Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Loch Lomond Golf Club
Organized in 1994, Loch Lomond was set up in the tradition of Augusta National and Pine Valley; it has an international membership which doesn't serve as a local golf club in the traditional sense. In fact, Loch Lomond is constituted as a 'destination' club to be 'savored' only a few times a year. Membership is organized around specific geographic regions. The club has appointed specific 'Club Captains' to assume leadership and membership responsibilities for these geographic regions and to ensure a particular geographic mix of members.
Apparently I got it all wrong. The club markets itself in a pompous fashion, but once behind the gates, I found Loch Lomond to be delightful and not the least bit pretentious. After hearing my pleas for access, I was contacted by a member who wanted to prove that Loch Lomond is a down to earth kinda' club, even if it is for people in the über-privileged class. After my visit I was better able to appreciate what they have here and separate out the pomposity of the marketing from the actual membership and club operation. Bottom line, I immensely enjoyed my first visit to their 'private and discerning international golf club' and hope to return to play again.
As you can see from a picture of the third green above, one of the design elements of the course is the shaved areas around many greens. This picture shows the severity of the slope. The fourth, twelfth and thirteenth holes also have severe shaved areas such as the one seen here.


The photogenic seventeenth hole ("The Bay")
The 215 yard photogenic par three seventeenth hole is set in a spectacular setting near the loch.
Most would agree that Loch Lomond is one of the finest and most scenic places in the world to be at and to play golf on. But how is the course? Certainly, to rank a parkland course in Scotland this high in the world rankings it must be special. To be honest, the course on its own right probably is like a lot of other high quality parkland courses in the United States. What makes it so charming is the combination of having a very good course set in this breathtaking location, the exclusivity of the club and one of the best clubhouses in the world. It is impossible to separate the course from its environment. Looked at in total, I agree that Loch Lomond is roughly one of the top fifty places in the world to play golf.

Loch Lomond looking up toward Ben Lomond from the 17th green
In the end, I was won over at Loch Lomond by the setting and the Scottish charm. The club is not pretentious, and I've decided that I like being pampered. I had an 'A' caddy and a great day at Loch Lomond. I have been playing some local municipal courses this year to try to cut back on expenses, and the experience here was the polar opposite of public golf. I didn't find lots of broken tees laying on each tee box, nobody was walking around with their shirt out, there were not a lot of unrepaired pitch marks on the greens, and we didn't have to wait to hit every shot. While playing the round, I was asking the member how far it was to Dundonald, the other course associated with Loch Lomond. "About 10 minutes by helicopter." It must be nice.
It's official. I've become a golf snob. The problem is that, once you experience this level of golf, it's tough to go back. I apologize to all of you hackers out there for leaving the fraternity of regular guys and moving over to the dark side. I have indeed gone native. It did strike me as a bit odd that they served us Kool Aid at Loch Lomond after the round in the walled garden. I should have paid more attention, as it didn't seem right at the time, but now there is no going back.
Loch Lomond was the last of the twenty-seven courses ranked in the top 100 in Europe that I set out to play. As such, I finished on a very high note indeed, but hope to be invited back to Loch Lomond again.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Valderrama
Valderrama Golf Club (ranked #77 in the world) is located between the Sierra Blanca mountains and the Mediterranean Sea in Southern Spain, not far from the Rock of Gibraltar. Valderrama is a very formal club; while it allows visitors, it also has a lot of rules, restrictions and protocol. Many areas are restricted to members only and you must wear a jacket indoors. In this regard it reminded me of Muirfield in Scotland. I was able to play Valderrama recently on a trip through Europe and was thrilled to do so. The course is private, but if you arrange it far enough in advance, following their rules, it is possible to play without too much hassle.
My journey to Spain
In keeping with my new lower net-worth, and being sensitive to the sudden era of frugality we find ourselves in, I'm economizing and being very austere. Conspicuous consumption is out, hard knocks are in. Going budget is the new black. As such, I'm now in the back of the plane and have to suffer through the indignity of the masses. While flying, I have previously been seated next to someone who has had to suffer the humiliation of the flight attendant handing them a seat belt extender. Flight attendant discretion and a barely audible voice are a prized characteristic when dealing with the porcine passenger. My flight over to Espana included a new travel experience for me.
I could see the big man coming a mile away. I caught him out of the corner of my eye. Please, I whispered to myself, I hope he's not next to me. As he approached my aisle I pretended not to see him in the hope it was a bad dream. "Excuse me sir, these are my seats." Hmm. I looked at the big boy with a puzzled expression and pulled out my boarding pass to look, while simultaneously saying a couple of quick Hail Mary's. "I have 15D and E, the aisle and middle," he said. I didn't see him with anyone else. Alas, I had taken my seat on the wrong side of the aisle and moved. Low and behold, he lopped into both seats, rather uncomfortably in my view. He was absolutely large enough to warrant two seats, but it is still a shock to the system to see this type of spectacle first hand.
I dozed off during taxi and takeoff and was awoken by a major ruckus underway in the plane. The case of the missing roll. Where was the dinner roll? Apparently his gourmand cuisine was missing a roll (wrapped in plastic for both sanitary reasons and for dramatic effect no doubt). Passengers in front of us and behind us had gotten rolls, but mysteriously, his roll was missing. You'd think that the crown jewels had been stolen. It's a four day-old, stale roll for gods sake, not a priceless possession. I have a new found respect for the flight attendants who handled his inquisition with grace and not a tinge of sarcasm as they made a valiant, yet unsuccessful effort to find another roll. I almost chimed in during the dispute to suggest to Mr. Arbuckle that he was playing the wrong card. Since he bought two seats, he should have demanded two full meals instead of obsessing about the damn roll, which was a side-show.
The poor woman in the window seat will probably never fly again she was so traumatized. I miss first-class, where an unlimited supply of freshly baked rolls are complimentary.
The Golf Course
Valderrama was originally designed in 1975 by Robert Trent Jones Sr., but the original design was compromised by having to fit into the wishes of the then owners to accommodate a housing development. In 1985, a new owner Jaime Ortiz-Patino reacquired more parcels of land around the course so that it could be lengthened and redesigned. Jones was brought back in to redevelop and remodel the course and he did a masterful job. Much credit goes to both Jones and Ortiz-Patino for sticking with the project and devoting so much effort to realize their collective vision. Ortiz-Patino has followed the benevolent dictator model at Valderrama that worked so successfully at Pine Valley (Crump), Oakmont (Fownes) and Augusta (Roberts).
Jones' design philosophy of "hard par, easy bogey" works well at Valderrama, although in the end it is quite a difficult course. The defining characteristic of the place, as you soon find out, is the over 2,000 old cork oak trees that are everywhere.

The second hole, a 345 meter (for yards, add 10%) par four that requires a drive all the way to the left in order to avoid the trees seen above, which sit in the middle of the fairway. It is such a narrow landing area that it is highly likely that you will have a big decision to make on your next shot. Either try to hit over the tree or try a punch shot under the tree. Plain and simple, if you don't want to try out a variety of shots, you are not going to like Valderrama. If you think it's not fair to have a tree in your way after you hit the fairway, you also will not like Valderrama, since ten holes have an overhanging tree as a hazard.

The fourth is a highly rated hole, and is ranked among the 500 Greatest Golf Holes in the World, in George Peper's book of the same name. It plays down a contoured, uneven fairway hemmed in by cork and olive trees. It reminded me of the isolated third hole at Durban Country Club, which winds its way through the bush.

You can see more precisely in this picture, which looks backward off the eighth green, how tricky the trees are, and how small the greens are.


Above is the view looking from the green backward at the shaved area on seventeen. You will remember the balls trickling back down the slope into the water from the Ryder Cup. The Rock of Gibraltar is visible looking to your left when you stand on the seventeenth tee. You can also see the Rock from the elevated eleventh green.
I would describe the course as a cross between Augusta (its conditioning, bunker style and the terrain) and Harbour Town (the overhanging trees and narrow fairways). Rather than finding the trees to be a gimmick, I thought it was a good design characteristic. I had to punch five irons and hybrid clubs, had to hit wedges over tress and attempt to use all clubs to start the ball low, land on the green and then stop. Or I had to try to hit a big hook or slice, mostly without success. It can certainly be frustrating to hit a fairway and not have a clear second shot; but the decision to hit over, under or around a tree is part of Valderrama's charm.

Barcelona

The last time I was in Spain I passed through Madrid, so this time I arranged my travels so that I could visit Barcelona. I stayed on La Ramba, which is in central Barcelona and offers one of the most delightful areas in the world to go for a stroll down a tree lined boulevard. The architecture of Barcelona is beautiful, especially the iron railings on the exterior of all the buildings. There is much to be said for the slower, more relaxed Spanish way of life.
My only letdown was the well known church in Barcelona, the Sangrada Familia, designed by Gaudi. It is in an out-of-the-way neighborhood, is weird and is covered in scaffolding. It is to churches what Medinah is to golf courses: a big disappointment.
I felt fortunate to have an uneventful and quiet flight home. Luckily, there were enough rolls for everyone flying back to America.Sunday, May 31, 2009
From the Rough - Another view of Valderrama
It must be noted that my blogger colleague and I did not play in the same group. He was invited to play with a special, elite traveling group. I played with the third member of our trio of friends, each of whom is on a quest to play the world’s top 100 courses. My golfing partner and I flew into Madrid the day before and drove almost 10 hours south to Spain’s southern coast. Spain is a beautiful country – it is very dry and much more mountainous than ever imagined. Our drive took us through the city of Granada, which is home to the famous Alhambra palace. What shocked us most about Granada was the snow capped mountains that framed the city. These are the Sierra Nevada mountains, not unlike the Sierra Nevadas found in this country. Another highpoint of our day-long trip were the roads in Spain. They are real and spectacular. Perfect condition. No potholes, no traffic. Truly a pleasure to drive in this country. We passed seemingly miles of nothing but olive trees. There are more olive trees than people. Kind of like Scotland where sheep far outnumber humans. Refreshing.
Golfing Letdown
So where did things go wrong? First, as we were about to tee off, we asked the starter if it ever rains in the southern part of Spain. It’s probably a question he doesn’t get too often. After all, they don’t name it the Sun Coast for nothing. But it was a very cloudy this day and it looked darker on the horizon. “No, it never rains in Spain,” he confidently said. I was both pleased and relieved as I had left my rain suit and umbrella in my hotel room. By the third hole, the rain was pelting down. So much for Al Roker sitting in the starter house.
Although the rain was an unwelcome surprise, the bigger let down was the Valderrama golf course itself. This is where the big differences between my blogger colleague and I exist. My second shot on the first hole was my first clue. My drive was on the left edge of the fairway with about 160 meters to the green for a second shot. Not a great drive but certainly playable and acceptable to my level of play. But the second shot would require either a low stinger beneath the cork trees that would have to stop suddenly on a tiny green or a high lofty shot that would have to, by luck, ricochet off the cork trees and drop onto the green (see blogger pictures). It was then that I realized this course was built for Seve, not for Steve, Joe or Jim and their 8 to 14 American handicaps.
The second hole was a bit more ridiculous – cork trees in the middle of the fairway. My drive was where it was supposed to be – in the fairway. My reward for hitting the fairway? A punch shot to advance the ball under the trees. I couldn’t get near the green. And of course there was cork trees overhanging parts of the putting surface.
A quick comment on cork trees. They are fascinating. Never saw them before. Yes, they are spongy like a cork. I like cork, especially when it is released from a lovely bottle of Bordeaux. I don’t like cork when it unfairly obstructs my approach shots to green after green.
By the third hole, I said to my playing partner and traveling companion, “I’ve played this course before. It’s called Harbour Town. Hated that tricked up place and it isn’t worthy of being in the top 100.”
As we reached the fourth hole, the rain didn’t let up but the flow of the round did. We were delayed by the slow play of the two groups ahead of us. This gave us the chance to meet up with a lovely married couple and we joined their twosome. He was from Scotland, she was from Ireland. Golf was obviously in their blood. Money was obviously in their pocket as they were members of both Valderrama and Loch Lomond. Both had game but more importantly they were truly informative about their courses in Spain and Scotland. As for the fourth hole itself, it was more of the same. The picture looks nice but even the blogger admits that part of the green is blocked by overhanging trees.
By the time we got to the ninth hole, the rain was teeming down. Kind of like Octomom when her water broke. It was so intense and unexpected, the rain actually sent our Scottish/Irish friends packing. They had had enough. However, after we shook hands to say goodbye, the Scot, seeing my pathetic frame as if I were in a wet-tee shirt contest, offered me his rain suit. I’m not yet comfortable to jump into another man’s trousers but I quickly seized his waterproof jacket. All I had to do at the end of the round was to return it to Al Roker, who would put it in the Scot’s locker. Another reason to love Scotland, I declared.
The rain on the back nine continued. Admittedly, the golf course improved somewhat. But I think you get the idea that trying to bend and shape shots into covered greens gets old fast. My comments and rebuttal, however, wouldn’t be complete without a note about the “iconic seventeenth hole.” Yes, history was here during the 1997 Ryder Cup. My blogger colleague is correct in saying this is an uncharacteristic hole compared to the others because of the lack of overhanging cork trees around the green (perhaps there was an emergency corkage need for some Contador 2005 Benjamin Romeo). But what was most shocking about the 17th hole was the man-made pond in front of the green. Actually, calling it a pond is an injustice to ponds. If you look closely at the blogger’s second picture, you see the “pond’s” pool liner that is covered by sunken green algae. It’s kind of like the neighbor who has an in-the-ground pool but never cleans it. All that was missing was a diving board and a slide.
19th Hole
I didn’t hate Valderrama. As noted, I was very excited to visit Spain for the first time and play this historical course. I was pumped for a course that I thought would exceed expectations. But with the rain in Spain not staying on the plain and a course that doesn’t reward good shots, my Valerrama golfing experience was disappointing. Plus, and this cannot be ignored, at 300 euros plus 60 euros for a cart, the golf set me back about 480 large. Ouch!
What did I like about Valderrama? I like small greens, and small areolas and Valdy had about 18 of them. Plus the course was in beautiful shape. The scenery was just average – there was a lot of real estate. Keep in mind that this is a resort course. Think Harbour Town, Doral, Palm Desert. If you look really hard, you can see the Mediterranean Sea and the tip of the Rock of Gibraltar. Frankly, the views found within the low country of South Carolina (Yeaman’s Hall), cliffs of Bandon Dunes or windmill at Long Island’s National excite me much more. The biggest plus, as it is with all of our trips, was my playing partner. We were soaked yet thirsty. We reveled in our disappointment of the course yet had a lot of fun. The pops we consumed during and mostly after the round are and will always be a key component of any of our trips.
Finally, perhaps the best way to judge a golfing experience is to ask yourself if you would return. This doesn’t mean a second round in a day – that would be too easy, especially if, like my blogger colleague, money is not an issue (his idea of hard times is no salt on his peanuts or drinking 12-year-old Macallan instead of 15-year-old). Would I make another transatlantic flight to Spain just to play Valderrama? I would do – and have done it – for Scotland, Ireland and England. Spain, despite its rugged beauty and the extreme courteousness of its people, is not a place I would return for another golf experience. There are way too many other places I’ve got to play and re-play.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Galigolf Blogger

Surfing the web recentlyI stumbled across a blogger on the other side of the world that attracted my attention: Gilagolf. Gilagolf is a malay term meaning “Golf Crazy” and this kindred spirit plays golf courses in Malaysia and blogs about them.
There is a real art to writing a critical review, and he has it down. I'm a big fan of this genre and appreciate that not everyone loves every course. He gets an A+ for honesty. Also, him and I philosophically agree that many courses are over-hyped. His writing is very opinionated and is also laugh out loud funny.
Commenting on Fraser's Hill Golf Course: "It’s impossible to recommend this course to anybody, except people who intend to commit suicide. Terrible, terrible experience." On the courses amenities: "No card, no balls, no lockers, no maintenance, no nothing." You won't believe the pictures of the course he has within the post, it looks truly awful. His description of the dog following him around the course is hilarious.
The full write-up of Fraser's Hill is here.
I love his rating system of courses, especially his lowest rating: "Absolutely Astoundingly Crap", which is one rating lower than, "Waste of time and money."
His pictures are truly interesting; While they are obviously playing the same game we play, it looks a lot different. I was particularly struck by the narrowness of most of the courses and some of the geographic land formations (like the one at the top of this post). Malaysia is a mountainous, hot and tropical country that gets a lot of rainfall and the pictures and descriptions show this to great effect. I also like his maps and scorecards within the blog. Getting to courses here looks more like trying to deciper a treasure hunt map than anything else.


