would be inclined to agree with Pete that the course is somewhat overrated by many critics.  The Tour players love it for its tiny greens, which demand precise iron play, but these proved to be less than fuctional at a resort which does 70,000 rounds of golf annually. . . ."




(It used to bother Mr. Dye that so many people thought Harbour Town was his best course.  He did not think so, but you can't argue with TV.)


The strategy of Harbour Town is confined to a much narrower space than most other courses we talk about, but it's still there -- there are many holes where you have a shot at the green if you miss the fairway on one side, and no shot if you miss just to the other side.


The genius of it, to me, is how exciting the course looks and plays, considering how flat the ground is.  It was routed by George Cobb the same as any of the other courses at Sea Pines Plantation, which were 3's and 4's on the Doak Scale.  But Mr. Dye's imagination and craftsmanship made it into something worth seeing and playing.