His write-up of the Selsa Hills Course, also gets extra style points: "The worst fairway in the whole world can be found here, in Selesa Hills Golf Course," and "Please don’t even think about this course. You’re better off standing in a driving range and have people hit their driver straight at you." He pulls no punches, "Make the turn and it descends into being plain, boring and crappy again. The first nine is a like a girl before marriage. After the turn, it’s post marriage, she becomes lazy, fat and hideous."
Like him, I am also always struck by the raving reviews you see in magazines and on web-sites, especially where the actual experience can be so different. In this vain, he re-writes a marketing piece done for the people at Bukit Unggul, replacing the original flowery prose with his own version below:
“Very few golf courses in Malaysia leave a lasting memory… Bukit Unggul Country Club is NOT one of them. Craved into a 65-hectare valley, the par 71 5,858-metre long 18-hole course is an unnatural piece of crap mutated by renowned American architect, Ronald Fream, who is also a suspect in the latest crime of defacing golf courses around the world. Golfers who play here for the first time instantly realize how screwed they are with each hole of wrong yardage and sadistic treelines that eat your balls. Golfballs, that is..”
“Playing he (sic) sadistic course demands a beretta 9mm and a precise shot to the head to end all misery. Here, a non existent fairway and green maintenance programme by the management ensures a muddy, dirty experience for all golfers, and especially for beginners, remind them just how lousy and useless they are and that they should stay home and curse the day they took up a golf club. Its un-maintained Bermuda Tifways fairways and tees, and bouncy Tifdwarf (do we actually give a darn what Tif actually is??!) greens exist harmoniously among a luch, majestic tropical rainforest, filled with wild boars and monkeys who will not hesitate to attack and kill golfers, simply to make play a true test of agony, like middle age torture, or wearing a corset at your crotch.
Bukit Unggul Country Club is simply an forgettable experience. However it will often return randomly as a nightmare that will revisit you night after night until your dying day.”
There, now that is what I call truthful advertising. Enjoy!
Friday, May 01, 2009
Cruden Bay Golf Club

Victorian beachgoers at the Cruden Bay beach
When I first played Cruden Bay early in my golf travels I experienced what the French call coup de foundre, which literally translates into a thunderbolt, or more accurately, love at first sight. Without having had broad exposure to the world's great courses, I found it difficult to immediately articulate exactly what it was about Cruden Bay that I liked so much and that made it so unique. Now that I have seen most of the world's great courses I now understand what makes Cruden Bay so great.
The antithesis of this experience is Cruden Bay. Driving into the car park for the first time is simply stunning. Below you, in a valley, is set a collection of massive sand dunes. Among the dunes weaves a golf course bordering on the North Sea. What makes Cruden Bay different from other links courses is that the parking lot and clubhouse are situated up on a hill, giving you an amazing view of the entire golf course and the over-sized dunes. This panoramic view gives a perspective that the other courses don't have. Arriving at almost all other links courses you are at sea level, depriving you of a birds eye perspective. At Turnberry, you certainly have some perspective from near from the hotel, but the geography at Cruden Bay is more dramatic. It's a compact little valley and the drop in terrain from the top of the hill to the sea nearby is more eye-catching.

The magnificent setting of Cruden Bay
Cruden Bay was originally designed by Old Tom Morris in 1899 and then re-designed by Tom Simpson and Herbert Fowler in 1926. Cruden Bay is located along the Aberdeen coast of Scotland about two hours north of Carnoustie. If there was ever an apt description of the term 'hidden gem,' then Cruden Bay is it. The golf writer James Finegan says of Cruden Bay: "Out sized, non conformist, unpredictable and flamboyant." These same words also describe course re-designer Tom Simpson to a tee, and the combination of Morris' original holes combined with Simpson's flair for the dramatic make this a special place.
The first two holes are par fours that are similar in style and play from elevated tee boxes, down into a valley, to greens set on a plateau. You are playing alongside the town of Cruden Bay with O.B. along the left side.
The first sign that the course is not going to be traditional starts at the third hole. It is a 285 par four with a big chocolate drop mound in the middle of the fairway 80 yards from the green, making it potentially a driveable green; however, the mound is so large that it is a blind shot if you go for it. The green sits down in a hollow with several hills and hammocks around it and in front.
The fourth is a world-class par three that plays along the village of Port Erroll. Driver is often in order on this ~200 yard hole, depending upon the wind.

The par three 4th green
To get from the fourth green to the fifth tee you walk between closed-in large dunes up a hill. The fifth is a 445 yard par four that plays from the top of the dunes down into a dramatic narrow snaking valley below you. Although the course is short, holes like the fifth demand long and accurate shots.
The par five sixth requires three shots, even for long hitters, due to its dog-leg and well-protected green sited within a mound of sand hills. You have to make sure you hit over the devilish Bluidy Burn with its dramatic falloff into the water, reminiscent of the Eli Burn on the seventh hole at North Berwick and the Wee Burn running through the 16th hole at Turnberry. Scotland has the most wicked burns in the world, a geographic feature we really don't have in the U.S. We have streams that don't look and feel like these burns do. The burns remind me of Dick Cheney: small, narrow, tricky and truly hazardous.

The 6th green with 'Bluidy Burn' surrounding
The seventh hole ("Whaupshank") is a par four with an elevated green situated between two dunes. Like all holes at Cruden Bay, it is a whimsical hole that snakes and twists through the dunes with a sharp dog-leg left. There is very little that is conventional on this course.
It is because of holes like the eighth that make Cruden Bay a course that has developed a cult following. It is a 248 yard par four that plays to an elevated green enclosed by dunes. English golf writer Dell Leigh, writing in his 1925 book Golf at its best on the LMS, describes the eighth as sitting "in a valley between stately hills; the hole which produces in the long hitter a frenzy of self-adulation." Leigh was writing about the original Old Tom Morris hole; Simpson had the foresight not to change it so the golfer can experience the same excitement today.

The exhilarating 8th hole looking back from the green, a 258 yard up-hill par four
The world of golf has much sterner tests than Cruden Bay: courses such as Carnoustie, Oakmont and Olympic. Muirfield, Merion and Shinnecock are more historic. Turnberry, Pebble Beach and Kingsbarns are more scenic. But for pure fun, Cruden Bay cannot be beaten. The course defies being pigeonholed because it doesn't fit neatly into any category. It is a one-of-a-kind golf course. Golf at its simplest is a game. I think we sometimes lose sight of that fact. The point of golf after all is to have fun and enjoy yourself. Cruden Bay would be ranked #1 in the world if having fun was the only criteria utilized. There is something about Cruden Bay that lightens your spirits and brightens your mood. It makes me see golf through the eyes of a five year old: everything is exciting; there is a sense of discovery around every corner; life is good and full of promise; curiosity abounds.
The ninth and tenth holes play on top of the dunes with dramatic views and shots played down a large hill. There are many times when the Cruden Bay landscape almost seems lunar and surreal. The ninth and tenth tee boxes are two of those places. If you look north over the beach and ocean you can see the ruins of Slains Castle, which provided the inspiration to Bram Stoker when he wrote Dracula.

Slains Castle as seen from Cruden Bay
The fourteenth and fifteenth holes are two of my two favorites on the course. Like Cruden Bay generally, they are full of quirks, but I found them exhilarating. Fourteen has a blind second shot to a bathtub green. What's a bathtub green you ask? One that quite literally is shaped like a bath tub and is sunken down into the ground. Just like the Punchbowl sixteenth green at National Golf Links of America, when you are on the green the outside world is muted. You are totally detached from civilization.
Why don't you see more bathtub style greens? From a practical standpoint, the green most assuredly doesn't work, since it doesn't get the proper amount of air and light, is difficult to maintain and playing shots into it doesn't always distinguish between shots hit well and shots played poorly. Ok, so it's not practical to have holes like these, but it misses the entire point of Cruden Bay. The R & A isn't going to hold a championship here, and it is not a proving ground for your manhood. It's a fun golf course. Personally, I like an occasional hole that has these unique element of playfulness, which has more similarities to billiards or pinball with shots banked off the sides of hills and hollows and crazy kicks of the golf ball.
Look to the right of the bathtub green in the picture and you can see a tee box. This is the tee box for the 200 yard blind par three fifteenth hole. The huge sand dune you see on the left is your target. When you are done playing the hole you ring a bell to let the group behind you know you're done.
I can hear the skeptics now. Blind shots? Ringing bells? Multiple par fours under 290 yards? A bathtub green? Back-to-back par threes? Only two par fives on the whole course? Par is only 70, 6395 yards from the back. Horrors. I understand those that prefer golf courses in the conventional and traditional sense might not like Cruden Bay. Sounds like trickery you say. Well, many of the world's great courses have characteristics just like the ones I describe above. Cypress Point has back-to-back par threes; coincidentally, they both happen to be on the 15th and 16th holes. Quaker Ridge and Chicago Golf Club only have two par fives. Lahinch has its brilliant blind par three Dell hole. Pine Valley and Royal County Down have several blind shots, and you ring bells at Prestwick and the National Golf Links of America.
So these quirky elements in and of themselves are not unique to Cruden Bay and are clear evidence that having quixotic features on a golf course alone don't make it bad. What makes Cruden Bay unique is that it crams all these features into one course. It doesn't have one or two quirky holes like many of the world's best courses mentioned above. The distinction at Cruden Bay is that virtually every hole is quirky or has some kind of unconventional feature. It is this cumulative effect of the design that makes it such a fanciful place to play golf.
Admittedly, Cruden Bay has a weak finish. Sixteen is a downhill par three with a green that slopes away from you, so you must play it short and run it up. Seventeen and eighteen are decidedly weak holes that play back to the clubhouse and are uninteresting.

I've spoken to a lot of well-traveled golfers, and it's no surprise to me that almost all of them rank Cruden Bay among their personal favorite courses. The first time I saw Cruden Bay was on a golf trip with eight men touring Scotland. This was prior to my now obsessive quest to play the top 100. We were so enamored of the place that on the spot we changed our plans to stay an extra day so we could play the course over and over again. On every trip to Scotland I try to play Cruden Bay.
Bernard Darwin wrote of this great course, "I think it is typical of Cruden Bay, which is a place extraordinarily difficult to keep away from for those who have once come under its spell." I'm often asked what I'm going to do when I'm done playing the top 100 golf courses in the world. Well, I'm going to go back to Cruden Bay to play it over and over again!
Cruden Bay's Website
The Udny Arms Hotel
The course is located in a rather isolated location away from any real population center and as a result the members serve as caddies for visitors. They are a very welcoming and friendly group who are happy to share their wonder of the golfing world with visitors. As an added bonus I recommend staying at the Udny Arms Hotel located in nearby Newburgh. A family owned B & B, it is cozy and inviting. Being isolated you might assume they would serve basic meat and potatoes fare. In fact, the food there is world-class. The bar areas are cigar friendly and the wait staff makes you feel at home. Don't expect American size rooms or 200 channels of cable television. As is typical in Britain the amenities are basic, the showers are tiny but there is a facility to make a cup of tea in each room. It is one of my favorite places to stay in the world. Have the sticky toffee pudding while there and watch one of the three BBC channels provided.
Cruden Bay is also a special remembrance for me because it was the first time I experienced first-hand Sheldon in action. The forthright manner this good looking gentleman asked the Amazon barmaid what time she got off was worth its weight in gold.
Many thanks to flickr sak335 for pictures
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Loch Lomond Golf Club
Well, in my case it is Loch Lomond (ranked #56 in the world), located thirty miles north of Glasgow in Scotland. I have completed playing 23 of the 24 courses in the British Isles on the world top 100 list. Although most are private clubs, they follow long-standing tradition and allow visitors to book a round as long as you follow their rules and protocols. The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (Muirfield) is the second most difficult course to get on, just because they restrict tee times more than any other club. However, they do allow you to play without a member, as do all the others. Loch Lomond Golf Club is a very private affair. You must play with a member, and you cannot just ring up the club and book a round.
Organized in 1994, Loch Lomond was setup in the tradition of Augusta National or Pine Valley; it has an international membership and doesn't really serve as a local golf club in the traditional sense. In fact, Loch Lomond is constituted as a 'destination' club to be 'savored' only a few times a year. Membership is organized around specific geographic regions. The club has appointed specific 'Club Captains' to assume leadership and membership responsibilities for these geographic regions and ensure a particular geographic mix of members.
Loch Lomond has the most pompous approach I have ever seen to membership. They describe themselves as a "private and discerning international golf club." Their P.R. sounds a bit pious to me. They describe Loch Lomond as "a singular place to meet on the world stage...It is a sanctuary not just for golf aficionados but for world thinkers." What does that even mean? World thinkers? So it's the Davos of golf clubs? The U.N. of the links? Get a grip on yourselves, boys.
Also taken from their marketing literature, "Loch Lomond has a state-of-the-art, exceptionally amenitized spa in a walled garden." An exceptionally amenitized spa? What is an amenitized spa? Does that mean they put out a lot of fruit and little shampoo bottles the members can take home? I wonder if colon cleansing is included among the spa treatments? It sounds like some of the people that write the marketing pieces here need to have their pipes cleaned. Perhaps a bit of a high colonic will prevent them from abusing the English language like this. Their marketing piece is like something written by a chain-smoking, over-lipsticked, highly-caffeinated realtor in Nevada: adjectives gone wild. Their rhetoric borders on being as obnoxious as Donald Trump's. One gets the feeling that there are a lot of raised pinkies as they drink their cocktails at Loch Lomond.
Members of this high-minded include Nick Faldo, Ernie Els, Colin Montgomerie and His Royal Highness Prince Andrew. It also has an unusual feature that I have never heard of before. They limit the amount of play that members may have. Most clubs have a limit on guest play, but I've never heard of limiting member play. Members are limited to playing the course no more than fourteen times in any given year. The guest policy is, by definition, restricted since you have to play with a member.

Rossdhu House at Loch Lomond
Although the club is very exclusive, the course is known to the public because each year, the week before the Open Championship, the Scottish Open is played here. This allows outsiders a peek at what has been called the most beautiful setting in the world. Their clubhouse, Rossdhu House, is an 18th century Georgian mansion, and serves as a focal point in the scenery with the loch and the mountains in the background. It looks very special indeed.
Apparently, their approach to running a golf club hasn't work out as planned. They went into receivership in late 2008, making it more difficult for me to play the course. I've known two members over the years but both dropped out due to the increasingly high dues and the restrictions. I was offered a chance to play recently, but I guess they are so desperate for revenue that they're trying to soak anybody that comes near the place. I'm sorry, but a £600 guest green fee is just wrong. This highfalutin, haughty approach is an outrage.
In this era of de-leveraging, the Loch Lomond Golf Club model is coming apart at the seams. How many people can now afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to join a vanity club like this?
I take their bombastic approach to things as a challenge to be overcome, which I accept with pleasure. I have done this twice previously and this one should be easier since there is no language barrier like there was when I tried to book a tee time at France's Morfontaine and Japan's Hirono.
I am now singularly focused on getting onto Loch Lomond and I will keep you appraised of my developments.
Maybe this would be a good time to break out some of that "In Residence at the Lodge" letterhead I picked up at Sea Island and write them a letter. Perhaps they will be impressed. I'm working on some florid language of my own to approach the club with.
I'm also dusting off my recording equipment and am about to make some calls...
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Sea Island (Seaside Course)
Having seen a lot of Alison's work in Japan, I think he is one of the finest architects the game has ever seen, though his best work doesn't get a lot of exposure because it is in Japan. His course designs in the United States are hard to see because they are at private clubs such as Burning Tree, Milwaukee Country Club and Century Country Club. Thus, the Seaside course is a rare opportunity to see the work of Alison. The course was designed prior to Alison's trip to Japan in the 1930s so it is some of his early work.
It is difficult to tell how much of the original design features of the Seaside course remains intact today. Having looked at course maps from various points in time, it looks like a meaningful amount has been changed. Yet, many of the original holes Colt and Alison designed do remain, even if some of the routing has changed. Most importantly, what are today's fourth and fifth holes are surviving examples of the original layout. The land the Seaside Course was built on was dredged out of the nearby marsh and steam shovels and mule teams were used to sculpt the land and move dirt.
Even though the private Ocean Forest course is ranked #84 in the world, I liked the public Seaside course better. Ocean Forest is over-rated because of who its members are, and Seaside is under-rated because it doesn't have eighteen great holes. However, the front nine at Seaside are so special that it is worth the trip to play it.
The Golf Course

1st green at Sea Island Seaside Course
Of course, I jinxed myself by mentioning how great the weather was when I played Cypress Point. The golf gods were listening and got even, so the pictures here are not as brilliant as I would have liked, due to the cloudy and foggy day. On the bright side, it gives me an excuse to have to return to Sea Island and play again.

View from the second tee
The tee shot on the second hole shows off one of the principal design features the architects had to work with, namely, routing a course through the lowcountry marsh. Many holes have a forced carry off the tee like the one here.

The third green at the Seaside Course
The third green again shows the design feature of an inverted bowl with the oak trees in the background. This is a demanding 200 yard par three that normally plays in a crosswind.

Fourth hole looking toward the green
I've played some good golf holes in my day. The Road Hole at St. Andrews, sixteen, seventeen and eighteen at Carnoustie, the Island Green at Sawgrass, the Postage Stamp at Troon, the 15th and 16th at Cypress Point and the 18th at Pebble Beach. The fourth hole on the Seaside Course is right up there with them. Not only is the design brilliant, but with marsh and ocean as a backdrop, it is visually dramatic as well. A link to the best holes is here.
The 4th looking from the tee toward the flag in the distance to the left
The fourth hole is 421 yards on the card, but is one of the severest dog-legs in all of golf. The hole makes an acute left turn at 300 yards to a green situated on the other side of the marsh at a ninety degree angle from where you are standing on the tee.

The 4th carry off the tee over the marsh
The tee shot is a forced carry over marsh, and the left side of the fairway is preferred because it lessens the length of your second shot to the green. The entire left side of the hole is bordered by the marsh and White Heron Lake. If you play too safely, you end up in the bunkers on the right, so not only is it a nice risk-reward hole, it is one with a severe penalty for being too greedy and a penalty for being too conservative.

4th fairway
Your second shot to the green requires you to hit the ball a precise distance. Even if you play more conservatively and aim away from the marsh to the fairway approach, your distance has to be perfect or you will go into the marsh on the other side. The hole requires back-to-back perfectly placed risk-reward shots that places a premium on well struck balls and penalizes poorly struck ones.
The fourth hole was originally named "It Is" which was short for "It is unlucky if played carelessly." Perfectly named.

The 4th approach to the green
The green has big slopes in it and is well protected. The fourth hole is the #1 ranked handicap hole on the course, without question.

The fifth at Seaside, approach to the green
The fifth hole is the mirror opposite of the 4th. It is a 388 yard par four that is a sharp dog leg right over the marsh. It also requires you to hit back-to-back risk-reward shots with a high penalty for error. The fifth hole was originally named "Marsh" and again is both visually dramatic and requires precision. Those playing cautiously away from the marsh have to be careful not to hit too far through the fairway to the left.

The fifth green sited between the marsh and the tree
The creativity required to design two holes like this back-to-back is what makes Colt and Alison such brilliant golf course architects.

The sixth green shrouded in fog
The sixth hole is a short par three at 164 yards from the back tee. It is a nice respite following the harassing fourth and fifth holes. Such is the brilliance of the design at the Seaside course. The routing of the course through the marsh and dunes is brilliant.

The seventh green falls off at the rear
The seventh hole is a challenging 531 yard par five. The fairway zig zags with sand bordering the left side of the fairway and the marsh down the right side, while the green falls off at the back, penalizing shots hit long.

The shot of the 8th green from the fairway bunker
Eight is a short par four with a tee shot over marsh and a large bunker in play on the right side off the tee. This makes the effective landing area on the left side of the fairway very small. The hole finishes you off with a devilish, well-protected, harshly sloping green.
The 18th green
The ninth hole provides a strong finish to the front nine. The back nine feels like a different course, because it largely is, although the theme of alternating long and short holes, risk-reward shots and forced carries over marsh continues. There are some good holes and the routing is interesting and varied, as is the front, but it lacks the sizzle that the holes on the front nine have. When Bobby Jones played the course, the current front nine played as the back nine on a different composite course. Jones said, "Second nine is one of the very best I have ever seen." Who am I to disagree with Bobby?
The Seaside Course is a really unique place to play golf. We saw several bald eagles, which nest nearby, flying overhead while we played. The feel of the Seaside course is the lowcountry meets Merion; it is a throwback to an old-style design that requires the golfer to do more than just hit the ball long.
Sea Island Resort
The Sea Island resort has been owned and run by the Jones family (no relation to Rees or Bobby) for generations. The current generation, Bill Jones III, runs the business and resort.
No expense was spared when Sea Island was built, including at both the Cloisters hotel and the Lodge. Dark woods are prominently featured, but done tastefully. It is not as overbearing as the Breakers in Palm Beach or the Boca Raton Resort; it has more class. They do a lot of little things right at Sea Island, which adds up to a very nice experience. Bach's Brandenberg concerto was playing on the Bose CD player when I entered my room, for example. The employees all prononunced my simple name correctly, instead of making it two syllables instead of three, like many people do. There was stationery on the desk with my name engraved on it, underneath which "In Residence at the Lodge at Sea Island" was printed. I felt a bit like an English King or Howard Hughes. I imagine they used this type of thing occasionally, dashing off a letter from Balmoral or The Desert Inn, whilst in residence.
There are dozens of real wood-burning fireplaces throughout the resort. It has better service than a Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons, which is a high standard to surpass.
An interior view at The Cloisters
The resort has more five star ratings than The Pentagon has five star generals. At Sea Island, the Lodge, the Cloisters, the Spa and the Georgian Room all have received five stars from Mobil, which is a rare feat. It is also one of the few civilized places in the world where you can still smoke a cigar without persecution. You can smoke in the locker room at Ocean Forest, in the locker room at Sea Island and in the elegant cigar lounge at the Cloisters.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Ocean Forest (Sea Island)
The Ocean Forest golf course (ranked #84 in the world) is located on St. Simons Island in the resort of Sea Island, Georgia. Although Sea Island is a resort, the Ocean Forest course is private and you must play with a member. The course was designed by the Harvard-Yale educated Rees Jones and opened in 1995. It hosted the Walker Cup matches in 2001, the youngest course to do so. Although Rees has modified or renovated many U.S. Open courses, Ocean Forest is his only course ranked among the world's top 100 courses.
Ocean Forest is a pretty private affair and most people are even unaware of its existence. To get into the Sea Island resort you have to go through a guard gate, which you can do if you are staying at the resort or playing one of the resort courses. Once inside the Sea Island enclave, to get into Ocean Forest you have to go through a second guard gate as well, after driving several miles down to the tip of the island. This is the only course I have played in all my travels with a double guard gate. The entrance only says 'Private' and there are no signs that say Ocean Forest.
The Golf Course Design
The course is located on the end of a barrier island where the Hampton River meets the Atlantic Ocean and the area is blessed with pine trees, sand dunes, oak trees, marshes, wetlands and a river estuary. The principles Jones used to design the course are:
1. Small greens. The average green size is 5,300 square feet. The notable exception is the par three 17th green, which has an 11,000 square foot green
2. Greens with low profiles, in order to maintain playability in high winds
3. Slopes around the greens which direct missed shots away from the hole
To quote Jones, "I learned from Brookline that you don't need extraordinary length if you have small greens. When the targets are smaller, the penalty for missing them is magnified because there is a greater likelihood that they will be missed."

The 12th green at Ocean Forest showing Jones' design philsophy around the greens
The greatest dangers at Ocean Forest are behind the greens. What makes the course unique is that it is essentially a links course, but without one of the central features of a links course, which is the ability to bump and run shots up to the green. The way Jones designed the greens, you have to pitch the ball onto them, which requires you to hit the ball high, as opposed to bumping it up. The approaches to most greens are narrow, with bunkers on both sides, making it a demanding course, particularly if the wind is blowing.
Ocean Forest from the air
The routing is good at Ocean Forest; Jones had a lot to work with and used it all: the marsh areas, the sand dunes and the areas along both the river and the ocean. The course starts in marsh and wetlands, then you get a brief glimpse of what is to come as the fifth hole backs up to the river with views of the ocean in the distance. While standing on the fifth green, the land you see across the river is all owned by the arrogant, disgraced, bumbling-idiot, Katrina-style bailout leader, ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who both owns the private island and had a personal vendetta against Lehman Brothers. Enjoy your ignominious retirement, Hank. You should hope they don't try to bring criminal charges against you for your incompetence. "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie!"
Sorry about the tirade, but it did make me feel better.

View from the par three 5th tee box
The Golf Course
Through the first five holes, the views of the water are fleeting; you see only enough to build your interest and curiosity because the course is routed inland again after this hole, playing back through the marsh and dunes. The same thing happens again when you get to the 12th and 13th holes; you think you will now play along the water from then on, but the course is again routed back inland before you re-emerge for the brilliant climax of the 17th and 18th holes along the ocean. Jones saved the best for last.
The opening hole on Ocean Forest follows the design philosophy of both Prestwick and the National Golf Links of America, which is of a short, relatively easy hole. Put a big asterisk next to that, however, since this is your first shot of the day and water is in play. At Prestwick, it's the slice over the stone wall and onto the railroad tracks that can ruin your start; at National, a shot into the high fescue; at Ocean Forest, the trouble manifests itself in the form of the 'Mullet Pond' that borders the left side of the fairway. I call it the 'Mullet Pond' because the pond is full of mullet, and they jump high out of the water with a frenetic frequency. When you hit your second shot on the first hole (and your tee shot off the 9th hole), you will absolutely be distracted by the jumping mullet.

The first green at Ocean Forest
The second hole plays along a stand of trees, the third plays by the dunes and the fourth plays by the wetlands.

The 4th hole seen from the tee
The ninth hole, a 151 yard par three has a Biarritz feature in the front, the jumping mullet, and an occasional crocodile sitting nearby the pond. It's a nice short par three that requires a precise tee shot over water and offers no bailout option.

The 10th hole at Ocean Forest
The 10th hole was my favorite on the course. Jones calls ten "the most thought provoking, risk-laden hole." The tee shot on this 545 yard par five demands a shot hit to a fairway which is set at an angle, over marsh grasses. It is a classic risk-reward shot. The further to the right you can successfully hit, the closer to the green you are. A shot hit short of the fairway is gone. There is a beautiful marsh along the entire right side of the hole. The green is treacherous, well protected by bunkers and has a lateral hazard on the right and to the rear.

The 10th green
The 13th, a 381 yard par four, plays along the Hampton River and has a stream running through the fairway, which means most players have to club down off the tee in order to avoid hitting into the hazard.

13th fairway bordering the Hampton River
Fifteen is a short par three at 165 yards. My advice is take one more club on your tee shot. It plays longer, even though it is set on level ground; you have to hit it the entire way there over marsh grasses with a cross-wind blowing across the green.

The par three 15th
The nice par four 16th The 16th hole is quite good. It plays 425 yards from the back tees and is a dog-leg left where you have to hit through a chute of trees. The hole requires you to shape your shot off the tee and land on the left side of the fairway. The book The World's 500 Greatest Golf Holes ranks this hole as one of the hardest in the world to get on in regulation. Part of their logic is that there is usually a fresh breeze blowing across the marsh near the green, and the green repels balls. Behind the green, there is no margin for error because there is a shaved area that trickles down into a lateral hazard. I'm a hack and got there in two, so I'm not sure about their assessment.

The par three 17th
The first time the course has a hole bordering the Atlantic Ocean is on the long 217 yard par three seventeenth. The seventeenth green backs up to the ocean and is wind-swept, with winds blowing across the marsh nearby.

The 17th green

Approach to the 18th green
Ocean Forest
The locker room at Ocean Forest is among the best I have seen. It is on a par with Seminole, San Francisco and Mayacama. The locker room has its own library; a nook with a giant fireplace and card table; a cozy seating among the lockers, and the top of the room is adorned with animal heads.
Ocean Forest reminded me of another exclusive southern club, The Honors Course. Both encourage walking, have great caddy programs, have a great respect for the traditions of the game, particularly amateur golf, and both exhibit true Southern hospitality.
Walter Hagen once said he didn't want to be a millionaire, he just wanted to live like one. Staying at Sea Island will allow you to fulfull Walter's fantasy. It's expensive, but it is a true five star resort and worth it.
The Seaside course, also located at Sea Island, a few miles from Ocean Forest is not ranked in the top 100 courses in the world, but does rank as one of the top public courses in the country. Personally, I think it is a better course than Ocean Forest and I will do a detailed write-up of the Seaside course next. It is also the easiest way for most people to see the design work of the genius architects H.S. Colt and C.H. Alison, and in particular their unparalleled ability to route a course. Those that followed my travels to Japan know how highly regarded Charles Alison's design skills are. His partner, H.S. Colt, was involved in Royal Portrush and Pine Valley. Playing the Seaside course is a good chance to see how great this pair were without traveling half-way around the world or without gaining access to a private club.
Why is Ocean Forest ranked so high in the world? A little inside-baseball might provide some insight. Gary Galyean, who wrote the club history after the Walker Cup matches in 2001, also serves as chairman of Golf Magazine's top 100 courses jury. Rees Jones also rates courses for the magazine as does the owner of Sea Island, Bill Jones III. It can't hurt to have three people associated with the course on the rating panel. As we say in Brooklyn, "You know what I mean?"
Ultimately, Ocean Forest is like local boy Davis Love III. All the essential elements of greatness are there, but there is just something I can't put my finger on that keeps me from becoming a big fan.
Post Script
There are four courses ranked on the world top 100 in the state of Georgia. I have now finished playing three: East Lake, Peachtree and Ocean Forest. You all know which one I still need.
Driftwood immediately behind the 17th green
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Cypress Point Golf Club
After all the good golf I have played, it seems odd to call playing Cypress Point a dream come true because I could say that about any number of the courses I have played or trips I have taken. I'm a lucky man. However, playing Cypress Point really is a once in a lifetime experience. It is a tour-de-force and there is something seductive about playing here. It has an aura about it that almost no other course has, which makes it the zenith of a golfer's experience.
Arriving at Cypress Point you have a real sense of occasion. Once you drive beyond the 'Members Only' sign, the sense of gravitas starts to hit you.

The distinctive Cypress trees,
the walk from the 15th green to the 16th tee starts by walking under here
Normally I like to write all of the material in the blog myself. With regard to Cypress Point, I have also chosen to quote extensively from the works of others as well, who do a good job of capturing the essence of the place.
I didn't realize that the 17-Mile Drive goes right through Cypress. This scenic tourist highway meanders around the Monterey Peninsula offering stunning views. As you drive along the 17-Mile Drive you travel along a road right between the ocean and the 14th hole. In fact, you also drive right through the first fairway later down the same road. The tee shot on the first hole plays from the top of the hill near the clubhouse over a high hedgerow and the 17-Mile Drive, to a fairway set down the hill.
I had the first tee jitters pretty bad at Cypress because it is such a special place, but was thrilled to hit a good first drive.

The second hole, seen above, is a par five that turns inland, with a forced carry over a ravine to the tops of the dunes into a narrow landing area, because hitting too far to the right is out of bounds. The further you hit it to the left, the better off you are but brings the ravine into play.




The picture of the sixth green below illustrates why the inland holes at Cypress are so good with the effective use of the sand dunes. On this particular green, as on several others, the slope of the green can fool the golfer who has never played it before. One of the players in our group hit his shot short of this green. The green slopes back to front and the caddies started to yell for the ball to get down, which we couldn't understand. You should want a ball to get up onto the green if it slopes back to front. In this instance, because of the grain, the ball shot to the back of the green, as if defying the laws of physics. The putt back down the green (a pretty good downhill putt) played as if it were an uphill putt. Amazing.
Holes eight and nine are short par fours at 369 and 283 yards, respectively. Eight doglegs to the right and offers a blind tee shot. Once you are in the fairway and look back, there is no sight of the tee box you hit from. Nine plays downhill but to the best protected green on the course. I don't know if these two holes had any influence on Coore and Crenshaw, but they reminded me of the short back to back par fours at Sand Hills (7th and 8th).

Fourteen is a world-class dogleg right hole and one of my favorites. It plays from an elevated tee to a fairway that gets progressively more narrow as it rises up the hill between the trees. Before hitting your tee shot you have to consciously focus on golf because the beauty of the scenery is so inspiring.








"It should be emphasized that Cypress Point possesses a diversity of terrain possibly unmatched by any other course. It offers not only an unforgettable stretch of cliff-lined holes but some excellent orthodox seaside holes, a few stunning dune-land holes and an arresting sequence of holes that climb inland into hilly terrain, their fairways cut through a forest of Monterey pines. Back in 1929, Bobby Jones, who had come to California to play in the the United States Amateur at Pebble Beach, found the time to get in two rounds at the newly-opened Cypress Point layout. Asked what he thought of the two courses, Jones, with his usual acumen and diplomacy, replied, 'Pebble Beach is more difficult, but Cypress Point is more fun."

If you are ever talking golf with someone and they don't think that Cypress Point ranks as one of the top three golf courses in the world, quietly take the scissors and letter opener off their desk, since they are clearly daft and you are in danger. They belong in one of those white jackets with the crossing sleeves in front.
The Cypress Point Clubhouse
Post Script
I have now finished playing all eight courses ranked in the top 100 located in the state of California. Did I continue my tradition while in Cailfornia of having an In-N-Out Burger? As Sara Palin says, "you betcha!"
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Congressional Country Club
Like many of our leading financial service firms today, the club went bankrupt in 1940. Between 1943 and 1946 the O.S.S., the pre-cursor organization to the C.I.A., rented Congressional for $4,000 per month and turned the club into a training center. The club was returned to private members after the war.
The course is located in Bethesda, Maryland, about thirty minutes from the U.S. Capitol Building. I took the train from New York to play Congressional. Arriving in Washington, D.C. by train never loses its luster. Union Station is one of the most elegant train stations in the United States and a pleasure to travel through. I love walking out the front entrance and glimpsing the beauty of the perfectly proportioned Capitol building. I know it sounds sappy but it is always an uplifting sight. I often picture myself as Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
The distinctive tee markers at Congressional
The Golf Course
While the course is not exactly as hilly as Westchester Country Club or The Country Club at Brookline, the terrain and routing at Congressional reminded me of both these courses. The course has many irregular shaped fairways and doglegs, and greens that are very small. One of the keys to playing Congressional is to make sure that you approach the greens from the fairway. Attempting to hit and hold the green from any angle except the fairway is quite difficult here.
The fourth fairway at Congressional is typical of many on the course: narrow, with an irregular shape. This hole, like most at Congressional, plays from an elevated tee. On the front nine the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 9th all play from elevated tees.
4th fairway at Congressional
The fourth hole, the #1 handicap, is 427 yards long and doglegs to the right.
5th fairway at Congressional
The fifth hole was one of my favorites. Notice the nice rolling terrain, with the fairway following the contours of the land. This hole doglegs to the left and rewards the golfer who hits a tee shot far enough left to avoid the trap and opens up a better angle to the green.
Like almost all the greens at Congressional, the green on the fifth is small and well bunkered.
The sixth hole is a short par five at 488 yards that tempts the golfer to hit the green in two. The perils of being short are illustrated by the water hazard short of the green.
Par three 7th hole green at Congressional
The par three seventh hole plays 157 yards uphill, and the green, like many at Congressional, slopes front to back.
9th green at Congressional
The ninth, a 544 yard par five, is a very good hole with a big swale that you must carry to get from the fairway to the elevated green. The front of the green slopes back toward the fairway and repels balls down into the ravine. Club selection is made trickier here because from more than 130 yards out you are playing a blind shot, as the fairway rises gently from the middle of the hole toward the green.
The par three 10th green
The back nine begins with the 170 yard par three 10th, over water, to one of the largest greens on the course. You will notice the mechanical fan behind this green. Almost every green has them due to Congressional's hot and humid summers. Unfortunately, they do come into play if you miss the green, as I found out about on the first hole, and I didn't see any local rule allowing relief if you are behind one.
12th fairway at Congressional
It is difficult to tell how much of the course is the original Emmett design, but I could still see some features that reminded me of Emmett's masterpiece in Long Island, Garden City, such as the 12th hole, seen above. This type of slightly elevated rise from fairway to green is typical of Garden City. Many of the greens at Congressional are slightly elevated like this one with a narrow opening between the bunkers.
14th fairway looking backward
Another good example of the irregular shape of the fairways at Congressional, and a nice use of the hilly terrain, can be seen on the 408 yard fourteenth hole, above, looking back from the green.
You hit down into a landing area from an elevated tee and then the remainder of the hole rises to an elevated green.
17th green
The seventeenth is ranked as one of the top 500 holes in the world, and it is quite a tricky hole at 420 yards. The fairway drops down to another level about three-quarters of the way toward the green. The elevated green is small and well bunkered.
18th green
Both the 10th and 18th greens, modified by Rees Jones, seem a bit out of character with the rest of the course as their greens are surrounded by water and feels incongruent with the design.
I played Congressional on a brilliant but blustery day. As my readers know from my experience at Royal St. George's, a wind game is not the strongest part of my repertoire. I played Congressional in October of 2008, a month of bank runs and stock market crashes that I hoped I would never see in my lifetime. The Dow Jones average was as volatile as it has ever been. It had moves of more than 100 points on 20 of 23 days. Out of sympathy for the market I also had a move of more than 100 points for the day on my scorecard. My golf game experienced as much volatility as I can handle. I hope both the markets and my game calm themselves soon.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Top 10 Things I Love about Japan
The top ten things I love about Japan:
1. The taxi drivers wear a coat and tie and white gloves.
2. Japanese people are genuinely service oriented. Upon arrival at your hotel, the staff comes out and bows to you. If a staff member is nearby as you are getting into or out of an elevator, they will bow to you. Even employees and security agents at Narita airport, one of the busiest in the world, manage to more things along quickly an with respect and a service orientation.
3. The toilets have a button to push which creates a simulated 'courtesy flush' without wasting any water. Not only is it a 'green' thing to do, it's also brilliant. The Japanese fascination with technology and gadgets and something that distinguishes them in the world and only here could you have musical toilet seats.
4. There is no tipping anywhere in the country. Not in taxis, hotels or restaurants. The baristas at your local Starbucks don't have a tip cup out asking for money. It makes life much simpler.
5. The picture of the 1,000 yen note (roughly a $10 bill) features Noguchi Hideyo, was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who discovered the agent of syphilis disease in 1911.
6. People don't abuse cellphones, assuming that the person on the other end of the phone is deaf. In the week I spent in Japan, I only overheard one person speaking in a loud voice on a cell phone.
7. The average Japanese has 70 cents in credit card debt. The average American has $2,607. We can learn a lot from the Japanese about living within your means.
8. The Imperial Palace sits in the middle of Tokyo and is surrounded by high stone walls and a moat.
9. Narita Airport. Although one of the busiest airports in the world, they treat you like a human being instead of a cow. Going through security is ten minutes, max. Four levels of shops and entertainment including good food, an observation deck on top of the terminal building so you can watch takeoffs and landings. You can get a haircut at Narita 365 days a year. You can rent a baby carriage. It has a medical clinic, pet hotel, playrooms, showers, a post office and a location where you can get a massage.
10. Geisha Girls
The Punjab and the GeishaThursday, January 01, 2009
2008 The Year in Review

It has become a tradition of mine to review interesting comments I received throughout the year in my year-end post. One of the most interesting comments I received in 2008 was about my previous write of Medinah. One of my adoring fans wrote, "You, my friend, are nuts". I had criticized the condition of the course in my post, particularly the abundance of poop on the course, to which my gifted visitor wrote: "As for the geese, millions migrate through the area every spring and every fall and have always been a problem for all Chicago area courses. Too bad one didn't drop a turd on your head."
Voila! Although, you spelled 'spectacular' wrong in your comment. Might want to run the spell checker next time.
Another anonymous comment on my Medinah write-up: "You sound like a real tool from NY. Funny as I read your comment about your playing partner. Sounds like he might have been your long lost brother from Queens. Pound sand and stay in NYC."
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, please keep them coming. Alas, you got the wrong borough, I'm afraid. It's Brooklyn.
The biting comments were not limited to domestic readers. Regarding my Muirfield post, one enamoured fan from across the pond asked, I assume rhetorically, "Are you visually impaired, or perhaps lacking knowledge of what constitutes a great golf hole?" Very cheeky.
Touche!
The following anonymous comment is crisp and succinct, "you're a pompous ass......let me guess you are a Scientologist as-well......", although we don't discuss religion or politics on our site.
Another reader had the quintessential visitor experience to The Links Club when he wrote:
"When I entered the bar, instead of being asked what I would like to drink, I was accosted by a waitperson who admonished me that "business papers aren’t allowed here”. Thinking fast, I said, “what, this plain envelope…these aren’t business papers – it is a gift.” I received no drink, but slunk into the library, which was exactly as you described it. I picked up a magazine and hid the offending envelope in its folds and tried to look like I belonged." We feel your pain.
Cabo del Sol's 17th hole
My super 2008 golfing season started south of the border in Mexico. Cabo del Sol was an ideal starting location to kick off 2008, the Corona factory visible as the plane was landing set the tone for a great year. Spyglass was also a great treat and has the best five starting holes in the game. As a public course, I encourage you to play it if you can.
Things really began to fall into place in April. My visit to the Masters started off a six week stretch where I got to play Pine Valley again, followed in rapid succession by Seminole and my favorite The National Golf Links. I was able to play Oakland Hills prior to the PGA Championship and I enjoyed my visit to The Honors Course in Tennessee.
The highlight of the year was my golfing adventure to Japan. Readers of recent posts will understand the uniqueness of playing in this part of the world. I have spoken to several others who have completed playing the top 100 in the world and several of them said that aside form Augusta, getting on the private courses of Japan are the next most difficult feat in the quest. Kawana, Naruo and Hirono are all worthy courses in the top 100. 
Hirono's 14th hole
All-in-all, I once again had a great year in 2008 with nine new top 100 courses played and a cumulative total of eighty courses completed.
I'm also glad that I have completed eighty courses prior to the market crash. I'm a lot poorer now that when I began the quest. Hopefully my money will hold out long enough for me the play the last twenty courses. I've had to adjust my habits to my sudden lifestyle reversal. I'm clipping those coupons, comparing the unit prices of everything in the supermarket and loading up on the free tees many clubs offer. The Age of Leverage was a lot more fun than the Age of Deprivation.
I'm looking forward to a productive 2009. Happy New Year to all!
P.S. Loch Lomond is one of the courses I had hoped to play in 2009. Hopefully, its being in receivership and pending sale won't impact my ability to get on the course.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Golf In Japan

A golf trip to Japan is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that is highly recommended. For the aficionado, golf in Japan is synonymous with Charles Alison, an English designer who did a lot of work in the country in the 1930s. His work is spectacular and is characterized by elevated, generally round shaped small greens, strategic bunkering, particularly around the greens, forced carries over ravines and routings that create a lot of shot variety. Alison is clearly one of the most talented golf architects that ever lived.
I was very lucky to be able to play at three private courses in Japan and also the public course Kawana, all worked on by Alison. The uniqueness of golf in Japan is also characterized by their highly ritualized protocol about play and the middle-aged female caddies in their distinctive uniforms.
Hirono Golf Club
Naruo Golf Club
Kawana Golf
Toyko Golf Club
Japanese Caddies
Japanese Driving Ranges
The Bullet Train
Having a guide that speaks English is critical if you are to play in Japan. I highly recommend using Japan Golf Tours for their knowledge and professionalism and because they can help you gain access to private courses.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Naruo Golf Club - Japan's Hidden Gem
Naruo Golf Club (ranked #75 in the world) is located in the hills between Kobe and Osaka. Naruo is a private golf course and you must play with a member. The course was designed by Scottish professionals Joe Crane and H.C. Crane in 1904 with revisions made by C.H. Alison in 1930. The course was founded by British expatriates and is Japan's hidden gem. Naruo is a narrow, quirky and very difficult golf course. The greens at Naruo are 'korai' grass, which is like a thicker version of Bermuda and is quite slow, running about an eight on the stimp meter.
If you haven't read the post on how structured golf is in Japan, click here to learn the proper protocol.
If you ever have the opportunity to play Naruo Golf Club I suggest you do some training beforehand. Perhaps run a marathon, enter an Ironman competition or train for the Olympics. You need to be fit to play Naruo. The course is built on terrain that is quite hilly and is one of the most difficult courses I have ever walked. As with all private courses in Japan, there are caddies and you walk the course. How difficult is Naruo to walk? So difficult that they have built in a traction system around all eighteen holes so that the caddies don't have to push the carts up and down the hilly terrain. The mechanized system works with some sort of magnets under the ground and the caddie controls it by remote control. The property at Naruo reminded me of Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles because it is a relatively small piece of landlocked hilly property.

The cart tram at Naruo
Almost every hole at Naruo has an out of bounds. The first hole is a good example of what you find a Naruo. Notice the narrowness of the fairway, sloping fairways and an elevated, small green in the distance on the right.
The narrow 1st hole at Naruo, par four 383 yards
The course has tiny greens, most are elevated and as is typical on an Alison designed course, well bunkered. Below are two good examples of the well bunkered greens on the 2nd and 4th holes, both par threes.
Elevated 2nd green - par three 182 yards
Elevated 4th green - par three 207 yards
Naruo has an interesting and varied routing that offers no respite. The 8th hole is a remarkable par four that doglegs more than ninety degrees. It is a 437 yard par four that is in the shape of a semi-circle.
It is a double-dogleg that sweeps around to the left with O.B. on both sides of the hole the entire way. You have to hit your drive both long and to the right if you want any hope of seeing the flag.
The flag is set around a dramatic dog leg to the left and has a very narrow opening, is elevated and well protected with bunkers.
8th from the fairway looking at the green
The hole plays in spectacular isolation and is as beautiful as any inland hole you will ever play. The round green, seen below looking backward, is typical of many Alison greens.
The tilted 8th green looking back at fairway 
View from the 9th tee
After you finish the front nine there is a little mechanized golf cart that brings you up a steep incline back to the clubhouse to have lunch. The cart seats four and is so absurdly slow that you could clearly walk up a lot faster, but at this point, most people are hurting, so it is a nice transition to lunch.
The 10th hole is the hardest par four I have ever played. It makes the Road Hole at St. Andrews look like a birdie opportunity. It plays 470 yards and it is best to hit a very long drive here since you want your second shot to be as short as possible. The forced carry is over 'death valley', a 170 to 200 yard carry over a chasm that has a thirty foot drop. If you are unlucky enough to have your ball go down into the valley of death, you can't even remotely see where the flag or hole is located.
10th hole looking back from green across ravine
We played the 10th into a wind and I was so far back that I played my second shot to a nearby fairway on another hole so that I could avoid the chasm. I made a double bogey but at least I came back alive and didn't get lost down in that un-godly thing.
The 15th, a par three, reminded me of the par three 4th hole at Royal County Down with its forced carry over heather. Here, the carry is over Japanese pines and is 175 yards, uphill.
15th, a tough par three
The 15th hole also has a typically Japanese experience. At all Japanese courses there is a structured protocol that must be followed. At Naruo we had the archetypal Japanese golf experience. The arrival and check-in, the pre-round cup of coffee, the lunch with beer and coffee. At Naruo, in addition to the usual routine, the tradition also includes a quick cup of small tea. At the 15th hole, there is a little house where you have a cup of tea before playing the hole.
tea house by the 15th hole
The sixteenth is a 378 yard par four with a blind tee shot. You can see from the picture below the steepness of the terrain at Naruo and the unusual outfits the female caddies wear.
16th approach to the green
After the round we had a shower, communal bath and another round of beers. As we were sitting in the clubhouse butchering the Japanese language the server brought out a bowl of nuts and some other munchies that looked like pretzels. Turns out they are some sort of fish cracker wrapped in seaweed. I popped one into my mouth and wish I could have spit it out, but sucked it up and told our host how delicious it was!
Naruo is a 6,565 yard course but plays longer because of the elevation. On the negative side Naruo has too much O.B. for my game and the greens are arguably too small. The sand was like hard pan and in poor condition when I played. The traction system moving the bags around is amusing and unique but ultimately annoying since your clubs can often be far away from where you are hitting your shot. You can run the poor caddie ragged getting clubs and running back and forth in her head-to-toe polyester suit.
If you are a near scratch or better play, you will play Naruo well. If not, you will still enjoy one of the best golf courses in the world, but be prepared to be beat up both physically and mentally. Naruo is clearly worthy of its place in the world rankings.
Finishing the round at Naruo was a sad experience for me. It was the last course I played on my grand tour of Japan's top courses. I very much enjoyed playing these top shelf courses and enjoyed the politeness and hospitality of our hosts immensely. I don't know that my budget or my wife will ever permit me to return, which is too bad. I will always treasure my golfing memories here.

Check out the club's website, although it is in Japanese, they have nice video images of each hole: Naruo Golf Club's Website
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Hirono Golf Club - Japan's Pine Valley
The clubhouse at the venerable Hirono Golf ClubIf you haven't read the post on Japanese golf protocol, click here to get the full flavor of the structure of playing at a private course in Japan.
The course has a uniqueness to it similar to that of Morfontaine in France or Pine Valley in the United States, with a great routing and unique holes. As with these two great courses, most holes are isolated from the others by dense trees. The par threes at Hirono are especially strong. The course is also one of the best conditioned I have ever seen. The greens and fairways are in meticulous condition and even the trees throughout the course are manicured from top to bottom like a Japanese garden. It also has all the key elements present in the courses of this great designer: strategic bunkering, small elevated greens, double dog-legs and forced carries over ravines.
Most of the greens at Hirono are elevated. The trouble at Hirono is off the tee and around the greens. The course is built on relatively flat terrain and most of the lies you get in the fairway are level. Alison's design is very effective in creating illusions and incorrect depth perceptions.
The 4th green at Hirono, "Lake-Pont"
The 5th hole at Hirono, nicknamed "Fiord" is like a smaller version of the difficult 5th at Pine Valley. It is a par three that plays over water to an elevated green. At Hirono the hole is shorter, at only 152 yards, but plays uphill.
Pine Valley-like 5th hole at Hirono, "Fiord"
Par three 7th hole, "Devil's Divot"
The same hole is seen below shortly after the course opened in 1933. See how much the course has been 'cleaned up' and polished. It looks like the major hazard of the "Devil's Divot" has been softened, which is too bad; it looks like the course truly had a Pine Valley feel to it when it was built.
The Devil's Divot in 1933
The routing at Hirono varies long and short holes nicely, creating an interesting variety of shots. A good example is the 8th hole, "Cedar Grove," so named because both sides of the fairway are lined with cedar trees. It is a short 353 yard par four with water short right and a green framed by tall bamboo trees behind it, creating a tranquil alcove.
8th green at Hirono, "Cedar Grove"
The 10th green at Hirono, below, is a good example of how Alison elevated and bunkered his greens. This particular green slopes back to front on this 351 yard par four. The hole is nicknamed "Mt. Mekko" for the high mountain that sits in the distance behind the hole.
Elevated 10th green at Hirono, "Mekko"
The 12th hole is the #1 handicap hole at Hirono and it is a double dog-leg par five that plays 596 yards with O.B. along the left side. It is a good hole, but there are two even better holes on the back nine as you come in toward the clubhouse: 14 and 15. In fact, the stretch of holes from 12 through 15 is one of the finest in the world.
The thirteenth hole, "Loch Lomond," is a 167 yard par three that plays downhill over water in an idyllic setting. While not exactly like the par three 14th at Pine Valley, the hole did remind me of it.
13th hole at Hirono, par three, "Loch Lomond"
The 14th hole is like no other hole I have seen (golf hole, that is). It looks unremarkable on the scorecard. It is only 388 yards from the back tees. When you approach the tee you see one of the widest fairways in the world. Perhaps as wide as the combined 1st-18th at The Old Course at St. Andrews. You must hit your tee shot over a ravine to reach the tilted fairway. The fairway tilts both back to front and right to left. So while technically you only have to carry the ball 130 yards to hit the fairway, doing so leaves you with virtually no shot to the green. Only a carry of 200 yards and to the right will leave you on flat ground with a view of the hole. In other words, the first 70 yards of fairway is setup as a hazard. It's brilliant.
The 14th fairway looking back toward the tee
If you do not hit your ball 200 yards to the top of the hill, it will roll a significant distance in the wrong direction, that is, away from the green. The fairway is shaped like a big 'V' and the hole doglegs to the left. The hole is aptly nicknamed "Quo-Vadis" which is Latin for "Where are you going?"
The uphill 14th fairway from the bottom
To give you a sense of the severity of the slope, the hole has its own escalator. That's right, its own escalator. As at all the top Japanese courses, you walk. The gradient is so steep on this hole that if you are fortunate enough to hit your drive long enough (I was), you get on an outdoor escalator installed along the right side of the fairway to spare you the sharp uphill walk.
Only on a small handful of courses in the world can you find two truly world-class holes back to back. The 14th and 15th at Hirono are two such holes. The 15th is a 568 yard par five that once again doesn't look that hard off the tee. A good drive will leave you on the fairway, hopefully on the right-hand side so that you can avoid the big tree on the left side seen below.
Tree blocking approach on 15th fairway, "Ichino-Tani"
Your second shot has to land on a fairway 'island' that provides the only safe passage to the green. There are two ravines to navigate: one short of the green and one between this fairway area and the intermediate fairway. Throw in some severe bunkers around each fairway area and you've got yourself one hell of a golf hole. It is not the kind of hole where you can just blast away with two big shots in an attempt to overpower the hole. The first person to ever reach the green in two was Jack Nicklaus and since then very few golfers have ever done so in competitive rounds. You have to make three strategic choices to get to the green on this well thought out dog-left left hole.
The one thing that keeps Hirono from being ranked higher in the world than 35 are its greens, in my humble view. While they were the best ones I played in Japan from a conditioning standpoint and they played the fastest, because they are bent instead of the slower 'Korai,' they all tend to be relatively flat and roughly in a circular or oval shape in all instances.
Ravine on 15th fairway
I literally and figuratively did the full monty at Hirono. We arrived to have the obligatory pre-round coffee, played quickly and came in for a very nice lunch. I can't remember another golf club that I've played that has white linen table cloths, white glove service and world-class food at the turn. Hirono has a civilized ambiance to it. The appropriate protocol at lunch is to have beer before your meal and coffee afterwards. I didn't feel like having a beer and got the appropriate subtle scolding from our host. Saru mo ki kara ochiru (nobody's perfect). It was a mistake I would not repeat the next day at Naruo, where I would follow the protocol perfectly.
It took me only four times before getting the entire Japanese golfing routine down. We did the post-round communal hot bath in an elegant and appropriately large-sized room. Like everything else at Hirono, it was done perfectly. My post-bath shrinkage was a bit more than I had hoped for, but the geriatric group I shared the bath with didn't seem to gasp aloud when I got out. Faced with an embarrassing situation, the Japanese often resort to silence - mokusatsu. Whereas an American might have given a spontaneous "wooh", they showed no emotion and I'm quite grateful that their custom is to be so polite. They must make great poker players.
Our host at Hirono was a distinguished elderly gentleman. He was 75 years old but looked like he was 60. In general, men in Japan are extremely fit and don't look anywhere near their age. They are also sticklers for the rules of golf. There are no gimmies at Hirono (or in Japan generally). Every single stroke counts. He was even looking subtly to see that I didn't tee my ball ahead of the markers a couple of times during our round.
Alison wrote about Hirono: "Almost every hole has some bold natural feature, and for variety of scene and strokes Hirono is difficult to beat. I can name no superior among British inland courses." While I think Sunningdale and Woodhall Spa are as good as Hirono, Alison's basic point is right on. Hirono is both a classy club and a brilliant Golden Era course designed by one of the masters of the trade and clearly deserves to be ranked among the top 50 courses world-wide.
For a fantastic photo montage of Hirono shortly after it was built from Golf Club Atlas click here. Thank you for posting them Paul Turner.
Hirono's Web Site
P.S. It's too bad you couldn't join us on the Japan trip Sheldon. Although, in hindsight it may have worked out since you probably would have given the old boys at Hirono a cardiac arrest in the bath with your impressive equipment.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Tokyo Golf Club
The Tokyo Golf Club opened in 1914 in Komazama and was built on leased land. It was started by Junnosuke Inoue after he visited New York and saw golf courses there. The course was moved to Asaka in the Saitama Prefecture in 1932 and was designed by C.H. Alison, who designed several courses in Japan during this time period.
Unfortunately the land and course were seized by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The current course, and the third incarnation of the Tokyo Golf Club was built by Kohmyo Ohtani in 1940 based on the earlier layout by Alison. It is located in Sayama City, about an hour and a half outside the city center. The U.S. Army took over the course in 1946 and returned it to the members in 1952. Alterations were made by the architect Desmond Muirhead in 1987.
Tokyo Golf Club was the hardest of all the private courses in Japan to get on. It's the equivalent of a Muirfield club in Scotland in terms of its exclusivity and traditions. The guest green free wasn't bad at about $200.
Clubhouse at Tokyo Golf Club and the 18th green
Tokyo Golf Club is built on relatively flat land. It is characterized by its elevated greens, fairways that get progressively narrow as you get near the green, and extremely difficult rough.
The elevated sixth green at Tokyo Golf Club
I never realized how hot and humid Japan is, but it gets quite hot, especially in the peak of the summer. As such, many courses in Japan have two sets of greens with different types of grass. One strain that is better in cooler weather and one set is better in warm weather. The best illustration of the two-green layout can be seen below in this picture of the eighth green(s) on this challenging par three. Note one green on either side of the tree.

Eighth greens at Tokyo Golf Club
The strategic use of cross-bunkering at Tokyo in the fairways is seen on the second hole, below.

Second hole at Tokyo Golf Club
The course has a lackluster front nine but a much better back nine, particularly holes ten through fourteen. The 10th hole, pictured below, is a good example of how the fairway narrows and snakes its way toward the greens at Tokyo Golf Club, putting a premium on hitting fairways and greens.
Approach to the 10th hole
I liked the 11th hole quite a bit. It is a short par four with a highly elevated green and beautiful "Alison" bunkering.
11th green at Tokyo Golf Club
There is a Japanese Air Force base located quite nearby Tokyo Golf Club. Similar to the experiences you have at Royal Dornoch or The Old Course at St. Andrews, throughout the round there were fighter jets taking off.
The 17th green at Tokyo Golf Club is again a good example of the elevation found around the putting surfaces. This beautiful downhill par three places a premium on hitting the green.

The 17th, elevated green at Tokyo Golf Club
Tokyo Golf Club at times reminded me of the George Thomas designed Los Angeles Country Club North Course in both style and feel.
When we were done playing at Tokyo Golf Club, we had our clubs shipped to our next scheduled course, Hirono Golf Club near Kobe. Since most Japanese travel by train it is impractical to carry clubs around with you. This efficient service, which almost all courses offer, ships your golf clubs for about $10. It is a great bargain and it is nice not to have to carry around clubs in such a space constrained country.
Another of Charles Alison's Japanese designed courses is immediately next door to Tokyo Golf Club and runs parallel to holes eleven and twelve - Kasumigaseki (East).
Tokyo
This was my first visit to Tokyo and I found the city hard to take in. With 36 million people in the metropolitan area it is the largest concentration of people on the planet. Imagine a city with the geographic footprint of Los Angeles and the density of Manhattan and you have Tokyo. There are elevated highways running through the chaotic city with apartment blocks and office towers abutting the highways almost everywhere. Virtually every block is like Times Square or Piccadilly Circus in its vibrancy and use of neon. It has the ugliest architecture of any city I have ever seen with an almost absurd emphasis of utility over aesthetics. Being in Tokyo is often times a surreal experience given the scale and magnitude of everything. In his science fiction silent movie of 1927, Metropolis, Fritz Lang imagined an overwhelming futuristic city with cross-crossing elevated highways, unimaginable density and hyper-activity. Modern day Tokyo is that city.
What makes the city a joy to visit despite its architectural banality is the Japanese people. They have a charm, sense of manners and self-discipline that makes their city truly a unique place in the world.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Kawana - Fuji Course
Mount Fuji
The Kawana Fuji course (ranked #80 in the world) is often called Japan's Pebble Beach because it is a golf resort set on cliffs near the ocean. The course is accessible only to hotel guests. Kawana is located in Shikuoka Prefecture, two hours from Tokyo on the Izu Peninsula. It is located within a national park on Sagami Bay. The course was completed in 1936 by Charles H. Alison, partner of the great H.S. Colt. Alison took a vacation at the Kawana hotel in 1930 and convinced the owner that he should use the amazing land here to build a golf course.
During the Second World War almost all the golf courses in Japan had to be converted into farmland to produce food. The remaining courses were taken over by the occupation forces. Hotel Kawana was taken over by the U.S. Eighth Army and was later handed over to the Australian troops to be converted to a recreation center.
Unfortunately, we played Kawana on a rainy day. When you travel 6,500 miles to play a course, you're going to play no matter the weather. I didn't have a particularly good nights sleep since rain was pelting the windows all night long. We delayed the tee time an hour because at breakfast it was still raining like a monsoon. We played the first three holes in a downpour, but luckily the weather got progressively better as we went along. The picture at the top of this post is of the 12,388 foot high Mt. Fuji, which you can see from the course only about a half-dozen times a year, given the vagaries of the weather patterns near the mountain.
Kawana is a beautiful Alison course with brilliant use of terrain, a lot of shot variety, beautiful bunkering and memorable par threes. The start at Kawana is one of the best in the world. You tee off from a high, elevated tee down into a narrow fairway with a view of the water in the distance. It reminded me a bit of the first tee shot at Spyglass. The drop off the elevated tee is quite dramatic, and drops about 100 feet. Riviera has a similar elevated first tee shot. My estimate is that the drop in elevation here is probably twice as high as the one at Riviera.
Looking down the fairway from the 1st tee at Kawana
You can see from the picture taken off the second tee that the elevation change at Kawana can be quite acute throughout the course.
2nd fairway with big sweeping hill
The third hole, pictured below, is narrow and the landing area is at an odd angle from the teeing area. The hole plays significantly longer than the 450 yards on the card. Kawana reminded me of playing in Northern California at times. Variously, it looks like either The Olympic Club, Spyglass and Pebble Beach. This hole reminded me of the narrowness at Olympic.

4th green at Kawana
The greens at Kawana are almost always elevated, as was typical of Alison's design style. They are also well-bunkered, as you can see from the most acute example on the course seen below, on the 18th hole.
The 18th green at Kawana
This picture below was taken on the 17th fairway. As an island nation, the weather in Japan is changeable. One of the great aspects of playing golf is being out in the elements. Sometimes you catch the weather just right. Other times you have to adjust to the conditions at hand and enjoy the moment. Low clouds were blowing through quickly as we played the back nine. As the clouds lifted, it revealed the high mountains in the background. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was probably a result of jet-leg, too little sleep and a mild hangover, but a couple of times while playing Kawana it felt like an out-of-body experience. Playing the 17th hole was a magical moment and illustrative of how enchanting playing in Japan was.
17th fairway at Kawana
The terrain is so steep throughout the course that to get to the 5th tee box you have to take an outdoor escalator. I have taken an elevator before during a round of golf, namely, at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, but this is the first time I've taken an escalator.

Escalator to the par three 5th hole
The natural undulations of the terrain can also be seen well in this picture of the 9th fairway, below, looking backward from the green.
9th fairway at Kawana
The 15th at Kawana is clearly one of the world's greatest golf holes. It is a par five that plays next to the Pacific Ocean on a high cliff with dramatic views. You hit over a deep ravine to a fairway below you and to the right. This part of the course feels a lot like Pebble Beach.
The dramatic 15th hole at Kawana
After your tee shot the hole plays uphill and the fairway slopes from the right side to the left, toward the water. You are not immediately adjacent to the water; there is a buffer of bushes and you can clearly hear the waves crashing below you and see the water in the distance over the dense foliage.
Uphill 2nd shot from the 15th fairway
The best view of how much waving and rippling there is in the fairway can be seen in this shot, below, taken from the green looking back on fifteen.
15th hole looking back from green
Hitting your approach shot long to the 15th hole is not recommended, as you can see the steep drop off behind the green.
15th green as seen from behind
Planet Golf compares the terrain at Kawana to Turnberry, Mid Ocean and Pebble Beach. I've been lucky enough to play all three and agree that Kawana belongs in this small group of the world's most scenic courses. The difference at Kawana is that there is thick foliage between the edge of the cliffs and the course, but you can see the water from virtually the entire course.
Holes thirteen through fifteen are fabulous holes, as is the finish generally. Seventeen and eighteen both play uphill and are difficult holes. The only weak stretch of holes is eleven and twelve, which appear a bit out of character with the rest of the course. The Korai greens, a thick bladed (like bermuda) grass, are slow.
Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe stayed at Kawana on their honeymoon in 1954, and my sense is that the beds in the rooms are still the same ones. The resort is a bit dated, and the dining room has the ambiance of a corporate cafeteria, but if you are in Japan it is worth the two hour journey south of Tokyo to see this C.H. Alison beauty.
Since Kawana is a public course, it is the only way most people can play a course designed by Charles Alison, the maestro of golf course design in Japan. A round of golf at Kawana is ¥26,500 or about $265.
I would personally rank Kawana higher than #80 in the world.
Kawana's website
Two interesting photos from the late 1940s showing American soldiers at Kawana during the occupation. Note the American flag flying over the pool:


Sunday, October 19, 2008
Japanese Golf Etiquette - A 12 Step Program
Near the first tee at Naruo1. Play with long pants - Golf at a private course requires long pants. Japan is a very hot and humid country and it would be nice to wear shorts, but long pants are required at private clubs.
2. Wear a jacket upon arrival. Like at the exclusive Garden City Golf Club in New York and Muirfield in Scotland, the proper protocol when arriving at a private Japanese club is to wear a jacket.
3. Arrive on time. Don't arrive early and don't arrive late. In a country where subway trains arrive the second they are supposed to, there is a premium put on punctuality. Bow when you meet your host and thank him profusely for hosting you. Bring a small gift and give it to your host when you meet him.
4. Check-in. When you arrive at the club for the round you will be greeted with a reception area similar to a hotel check-in. You will be given a little card holder and locker key with a number on the front. If you want to buy something in the pro-shop or halfway house, you sign the chits with your assigned number and everything is charged to the card. As you leave, you settle the bill. As with most payments in Japan, credit cards are accepted but as with most transactions in Japan, they prefer cash.

The caddie assignments at Tokyo golf club
5. A pre-round cup of coffee. If your host offers you a cup of coffee before the round, have it. All three hosts offered me coffee before the round, which you take sitting in the grill room as a prelude to the round.
6. No tipping. There is no tipping in Japan, period. This includes caddies, locker room attendants, etc.
7. Sign the sheet the caddie hands you. When you go out to play you will have a female caddie. She will have your bag already loaded on a cart and will have counted your clubs. You are asked to sign off on the number of clubs in your bag before teeing off and at the conclusion of the round. Since she won't speak English and the sheet she hands you is in kanji characters, it took me a while to understand what I was being asked to sign.
8. Lunch after nine holes. Unlike in the U.K. and the U.S., you stop after nine holes and have lunch. Lunch includes a beer before and coffee afterwards. I got a couple of dirty looks when I tried to skip either the beer or coffee, so I suggest having both. If you are not an adventerous eater and are worried about getting fish heads or some exotic dish, most courses have a curried rice dish that you can always fall back on. Some courses will give you a back nine starting time as you go in for lunch, others allow you to tee off on the back when you are ready. You will stiffen up pretty good at lunch, usually making the 10th hole an interesting hole.
9. Post-round communal hot bath. After the round, the fun really begins. The pièce de résistance of any Japanese golfing experience is the bath, known as o-furo. Your locker will contain a pair of small plastic slippers that will be about three sizes too small for your feet. After you finish playing, take off your golf shoes and put on the slippers. Leave your clothes on, but take a change of clothes with you. Head toward the bath area. As you enter, take off your slippers and walk to a changing area filled with baskets. This is where you take off your clothes and grab a small towel.
Whatever you do at this point, do not grab a large towel, it is a big breach of protocol. You then enter the shower area with your hand towel. There are western style showers available which are acceptable to use, but most Japanese men sit on foot-high little wooden stools and wash themselves vigorously out in a big open area. Japanese men are very reserved in all aspects of their lives except washing themselves in public. They embrace the task with such élan that I was taken aback each time I saw it.
After you have finished cleaning up, the custom is to take a communal hot bath. We're talking buck naked, boys. No towels to hide behind and no bathing suits allowed. Picture fifteen of your geriatric best friends together in a large hot tub immersed in water up to your neck, and you get the idea. Some of the bathers put the little towel on top of their heads during the bath, which makes them look like some sort of escapee from a lunatic asylum. The whole thing looks like it comes straight out of a Fellini movie.
The biggest faux pas possible would be to jump right into the hot tub without first showering. You would show yourself to be the ultimate gaijin (foreigner)and I shudder to think what would happen. It's the equivalent of peeing into a swimming pool back home.
Once you get it through your head that this ritual is not some sort of trick designed so that everyone can stare at your chibi anatomy, the whole bath routine is a nice way to finish off your round and does help your back feel better. Be warned that the scalding water can lead to an unexpected contraction of your most important organ.
Leaving the shower area, you must put the slippers back on after you dress to walk back to your locker, but only after stepping out of the area with the baskets. It is hard to remember the precise sequence of all these steps since there are so many little nuances. The first time I did this whole thing I got some disapproving stares because I walked to the bath area wearing only my BVDs. Oops. Saru mo ki kara ochiru (everyone makes mistakes).
10. Post-round drink. Have a post-round drink, usually beer, and try to regain your dignity.
11. Learn the word arigato. Arigato means thank you in Japanese. If you say it about 300 times a round, you're off to a good start. It is also ok to say, 'goo shot' if a Japanese player hits a good shot. I know it sounds goofy, but it's a bastardized English expression that you will hear often.
12. No gimmie putts. I'm not sure if this is true all over Japan, but the members I played with at all three courses didn't give any putts. Not even a three inch putt.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Shinkansen - The Bullet Train
Japan is a highly industrialized, developed nation where essentially every square inch of land that is not mountainous is fully developed. If your cup of tea is poorly designed housing units and factories, you'll love the view.
Bullet train arriving in Tokyo Station Several things did catch my attention though. One is the continued politeness of the Japanese. The train conductors bow each time they enter or exit a car and are highly respectful, as is everyone here. The other thing that was ideal is that no-one, repeat no-one speaks into their cell phones on the train. There are only small areas of the train where cell phone use is allowed and it makes for a very pleasant ride.
The golf here is incredible, I will be putting up my course reviews between now and year end, and you will be amazed at the quality of the courses.
A sneak preview below, Kawana's 15th hole:
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Japanese Driving Ranges

Most of the ranges are mechanized - a ball pops up after you hit your ball and the ball cleaning machines are automated, scraping across the ground to retrieve the balls.
The Japanese are golf obsessed and it's quite a sight to go to a driving range at 10:00pm at night and see all the range players hitting balls.Monday, October 13, 2008
Japanese Caddies

Friday, October 10, 2008
Golf in Japan - Arrival

I made it to Japan. Fourteen and half hours and thirteen time zones later, I arrived at Narita airport in Tokyo. Tokyo is the largest metropolitan area in the world - with 35.5 million people. The next three largest are significantly smaller: Mexico City 19.2 million, Mumbai 18.8 million and New York 18.6 million.
Japan is a golf obsessed country. It has 2,300 courses, which is more courses than Scotland. I am looking forward to the trip. According to Links Magazine it is customary in Japan to stop for a full lunch, hot-springs immersion and an hour-long massage after nine holes. Bring it on!
We are past tsuyu (the rainy season), so hopefully the weather will cooperate with us. Time permitting, I also hope to rise early one morning and see Tsukiji , the world's biggest fish market. Perhaps some Sumo wrestling, and hopefully we'll have time to catch a Japanese baseball game.
Elevated expressway through TokyoThe first course built in Japan was the Rokko golf club in 1901, near Kobe. In 1930, Joe Kirkwood and Walter Hagen went to Japan at the invitation of the Japan Golf Association and played ten exhibition matches. After their visit, golf started to take off, with thirty courses built in the next few years.
Many of the courses in Japan have two sets of greens because the summers are so hot and humid, the idea is to lessen the wear on just one set of greens. Japan is a small country with a large population, a lot of the land is steep mountainsides unsuitable for living or golf. There is a law against converting farmland to golf courses.
One name I have already become familiar with is C.H. Alison, a British golf course architect who visited Japan in the 1930s and was responsible for almost all the world-ranked courses in the country.
My course lineup includes:
Hirono Golf Club (ranked # 35) - Japan's most distinguished golf club
Naruo Golf Club (ranked #75) - Japan's Hidden Gem
The Kawana Fuji course (ranked #80) - Japan's Pebble Beach
Tokyo Golf Club - The most prestigious club in Tokyo
I'm eager to expand my vocabulary, my waistline and my golf repertoire. Get the Kobe beef ready and keep the Sapporo chilled. The American Embassy has warned the Japanese people - for the next week - bring the women and children indoors. The complete jackass gaijin (foreigner) has arrived.
I will post frequently to keep you up to date.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
20 Years, Seven Months, 27 Days...
Bernie Hiller now takes a revered spot in my honor roll. Read on...
Reprinted with permission from The New York Post, January 25, 1999
"Finally, I got to play Augusta. I played with the dishwasher. It took me 20 years, seven months and 27 days from the time I first started trying to get on it." --BERNIE HILLER
The hardest to access course - Augusta National
You can't out-original Bernie Hiller when it comes to golf experiences.
You also cannot insult him. He's become used to (numb to?) being called crazy, nuts and out of his mind. His wife calls him these things daily.
To say that Hiller is a compulsive, moderately-eccentric man who's on a mission from God to get his way is to say that the greens at Augusta National are difficult to putt or that Pine Valley is an awesome golf course. (More on those two courses in a moment).
Hiller is a 71-year-old Long Island resident who had a vision back in 1974 - Oct. 1, 1974 to be exact. And, to put this as mildly as we can, Hiller would not allow himself to be denied fulfilling his dream.
"I got a book from Golf Digest about the 100 best courses in the U.S. and I said, 'God, I would like to do this someday,'" Hiller was saying this week.
By "doing this someday," Hiller meant playing the 100 of the best courses. All of them. Honest.
And so he did, officially completing his methodical, self-funded mission in November of 1997. That mission, by the way, was modified from the top 100 courses in the U.S. to the top 100 courses in the world.
Hiller, who's in the life insurance business, has traveled as far as New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Japan - just to play these great golf courses. He's done it, for the most part, by writing letters to the courses and asking on.
His most difficult conquest was Augusta National.
"I'd finally almost finished the U.S. list, getting up to No. 99, but I could never get into Augusta," Hiller recalled. "I calculated that I talked to at least 5,000 people trying to get onto Augusta.
"Finally," Hiller went on, "I got to play Augusta. I played with the dishwasher. It took me 20 years, seven months and 27 days from the time I first started trying to get on it."
On May 27, 1995, after being connected with the Augusta National dishwasher by a mutual acquaintance, Hiller, a 16 handicap now, conquered his toughest quest - shooting 85 at the home of The Masters. It was made possible because in late May the club employees are allowed to play the course with one guest.
"It was one of the great rounds of my life," Hiller said. "I swear I heard the 25,000 people applauding when I got off 18. I still get chills talking about it."
Hiller's favorite course of all - what he calls "the most enjoyable course in the world" - is not even on any of those top 100 lists: The Gold Course of the Golden Horseshoe in Williamsburg, Va.
He calls Pine Valley "the greatest golf course in the world, no ifs ands or buts." He said he loves Pebble Beach and added, "There's no greater hole than the 16th at Cypress."
"I rate, right now, Bethpage Black in the top 10," Hiller said. "I think it's better than Shinnecock."
Hiller said he has his own rating system for courses.
"I look at a golf course as a piece of sculpture made out of the basic elements of sand and grass and trees and water," he said. "I go along with some of the Golf Digest criteria - identifiability, memorability, diversity of holes, quality of the course itself and degree of difficulty. Then I add my own: enjoyment."
Hiller estimated that he's spent somewhere around $100,000 in his quest. He said he buys a shirt from each course he played, estimating that he's spent about $12,000 on shirts alone.
His mission nearly never culminated as he nearly died trying to complete it. While attempting to play the 100th of the world courses, Hiller collapsed in South Africa with heart problems the day before he was to play Durban Country Club.
After a night in the hospital, though, "I got up the next morning, teed off at 1:30 at Durban, and walked the whole way," Hiller said. "It was finally No. 100. My hands were shaking. The next morning at the airport, the same [heart] thing hit me. When they called my cardiologist back home, he said, 'Let him die, because he's too stupid.'"
Durban's spectacular 17th hole
The morning Hiller arrived back to the States, he had open heart surgery.
"But I did it," he said. "I know that had I died that time, all my friends would have said, 'He died happy playing that golf course.' It's a craziness, I know. But I'm a very compulsive person."
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Honors Course
The quest to play the best golf courses in the world mandates a stop in Tennessee. My friends from overseas are scratching their heads about now. Tennessee?
Yes, friends, Tennessee. You know, the home of Graceland, Opryland and Jack Daniels.
The Honors Course ranks right up there in the 'most difficult to find' category of courses. At least Chicago Golf Club has a small sign out front. To find Muirfield, you can look for the Greywalls Hotel next door. Morfontaine, near Paris, is genuinely difficult to find, as is The Honors Course. The course is located at 9603 Lee Highway. You can type the address into Mapquest and it will map out a route for you. Even armed with this useful information, we drove right past it. Then, retracing our route and paying close attention, we ran right by it again without the slightest inkling that it was there. Doubling back, the third time, we missed it as well. After we called the pro-shop the nice lady told us to make a left at the white propane tank, and sure enough, across from Chattanooga Propane Company there is a very small un-marked road, hidden deep in the trees.

Just like at Yeamans Hall, you know that you have arrived somewhere special the moment you manage to find the turn off the highway. Once beyond the gate, there is a long winding driveway that takes you up to the discreet, small clubhouse and pro shop. It's always the little things that make a big difference, and at The Honors, they get them all right. They not only take your bags out the car, but valet park it for you. They anticipate when you are going to leave and have your car pulled up and ready to go when you are. The caddy program is outstanding, the food is great (I recommend the Shrimp Po'Boy Sandwich), the grill area is cozy and the service is super. Around various tee boxes on the course are three tasteful and unobtrusive wooden barrels - one filled with chilled water bottles, one filled with chilled soda bottles and one filled with chilled beer. Elvis has left the building, ladies and gentleman!
Although the course is relatively young, it has hosted the 1991 U.S. Amateur, won by Mitch Voges and the 1996 NCAA championship won by a young Eldrick Woods.
The Golf Course
The course was designed by Pete Dye. In the past, I've had a hard time getting excited about Pete Dye courses. I like Harbour Town and The Ocean Course at Kiawah and Casa de Campo has nine great holes. I despise the TPC at Sawgrass and couldn't find inspiration to write about Whistling Straits. The Honors Course, though, made a big impression on me. I was especially impressed with how Dye was able to vary the routing here to create an exceptional balance between easy and difficult holes, long par fours and short par fours, and a difficult course that is also playable for a mortal. Although the slope rating is 145, the course doesn't wear you out like an Oakmont or Bethpage Black.
I was especially impressed with two short par fours, which are great risk-reward holes. The par four 9th hole is only 355 yards long. You probably won't see your tee shot land, as the landing area is semi-blind. The second shot is a wedge to a green protected in front and on the left by water. Dye has said about the 9th at The Honors, "every course needs a #9 - one of my rare forced carries to a par four green". His execution of the hole here is very well done; the design is subtle and really penalizes a mis-hit shot.

Approach to the 9th green

Tree blocking the approach to the 12th green
The course is built on a huge expanse of land on 400 acres and meanders around the property in an artful fashion. Usual Dye features are present at The Honors Course such as the mounding and grass bunkers seen here on the second hole, below:
Grass mounds on the 2nd fairway

Tree guarding the 4th green

The well protected 6th green
The par three 14th, below, shows off the diversity of holes Dye designed at The Honors Course. You won't see a lot of railroad ties here. You will see a variety of hole styles, doglegs and elevation changes. In hindsight, I'm not a raving fan of Pete Dye because his courses often have a manufactured look to them. I like The Honors Course best of all his work because it has a natural look and a sense of polish to it, without being forced, unlike many of his other courses.
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The beautiful approach to the 11th, a par five
Playing The Honors course was a bit of a homecoming for me. My first round of golf ever was played in Tennessee nineteen years ago. It felt good to be back in Tennessee!
My last name ends in a vowel, and it's clear to anyone south of the Mason-Dixon line that I'm not from around here. As my readers know, however, I'm a big fan of the Southern way of life and Tennessee is no exception. I appreciate a distinctive accent and I particularly like their brand down here. They don't drive cars here, they drive vee-hickles. Appropriately, they ask if you need dye-rections to get back to the airport. Many locals are genuinely fascinated to finally meet an eye-talian in person since they didn't realize there were so many different types of Yankees and there are not too many paesanos down here. I also like the distinctive feel of little Southern towns, the local barbecue and the generally slower way of life.

Local 'Bar-B-Que' joint in Ooltewah
Wild Turkeys at The Honors
I strongly disagree with Tom Doak's assessment of The Honors in his Confidential Guide where he states, "there aren't many notable holes: only the par-4 7th, a neat solution to putting a hole along the dike of an irrigation pond, but otherwise one of the most gimmicky-looking hole Pete Dye ever built". Doak continues, "I must admit, though, that much of my disdain for the course is due to the attitude the club presents. It's one thing to aspire to Augusta, but you can't create tradition overnight, and you certainly shouldn't be complaining about rival new courses being less traditional than your own. I don't think you ought to be able to have it both ways, seeking high rankings and national tournaments while trying to remain extremely exclusive at the same time."
Tom got it completely wrong. The opposite is true.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Summer Holiday

As my regular readers know, I have been trying to arrange a trip to play in Japan, home of three top 100 courses. On the good news front, I have a trip arranged for the Fall and will be providing a blow-by-blow account of my Asian trip while there, with plenty of pictures.
The mortgage meltdown and bear market are inflicting pain on many of us, your faithful blogger included. The small indignities I have had to suffer include doing my own laundry to save on dry cleaning and taking the subway instead of a black sedan. Worst of all, I will be doing the fourteen and a half hour direct flight to Tokyo in coach. I can hear the sympathy cries going out now. Thank you for your support. These are in fact, tough times.
Below are two pictures from the Charles Blair Macdonald gem in Bermuda, The Mid Ocean Club, taken during more prosperous times. Have a safe and enjoyable summer!
* My two proof readers (in their 20s, like many of my tech saavy readers) didn't recognize Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn from the 1953 classic Roman Holiday. Their loss.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Merion - Drama, Comedy and Tragedy
Shockingly, many of my readers inform me that they like my pictures more than my prose. Humbug.

Memory is not one of my strengths. One minute after meeting someone, I don't remember their name. Many times I have had to look at the bag tag of the member I'm playing with every three holes to remember his name and not make a complete fool of myself. And, I have gotten very good at not saying names. "Nice shot" instead of "Nice Shot, Dave", in case his name is in fact Bob.
There is, however, a part of my memory that works very well when it sees greatness. I have found that the mark of a truly great course is how well you remember it both immediately after a round and six months later. Using this measure, Merion is a truly great course. After playing it once I could describe every hole in detail. The shape, terrain, bunkers, doglegs, green contours, etc. At Pebble Beach you sort of feel compelled to like the course because it is so pretty and everybody raves about. But, if you're being honest with yourself, aside from the 18th hole, can you visually remember all 18 holes at Pebble? I'll bet you can't. Merion is seared into my memory. So far this has happened to me on only three courses in the world: Merion, The National Golf Links of America and Cruden Bay.

18th green from the locker room
What makes Merion so memorable? It is the ultimate strategic golf course. It is not a terribly long course. At Merion, you have to hit the fairways or it will be a long day. Second, you have to be on the correct side of every fairway in order to have a decent shot at the green. And finally, you have to be on the correct part of the green or you're in three putt territory. On every green. Also, the shot variety is really good as are the changes in direction, doglegs and uphill/downhill shots. No monotony here. As if the golf course itself is not good enough (and it is) you also have the grandeur and majesty of the clubhouse and the Bobby Jones history.

Bobby Jones with his grand slam trophies
If there was ever a course that new equipment has destroyed, it is Merion. It is too bad that the U.S.G.A and R. & A. have let the situation get out of hand and length is now the primary driver of competitive golf. It would be a shame if this course is lost from major competition forever. Hopefully, the rule making bodies will make changes prior to the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion.
I consider Merion to be the spiritual home of golf in the U.S. due to its greatness, its history, its association with Bobby Jones and the architecture of the course and the clubhouse.
This is the first course Bobby played a major on (the 1916 Amateur), the first course he won a major on (the 1924 Amateur) and the last course he played competitive golf on (the 1930 Amateur), completing the fourth leg of the Grand Slam at Merion in September 1930. Also, the classic photograph which is the golfing equivalent of the sailor on V.J. day kissing a woman in Times Square was taken at Merion.
Ben Hogan on Merion's 18th hole
Taken by Life Magazine photographer, Hy Peskin, it shows Ben Hogan hitting a one iron on the 18th hole in the 1950 U.S. Open. It is an iconic picture of this great player at one of the most historic of courses in a perfect finish position. Hogan almost stopped playing during this final round because he was in such a state of fatigue recovering from a near fatal car accident the year before. Hogan hit the one iron onto the green and made a par to qualify for a three man playoff the next day which he would go on to win. It is one of the most heroic finishes of all time.
13th hole closeup Merion has many unique characteristics: the red wicker baskets as flags, the bunkers with clumps of grass in the middle (known as the white faces of Merion) and the scene around the first tee. You tee off right next to the outside patio with members and guests about five feet away from the tee box. It is one of the best opening holes in golf. The view in all directions is impressive; the clubhouse building with its white-washed stone and porch, the green awnings, the mature trees, the wicker baskets. Merion also still has what has unfortunately become a rare entity in American golf: Experienced caddies, and lots of them. The clubhouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places is the golfing equivalent of St. Peter's. Also, like the Vatican, Merion upholds the traditional and the conservative in the game and in many ways is truer to the traditions than golf's governing bodies because they don't have to compromise with the equipment manufacturers.
In the clubhouse and on the course at Merion you naturally speak in hushed tones and in a respectful manner. It sounds absurd but it is close to a religious experience.
Looking back from the first tee at Merion
The first tee as seen from the 18th green
4th green The fourth hole (above) is a downhill par five that requires a precision shot, normally from a downhill lie, to a well bunkered green over a creek.
7th green
11th hole greenWhen you play the 11th hole, where Jones finished his match in the 1930 Amateur to win the Grand Slam, you have chills up and down your spine. I have, on the half dozen times I've been fortunate enough to play. Like most holes at Merion, there is just no margin for error on approach shots to the green. Dan Jenkins describes the shot into the 11th green with absolute clarity as, "There is hardly any shot that will do except the perfect one."
13th green - short par 3 near the clubhouse
16th "Quarry" hole approach to green The 16th, 17th and 18th play through an old quarry and are demanding finishing holes.
Sun setting on the 18th greenThe finest American golf writer ever, Herbert Warren Wind, described Merion as a three-act play: The Drama of the first six demanding holes; the Comedy of the next seven short, precision holes; and the Tragedy of the last five punishing holes.
If you get invited to play Merion, by all means make the pilgrimage.Merion's Web Site
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Oakland Hills Country Club
The Oakland Hills Country Club, South Course (ranked #25 in the world), was originally designed by Donald Ross in 1918. Walter Hagen was the first head pro at Oakland Hills. The South Course has played host to the U.S. Open six times: 1924, 1937, 1951, 1961, 1985 and 1996. It also hosted the 2004 Ryder Cup and the PGA Championship in 1972, 1979 and again this year.
Oakland Hills represents my 75th course played out of the top 100, only 25 to go!
The Oakland Hills Clubhouse, which was modeled after Mount Vernon
Near the first tee of the South Course are plaques of all the players who have won championships at Oakland Hills. The most famous, of course, was Ben Hogan's victory in the 1951 U.S. Open when he famously said, "I am glad I brought this course, this monster, to its knees." He also said that it was "the greatest test of golf I have ever played and the toughest course." Oakland Hills was an early example of a real estate development linked to the building of golf course. When originally conceived in the early nineteen-teens lots were laid out for sale encircling the golf course.
Robert Trent Jones made significant changes to the course prior to the '51 Open and is credited with making the course a lot more strenuous. The sixth hole, seen below, is representative of what makes it a difficult course: its well placed bunkering, along with its length and tough greens. This hole also has a two-tiered green. As you would expect at a championship course of this calibre, the greens are very fast and have many challenging pin placements.
According to the club history, when Ross started routing the course, he started it with #10 and #11, two world-class holes. The tenth hole is a 462 yard par four where the entire fairway falls off to the right. The tee shot requires precision and all but the perfect shot will feed down the hill to the right side of the fairway, leaving a blind or semi-blind shot to the elevated green. What makes it such a tricky tee shot is that visually off the tee you have to hit it at the tree you see on the left side of the fairway. The tee box and visuals trick you into hitting it to the right side. It is very well done.
The 11th hole plays parallel to the 10th in the opposite direction. The trick on the 11th hole is to favor the left side off the tee. On this hole the fairway also slopes severely left to right off the tee, where a shot that is not struck well will leave you a blind shot to a difficult green.
There is no respite once you get to this two-tiered green. The green is highly elevated from the fairway and slopes back to front. A less-than-ideal shot will roll back perhaps fifty or sixty yards to the bottom of the fairway.
Ross used the natural contours of the land here to create two fantastic back-to-back holes that announce to the golfer that the back nine is going to beat you up if you don't bring your 'A' game.
The 15th holeSimilar to Valderrama's 17th hole, the 16th at Oakland Hills features a shaved area near the green that feeds shots hit short into the water.
The finishing hole at Oakland Hills is a 498 yard par five that the pros play as a par four. I wouldn't describe it so much as a dogleg right as I would a semi-circle. It is an interesting shaped hole that uses the hilly terrain well.
Oakland Hills doesn't feel like a Ross design in the same way Pinehurst #2 or Seminole does, probably attributable to Jones' changes. The course has a more wide open feel to it than some of the other PGA courses I have played such as Oak Hill or Winged Foot, which I like, since I'm not a fan of tight tree-lined fairways.
As Robert Trent Jones wrote after his redesign of the course and the 1951 Open, "the field was thrown into utter confusion. Golfers of reputation staggered home with rounds high in the 70's and occasionally in the 80's." After playing the course, it is not hard to see why. Hogan aptly called it "A Monster".
Monday, June 09, 2008
Golf Freek

Your trusted blogger here has never taken a "FAM" trip in his life, something I state with both pride and irritation, as it keeps my opinion pure. But who wouldn't love a free golf junket all expenses paid.
Eubanks also recounts his rounds with Alice Cooper and Arnold Palmer, both of which are amusing.
The area where I strongly disagree with Eubanks is with his assessment that "the best links golf in Scotland is in Ireland and the best in England is, well, not very good". Although I would agree that Birkdale is not worthy of many of the worlds great links, Royal Liverpool and Royal St. George's are two of the unquestionable finest links courses in the world and arguably, when your throw in Sunningdale, Walton Heath, Woodhall Spa and Ganton England has better golf than both Ireland and Scotland in total. Perhaps a "FAM" trip to England would enlighten him?
Friday, June 06, 2008
Access to Top 100 Courses on eBay
Click to view the auction
The seller's username is keepitontheshortgrass and his eBay store is Unique Golf Experiences. "Welcome to my eBay Store. Throughout the year you will see hard to find golf experiences. From top 100 course access to various travel packages. If there is something you do not see let me know and I will keep a look out. If it is important to you than it is important to me. Nothing is impossible."
I'm not endorsing it and I'm not affiliated with it. We'll see if this ends up being for real. I'm not sure how the seller is doing it since high end private clubs often frown on rounds being sold or auctioned off, unless it is for charity.
As Eliot Spitzer figured out, paying for something that you can get free is often fraught with hidden danger.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Sebonack Club House
It blends in a lot better with the landscape now that it is clad with wooden shingles. Yes, it is a big building, but it is very tastefully done. The first two pictures here were taken from the first tee of nearby National Golf Links of America. It's no wonder they are not thrilled with the building, given that it looks down on them.
I did a tour of the inside and it will be one of the nicest clubhouses in the country when completed shortly. There is a lot of custom woodwork in the building. The spiral staircase in the entry foyer and the custom made cherry lockers with the Sebonack logo carved in are magnificent.


The last two pictures are taken from Sebonack's 18th fairway looking back up the hill across the second fairway.
We are happy to have our photo included in Forbestraveler.com's feature article on The Most Expensive Private Golf Clubs.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Seminole Golf Club
Seminole Golf Club (ranked #22 in the world) is located just north of Palm Beach, Florida in the town of Juno Beach. In the interest of full disclosure, I have never been a big fan of Florida golf. I find Bermuda grass difficult to play on, and the flat terrain in Florida, coupled with the omnipresent water hazards, have never left me enamored of golf in the Sunshine State. I was able to play Seminole this past winter and my expectations were high, as they should be when playing a course consistently ranked in the top 25 in the world.
History
Seminole, founded by E.F. Hutton, has a rich history of being a golf club for the corporate elite. Donald Ross designed it in 1929. Seminole’s history runs deep. The course has hosted kings and presidents: Eisenhower was an honorary member; Ford and JFK played it often; and the Duke of Windsor was a member. To give a sense of the level of prominence of its membership, in 1947 members included Joseph P. Kennedy, Henry Ford II, Jack Chrysler, Paul Mellon, Phillip Armour, John Pillsbury and Robert Vanderbilt. Seminole’s membership has always included titans of industry, politics and golf. Henry Picard, the 1938 Masters winner, was the professional at Seminole for 26 years and Ben Hogan spent a significant amount of time here playing and practicing.

Seminole's Clubhouse
Arrival
Arriving at Seminole, you feel like royalty. It is a golfer’s equivalent of being king (or queen) for a day. It has all the buildup and regalia of the State Opening of Parliament. This annual ritual is full of pageantry and pomp, as is arriving at Seminole. During the State Opening, the Queen arrives in her gilded carriage, while at Seminole we arrived in a rented PT Cruiser. Although she does not have to have her credentials checked to make the royal procession, we did our requisite stop at the front guard gate. Her ride is from Buckingham to Westminster, ours was down Seminole Blvd, the long entry road lined on the left with high bushes, which ensures Seminole’s privacy. At the end of the road, we made a sharp left through the hedges and turned into the club with the beautifully proportioned pink stucco clubhouse in front of us.
The drive in is enticing, because you can catch glimpses of the golf course through the hedges occasionally, raising your sense of anticipation. The Queen’s footmen help her dismount when she reaches Parliament. At Seminole, you drive into the gravel rock courtyard, and while you don’t have to dismount, you are greeted by a staff member who takes your clubs and parks your car. Since Her Majesty brings along her own cavalry, she is let in without hassle. We had to stop and check in again at the clubhouse foyer. She then walks up the steps to Parliament under a covered portico. After checking in, the golfer has the privilege of walking up an enclosed covered stairway through the Spanish style clubhouse, leading to the second level.

When you re-emerge in sunlight, a short walk leads you past what must be the least used swimming pool in America, situated right next to the clubhouse. The Sovereign proceeds through a series of corridors to approach The Lords Chamber. Your final turn down the walkway brings you into the locker room. Just as the House of Lords is the apex of parliamentary chambers, the Seminole locker room is equally as revered and respected. It is one of the most exciting golf clubs in the world to arrive at. The only things missing on our arrival were the trumpeters and beefeaters, although we would have our share of the latter after the round.
The Locker Room
The massive locker room is double-height and has a beautiful Cypress-beamed ceiling. Around the top of the room are animal-head hunting trophies and wooden boards listing the names of past champions. The room is ringed with polished pine lockers, and there is a big fireplace at one end of the room. There is a bar at the far end of the room and comfortable seating throughout. Enter the locker room here and you begin to see why Seminole is one of America’s hallowed golfing grounds that commands reverential treatment. It is one of only a handful of places in America where you get this feeling. The others are Oakmont, Merion, Chicago, Baltusrol, Winged Foot and Shinnecock (my educated guess is Augusta and Cypress are as well, but I haven’t played them yet).

Seminole Locker Room
The Layout and Routing
I had not heard universal praise about Seminole prior to my visit. The thing I heard often about Seminole from those who have played it was: Great locker room, but the course is mediocre. On the other end of the spectrum, the éminence grise of golf architecture critique, Tom Doak, uses some of his strongest language in his Confidential Guide when he warns the reader “… if anybody tries to tell you it isn't a great course, either they've been treated like riffraff, or they don't know what good is.”
So which is it: Is Seminole over-rated or does the riffraff factor come into play? Is the locker room better than the course?
The course is set on sand ridges near the Atlantic Ocean and has changed very little since Ross designed it. Dick Wilson made some changes after the Second World War and Brian Silva restored the bunkers more recently. The course is built between high dunes along the Atlantic and an inland set of dunes along the back of the property that are about forty feet high. At the time the course was built, the marshland between the dunes was drained to create a compact area for Ross to build the course. What you see is what you get at Seminole. Standing on the first tee, you can more-or-less see all eighteen holes. Ross made economical use of the small piece of land to build the golf course. There are very short walks tee to green and very few trees.
Although the course is right along the Atlantic, it only has water views in a limited number of places, which tells you something about the height of the sand dunes. You can see water off the 12th tee, 13th green, 14th tee and only in a couple of other places. The front nine is away from the water and the back nearer the water. It is a classic links layout of two loops of nine. The front nine run counter-clockwise from the clubhouse and the back nine run clockwise and finish parallel to the ocean.
The course is not lush, does not have beautiful landscaping and is not over-watered. It is wide open and plays firm and fast, like a classic links course. To appreciate Seminole you have to look beyond the conditioning and see the artfulness of its design.
The Golf Course
The first hole, as is standard on Ross designs, is a relatively easy hole to start the round. You pay for this easy start on the second hole, which has a forced carry over water. The golfer’s second shot is to an elevated green that is tilted and repels balls. As I was to learn, this is one of the essential elements of Seminole: Fast, elevated greens that are hard to hold unless you hit the perfect shot.
Rees Jones, who is a member, says in the club history, “Seminole is probably the best bunkered course in America. A shot that hasn’t hit the proper portion of the green is likely to wind up in one of the greenside bunkers.” The crowned greens that are Ross’s signature at Pinehurst are also present here, but not as pronounced, which in some ways make them more difficult. It is a very subtle design that fools the golfer into thinking they can attack pins.

2nd green
The third hole, a par five of 504 yards, is a dogleg right. It also plays uphill to a green that is tilted front to back.
4th green
The fourth hole, a 450 yard par four is the #1 handicap hole at Seminole. Your long second shot is to an oblong narrow green that is crowned and tilts to the side. Welcome to Seminole!
Par three 5th green
Ben Hogan, who was a member, used to practice at Seminole during the month of March each year, in anticipation of playing at The Masters. Hogan's favorite hole was the 6th. A short par four at 388 yards and a slight dogleg to the left, it plays to an elevated, well bunkered-green. Apparently, Hogan used to play the hole by hitting a draw tee shot and a cut into the green. I was happy with my two straight shots and a par.
6th fairway from the tee
6th green
The course winds its way back to the clubhouse at #9. The first few holes on the back are delightfully similar to the first several holes on the front, but looping in the opposite direction. Eleven is a difficult hole and is one of my favorites. It is a par four of 420 yards with a forced carry over water off the tee. The second shot is up-hill to a green that slopes front to back and left to right severely. Putting off this green is not uncommon.
12th hole from the tee
Twelve was my favorite hole. A 367 par four that plays from an elevated tee box into a prevailing wind with a hedgerow down the entire left side. The green is the best bunkered on the course and is tilted sideways and oblong, making for a very narrow landing area. Even though you are hitting a short iron, the green looks so small and un-receptive that it is very hard to hit.
13th green
Thirteen is a beautiful up-hill par three nestled within the dunes, with the Atlantic Ocean behind.
The par five fifteenth is Arnold Palmer’s favorite hole. It is a 497 yard hole and asks the player to hit risk-reward shots twice. The first decision off the tee is how much of the lake to cut off on your tee shot. The dogleg runs to the right, so if you hit far enough right you have a shot at going for the green in two. The safer play is to the left and a pussy shot is to play the alternate fairway, which is far left behind a row of palm trees, but well away from the water. Your second shot is again over water, so you have two forced carries in a row. The green is elevated, well-bunkered and fast. Like all the greens at Seminole, it repels shots that are not hit perfectly.
16th green
Seventeen and eighteen parallel the Atlantic Ocean, and the prevailing wind is off the ocean. The eighteenth must be an impossible hole in a strong wind. The 417 yard par four is a dogleg left and has a fairway that slopes uphill and at an angle toward the beach. If the wind is blowing, you have to hit your shot over the sand dunes along the ocean and hope the wind blows it back to the correct spot on the small fairway. Architect Brian Silva, who restored the bunkers at Seminole, describes it perfectly: “the strongest feature of the golf course is its angles in relation to the wind.” The eighteenth is the perfect example of this. Although it looks relatively benign when you see the routing on paper, in reality it is very difficult. These subtleties make Ross’s design such a treat. The way the fairway is shaped is counter to the way the wind blows.
18th green from the side
Seminole is the exception to typical Florida golf. Although you have to look beyond the conditioning and wide open feel, if you judge it like a links course that plays firm and fast, you will appreciate that it is a great course. The elevation changes make it interesting, as do the difficult to hold crowned and tilted greens. The fact is, it has a great routing and is one of the best risk/reward courses ever built.
In many ways, I liken Seminole to The Old Course at St. Andrews and Shinnecock, both of which do not bowl you over upon first sight. Their greatness is in their subtlety, variety and the degree to which the course changes depending upon the wind direction and speed.
The Club
Despite my tattoo, cutoff shorts, surly manner and earring, I was treated well at Seminole and liked the course. Seminole has figured out how to be respectful of the past without being stuffy. They are on the right side of that fine line between guarding their privacy and being pricks or impressed with themselves. The attitude of everyone at the club was the same – friendly and accommodating. The caddies were the best I have personally seen in the United States. Seminole is upper crust without being uptight.
Seminole is a private club with a high percentage of members who do not live locally and has many similarities to Augusta National. It is only open from November through May. Consistent with its history, many of Seminole's members are of the corporate elite. It is one of those clubs that is coveted by the select group of über-golfers who collect high-end golf clubs in the same way your average golfer might collect balls or scorecards. Five ex-USGA presidents are members. I found it amazing that Hogan played there until 1980 – members still recount first hand playing with him.
Strictly speaking, Seminole has a great locker room – although it really is more of a combination of a locker room and bar. While it is world class, I personally think the locker room at San Francisco Golf Club and the clubhouse sitting area at Garden City Mens Club are just as good.
Does the overall atmosphere, exclusivity and the locker room influence Seminole's place in the world rankings? You would be naïve to think differently. So the course might be a tad over-rated, but when you throw in the whole package, it remains one of golf's standard-bearer’s. As Doak says, it is one of golf's aristocrats.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Augusta National Golf Club
Watching the Masters in person is an experience every golfer should have at least once in their life. In the same way that people often comment that the terrain is steeper than it looks on TV, the sensation of watching the tournament unfold when you are there, in slow motion, is also pronounced. You can't really get a feel watching TV, with its continuous leaderboard, how exciting it is to hear the distant roars, wait in anticipation as the manual scoreboard is changed and visually see the running score of each of the leaders. I have a real sense of admiration for how the tournament organizers have been able to keep the tournament firmly rooted in tradition.

Now, to the important stuff. I have to focus my efforts on playing the course. I've got a couple of seeds planted to get onto Augusta, and as this quest has taught me, you never know which one will come through, so it's always a good idea to have a couple of options, in case one or the other doesn't pan out.
Option #1 is playing with one of the titan-of-industry members that I know either first or second hand. I already have the visual image complete: Flying down on their Gulfstream G550, having a 1982 Chateau Haut Brion with dinner, staying in one of the cabins on property, watching old Masters re-runs all night, playing thirty-six and flying back without ever going through an airport security check-in line. Both of my connections know I want to play, but protocol demands that I not ask directly. So I'm being patient. But it's killing me.
Option #2 requires patience. To be precise, a five-year wait. I have to wait for my volunteer duties to come up at The Masters. Volunteers are allowed to play on a day in May ("Play Day"). This explains why even the guys who have pulled bathroom duty greet you happily as you enter the mens room at the Masters. Wouldn't you be willing to clean toilets to get a chance to play Augusta? I'm hoping I get assigned rope duty on the 16th hole, but will take whatever they assign me.
One of life's great simple pleasures is a pimento cheese sandwich at The Masters. The $1.50 for this underappreciated treat on white bread is one of the greatest bargains in the world. We can all learn a lot from the best organized and run event in the world, including how to control your brand down to the smallest detail, like your own chocolate, chips, ice cream and moon pies.
Although I haven't played the course yet, one of my fellow blogging golf fanatics has, and I am including his link here so you can get a good feel for what it is like for a mortal to play the course.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The European Club
"STAY AWAKE - GET AROUND IN 4-HOURS - YOU ARE AN ATHLETE!," the scorecard at The European Club (ranked #98 in the world) shouts at you. The European Club is the masterpiece of Irish golf impresario Pat Ruddy. Ruddy's iconoclastic style and unique personality come through strongly at the European Club.
I first played the European Club six years after it was opened, in 1998 with a group of friends, and it was my virginal experience on a links golf course.
Ruddy's very Irish sense of humor is also present on the bottom of the scorecard where in addition to your actual score, there is also a place on the scorecard for, "What my score should have been." Local Rule #1 is: "Do not be a links lawyer. Play the ball where it lies when possible."
In his book describing "The European Club", Fifty Years in a Bunker, Ruddy explains that the name European Club was meant to be grandiose - "A Big and Brave Name - Claiming the golfing continent of Europe".
At the time we played, they handed you a little blue and white card, seen above, which talks about their philosophy of the game: "Our approach to golf is fundamentalist. Accordingly, you will not find fussy furniture on our links. You might take it to be spartan while we think it is akin to the way the game was at the beginning and as it should be now. Take your clubs, card and pencil and go out and do battle with the golfscape that requires no artificial adornment."
We met Pat Ruddy when we arrived at The European Club on our first trip. We walked into the austere clubhouse, and he immediately shot a good natured insult at us: how all Americans looked like clones. He was right: all six of us had on brown khakis and logoed wind-cheaters. The decor and ambiance of the clubhouse at The European Club are on a par with that of a motor-vehicle agency. Actually, less ambiance than that of a motor-vehicle agency, because at least DMV's now have TV's. As Ruddy explains, he doesn't believe in "trumpets and brass knobs." It's all about the golf.
The Golf Course
The golf course is adjacent to the Irish Sea Links, on Brittas Bay, in County Wicklow, about 40 miles south of Dublin. The bunkers on the course are lined with railroad ties (sleepers), and Ruddy's design philosophy is to use optical illusions as a hazard on the course. There are hidden dips and hillocks shielding fairways, and his use of mounds and other hazards are meant to put a golfer off his game by creating confusion and rewarding clear thinking. The course is unconventional in that it contains two loops of ten holes instead of two loops of nine. You actually don't play all twenty holes during a round. Holes 7a and 12a, both par threes, are put into play at various times in favor of some of the other par threes. When you receive the scorecard, the two holes that you aren't playing that round have a line put through them. The course offers views of Brittas Bay on fifteen holes. The European Club offers solitude, peace and tranquility. There are no houses, no highways and no low-flying planes.
The seventh hole is the #1 handicap and has a small burn in front of the tee and down the entire right side. The left side of the hole has a reed-filled marsh jutting out as an illusion. The correct strategy is to favor the right side of the hole, but off the tee it looks like you should favor the left. Parts of the fairway are concealed behind the reeds in a brilliant use of optical illusion. Ruddy employs what he calls the "Reverse view telescope" effect on this hole; that is, everything looks further away than it is. I'm not sure how this sleight of hand is achieved but it works beautifully. The hole is 470 yards long and a bear under good conditions. Into the wind it is one of the hardest on the planet.
The eighth hole is a narrow par four that plays 415 yards from the back tees and shows the classic links feel among the sand dunes.
The 12th hole at The European Club is a 459 yard par four. What makes the hole unique is that the green is 127 yards deep. For sake of comparison, this is longer than the length of the entire world-class seventh hole at Pebble Beach and longer by nine yards than the widest double green at St. Andrews. It creates that unique problem of a pin placement being anywhere from 412 yards when on the front of the green to 515 yards when on the back. Potentially a three or four club difference, without factoring in the tricky winds!
Hole 12a is a par three, reverse image of the 14th hole at Royal Portrush, "Calamity". At Portrush, there is a huge fall off on the right side of the green, where a mis-hit shot goes into an unfathomable void. On hole 12a, all the trouble is with the abyss on the left side. It is a heroic hole that plays 166 yards from the tips.
The thirteenth is a long 596 yard par five, with four strategic bunkers on the left side of the hole and the bay on the right. When Tiger Woods played at The European Club he hit the green here by hitting a driver off the fairway.
The 415 yard par four sixteenth hole shows off the inland scenery at The European Club. Similar to the beautiful Perthsire hills that surround Gleneagles in Scotland, the richly colored mountains that surround the European Club add to the overall idyllic beauty of the place.
The finishing hole used at The European Club used to be a weak hole. A 477 yard par four that plays back toward the clubhouse, it had a pond in front of the green which was out of character with the rest of the course. It was an anti-climactic finish that received much criticism. Ruddy converted the pond into a burn a couple of years back; his inspiration was the Barry Burn at Carnoustie, after watching Van de Velde melt down at the 1999 Open Championship. It makes for a much better finish.
I got the opportunity to play The European Club again two years ago on a golf trip to Ireland. The contrast between the first time we played and the second was stark. It took us several hours to get to the course from Dublin since the capital city has prospered so much in the intervening years. This is despite the fact that there is now a highway south of Dublin which should make the trip quicker. There has been so much development and population growth that we sat in traffic most of the way.
Despite the admonishments on the card, we also had a painfully slow round the second time. We played on a Saturday afternoon and had to wait on EVERY shot. I also thought that the course conditioning needed an uptick, particularly the bunkers. When The European Club first opened, there was no clubhouse, and Ruddy and his family used to sit in their car and take the 10 pound guest fee through the window of their car. The visitor fee is now 180 Euros a round. The price of success and a top 100 world ranking has begun to spoil it, no doubt.
Pat Ruddy
Pat Ruddy is a unique figure in the world of golf. He is the owner, architect and operator of The European Club. Part of the secret of his success was that he did much of the work at The European Club himself. He didn't have to pay architect design fees. He drove the bulldozer himself when shaping the course, had a minimal crew and built it without frills. He was also smart enough to build in stages, stayed within his budget, didn't spend on a clubhouse and basically did it as a pay-as-you-go venture, pacing his development of the course to coincide with his cash flows. Ruddy is a self-made man and self-taught golf course architect. He started his career as a golf-writer and evolved into an architect. Based on the brief time I met him and reading his book I found him to be an affable, sarcastic and witty man with a sharp sense of humor and a visionary.
The European Club was arguably the first course built to rate as a top 100 course. Ruddy had a passion to build a world-class course and do things his way. He chartered a helicopter to fly him around the Irish coast looking for an appropriate piece of land on which to build a proper links course. Ruddy's feat would be difficult to repeat today. Part of the secret of his success was good timing. At the time he started his venture the Irish government was giving out grants to spur tourism. Even for private clubs such as The European Club, as long as they allowed visitors, they could take advantage of the grants. Also, in the intervening years, and with the formation of the European Union, the Irish economy has exploded upwards, and Ruddy was no doubt a beneficiary of this.
While there have been several visionaries who have followed in Ruddy's path (Mike Keiser at Bandon Dunes, Herbert Kohler at Whistling Straits and Mike Pascucci at Sebonack), this jocular fellow did it the old-fashioned way, without the benefit of being a gazillionaire. I congratulate this Irishman, excuse me, European, on such a brilliant accomplishment. I like his attitude.
Ruddy also designed the Glashedy Links, located in Ireland's God's country - County Donegal. If you even get the chance to go there, I recommend playing both the Old Course and The Glashedy Links.
The European Club's Website
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Cabo Del Sol (Ocean) Golf Course

The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Mexico to experience one of life's simple pleasures. That is, flying from a cold climate in the winter, arriving in the tropics and walking out of the plane directly onto an open stairway, with the warm sun beating down on you. It is a redeeming experience and is a much better way to arrive than walking through a jetway, through an air-conditioned terminal that is hermetically sealed.
It has always been a curiosity to me why no desert golf courses are ranked in the world's top 100 golf courses. There are many fine courses in Arizona, Nevada and Palm Springs that provide an enjoyable, different type of golfing experience -- that of target golf. The name of the golf course ranked #68 in the world threw me off -- Cabo Del Sol (Ocean). In reality it is a desert golf course laid out with islands of both green and fairway set among the desert.
I played the Jack Nicklaus-designed Cabo Del Sol (Ocean) under fine conditions this past February: seventy degree weather, a mild breeze, in the first group off the tee, with the sun rising over the water. It was my first round wearing shorts in six months and it felt great to play in such a nice location. You can see the brilliant day unfolding at Cabo del Sol below, with the cacti providing a nice frame to the sunrise.

The summary of the landscape at Cabo del Sol is: The desert meets the ocean. The summary of the golf course is: Jack Nicklaus-style forced carry shots and fast greens.

The first tee shot of the day, seen above, is typical of what you face all day at Cabo Del Sol: a forced carry over the desert.

4th approach to green
Often times, shots to the green at Cabo del Sol also require a forced carry over desert as well. The approach to the par five fourth hole, above, requires you to hit a shot over about 60 yards of desert and over a ravine, to an elevated green.
Cabo del Sol is located in the Mexican state of Baja California in Cabo San Lucas. Baja California is a peninsula of land between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. The course overlooks the Sea of Cortés and was opened in 1994. The course starts away from the water on a desert plateau and then gradually plays downhill until it reaches the water at the par three sixth hole.
The par three 6th hole
This 165 yard par three is situated in a dramatic setting among the craggy rocks right on the sea. The setting is made even more spectacular by the whales that fill the expanse behind this hole. Grey whales migrate the 12,400 miles to Cabo in the winter from Alaska to mate here. Whales are clearly an intelligent species spending their winters in Mexico! The water immediately offshore is extremely deep, which is what attracts the whales here. As you play the holes along the water, and this one in particular, you can see them continually jumping up in the water and also shooting plumes of water into the sky. I suggest playing Cabo del Sol between December and April so you experience the whales while you play.
Par three 6th hole
The par three sixth is one of the prettiest of its kind anywhere in the world and for my money rivals Pebble Beach's seventh for scenic beauty.
Behind the 7th green
The dramatic par three sixth is followed by another par three, the seventh, which is a 137 yard hole that plays at a ninety degree angle to the sixth and is parallel to the water. You can see the curious juxtapositions at Cabo del Sol, above, where Cactus plants in the desert meet the ocean. The sixth and seventh are the only holes along the water on the front nine. You don't return to the water until holes sixteen through eighteen, which finish along the sea. At this point, the course is routed back inland and plays up the plateau and then back down it again for the closing stretch of holes.
The view from the 11th tee
The 11th hole is a classic risk-reward hole. A very short par four at 328 yards, the hole offers a generous lay-up area down the entire right side. What is tantalizing, however, is that you can hit your drive just short of the green by hitting over the vast desert area on the left. Take the risk and you will have a very short shot to the green and a very good angle of approach. Miss it and you'll be down in the sand for a bit. Jack Nicklaus's courses can sometimes be overbearing and too difficult to play. I didn't find that to be the case at Cabo del Sol. As with this hole, the overall course is a nice bit of Nicklaus design.
12th hole, approach to green
The twelfth hole is a 473 yard par five and the picture above is the approach to the elevated and well bunkered green.
Downhill par three 13th
The 171 yard downhill par three 13th hole, seen above, again demonstrates the forced carry present on every hole. The greens at Cabo del Sol are among the best I have played in all my travels. They were in ideal condition when I played and were very fast.
A desert hazard at Cabo del Sol
The signature 16th hole
The sixteenth hole is the signature hole at Cabo del Sol and is featured on its scorecard. It is a 342 yard par four that plays downhill. The approach shot to the green should obviously not be long.
The par three 17th
The seventeenth hole, pictured above, is another forced carry to a beautiful, small green perched between the ocean and the desert. It is somewhat reminiscent of Pete Dye's Casa de Campo where he built several holes into the water. Golf Magazine has also compared this hole to the sixteenth at Cypress Point.
The 17th green
The eighteenth is a disappointing hole that plays along the water but doesn't really take advantage of the great terrain and beautiful setting. According to its website, Jack Nicklaus calls Cabo del Sol "the best three finishing holes in all of golf." I don't agree. Carnoustie is the clear winner here, followed by Merion and the National Golf Links of America.
You must take a cart at Cabo del Sol because the walk between green and tee is often quite long. The greens fee is steep at $325, but then again, you are playing one of the world's best golf courses in a dramatic location. Cabo del Sol was the first time I had tacos for breakfast, at the half-way house between the nines. It know it sounds unusual, but they are included in the cost of your round, and they are delicious.
Cabo del Sol is a worthy desert course among the world's top 100. Similar to Pebble Beach and Turnberry, Cabo del Sol also has a hotel on the property and I suggest staying there to soak up the experience and enjoy the great views.
The Cabo del Sol web-site
Friday, March 14, 2008
Spyglass Hill Golf Course
The following excerpt is a nice summary of Spyglass taken from its web-site: "Spyglass Hill Golf Course takes its name from Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel, Treasure Island, published in 1863. Local legend maintains that Stevenson once wandered the Spyglass area gathering ideas for his novels. A unique aspect of this course is that the holes are named after characters in Treasure Island. Hole names such as "Black Dog" and "Billy Bones" are hints for the unwary. As players attempt to master this difficult course, they may hear the laughter of pirates in the distance.
Spyglass Hill was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr., as a part of the master plan for the Pebble Beach ocean front. S.F.B. Morse, founder of Pebble Beach Company, and chairman of the board of Del Monte Properties, envisioned a string of golf courses around Del Monte Forest's shoreline. Morse commissioned Jones to design a course between Cypress Point and Pebble Beach."
The exciting first tee at Spyglass Hill
Spyglass is really the tale of two courses. The intoxicating holes along the bay (1-5) are dramatic, wide open and exposed to the elements. The inland holes (6-18) are difficult, tree-lined and play on terrain that slopes uphill.
The opening five holes at Spyglass are dramatic. I would be hard pressed to think of a golf course that has a better opening stretch of holes than Spyglass. The first hole, named Treasure Island, is a downhill sweeping par five that offers tantalizing glimpses of Monterey Bay through the trees as you stand on the tee. As you proceed down the hill, the hole sweeps to the left and the bay provides a wondrous backdrop for the green.
Spyglass Hill first hole looking down the hill
The second hole, a 349 yard par four named "Billy Bones," is one of the finest holes I have played in my travels. The tee shot is through an opening between a line of trees to a narrow fairway that slopes downhill and left to right. It is a classic risk-reward shot that rewards the more dangerous shot to the right with a shorter approach to the green.
Spyglass Hill second hole from the tee
What makes the tee shot on the second trickier is that if you want to play it safe to the left, the shot requires extreme precision. If you hit it too long to the left, your ball will end up in the ice plants (part of the carpetweed family, which tells you all you need to know), which is almost like an automatic lost ball. The short shot to the oblong, elevated green requires intense concentration due to the severity of the slope in the fairway.
Spyglass Hill second hole from fairway
The view of the bay from the second green is as good as you'll find anywhere, with the clubhouse at Cypress Point visible on your left. Overall, the hole has everything a great hole should have - dramatic scenery, great risk-reward characteristics, multiple options for low and high handicapper alike and a superb use of the terrain.
Spyglass Hill second hole looking back from the green
Spyglass Hill second green
Spyglass Hill par three third
The third hole at Spyglass Hill, named "Black Spot," is a tricky par three that plays downwind and downhill toward the bay. The nice views of the ultra-private Cypress Point and of the bay are an added bonus to this exciting hole, which sports a small green.
The fourth green (hole named "Blind Pew") is an oblong, multi-tiered green set within a sand dune, close to the bay. The green is reminiscent of the sixth at Kingsbarns or any number of greens at Cruden Bay. The 370 yard hole plays downhill the entire way with a huge sandy area down the left side.
The first five holes are truly invigorating, and if you play Spyglass, enjoy them, because the easy part of the course is now behind you.
Spyglass Hill fourth green
After the fifth hole, the course changes dramatically. The fifth and remaining holes play away from the bay, and there are no more views of the water. The rest of the course frankly feels more like Pinehurst than it does Pebble Beech. It winds its way through pine and cedar trees on the rolling terrain, leading to a difficult round of golf. When the AT&T Pebble Beach golf tournament is held each year it is played over three courses - Pebble Beach, Spyglass and nearby Poppy Hills. The pros complain about Spyglass generally, because it is such a stern test of golf. Holes six, eight and sixteen rank among the toughest on the tour each year.
My round was going very well at Spyglass until I reached the seventh hole, when, out of nowhere, on my second shot, it happened. Without mentioning the word, I will quote from two great golf writers who will explain my predicament eloquently. "It is the most demeaning shot in golf, and perhaps in any game," writes Henry Longhurst. "The ball shoots off knee high and almost at right angles to the intended line."
The next three holes were a living nightmare.
Bobby Jones explains how the affliction acts upon the mind. "Because of the fear of doing it again, by contracting the swing, the evil is cumulative, living upon itself."
I won't disclose my score on holes seven, eight and nine, but I am including a picture of the plane I flew home on, below.
Mercifully, I regained my composure on the back nine and finished with a respectable score.
The eighth hole at Spyglass Hill ("Signal Hill")
The eighth hole feels more like nearby Olympic Club, with its big elevation changes, uneven lies and narrow fairways. As with many of the inland holes at Spyglass, it plays a lot longer than the card indicates, due to the uphill terrain.
The tenth green at Spyglass Hill ("Captain Flint")
Notice how heavily wooded the back nine is in these pictures compared to the openness of the first five holes. There are several interesting features about the inland holes at Spyglass. The holes generally play longer than the yardage on the card indicates due to the continually rising terrain. Jones laid out 6-18 so that almost all the par fours play uphill and the par threes play downhill. As a result, the par threes are generally short, but still tricky, because the prevailing wind makes them play downwind, making club selection difficult.
The sixteenth hole tee shot at Spyglass Hill ("Black Dog")
The sixteenth hole, the #2 handicap, is a good example of how narrow some of the tee shots and fairways are on the back nine at Spyglass.
Overall, I really enjoyed Spyglass.
I look forward to my return to the Monterey Penninsula to play the last remaining course I need to play in California. With my round at Spyglass complete, I drove past the entrance gate to Cypress Point, the world's #2 ranked course. The entrance to Cypress Point is right off of the Seventeen Mile Drive. It looks like a tantalizing place, and I have now set my sights on getting an invitation there sometime soon.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Pebble Beach Golf Links

One of the defining characteristics of Pebble Beach is its small greens. They are, along with Inverness and Harbour Town, some of the smallest to be found among the world's great courses. The first three holes at Pebble Beach are inland and serve as a good warm-up for what's ahead. I think the course routing makes sense at the start. That is, start with some less-than-dramatic holes to get the adrenaline under control and allow a golfer to get into a rhythm before tackling the challenge along the cliffs that lie ahead.
The 7th at Pebble Beach Pebble Beach has some very dramatic scenery and some wholly interesting golf holes. In particular, I liked the short (less than 100 yard) par three seventh hole which plays downhill with the majestic vista of Monterey Bay in the background. I would be hard pressed to find someone that doesn't like this hole.
I also think that the eighth hole is one of the best in the world. It is a 416 yard par four that is a dog-leg to the right and plays along precipitous high cliffs. From the tee you have no real sense of how difficult the hole is going to be. Your view off the tee is blocked by a slight hill. The eighth hole falls off dramatically on the right hand side where the edge of the hole meets the cliffs and produces vertiginous views if you get too close to the edge. Unfortunately, two people did drive their golf cart off this cliff once and met their demise. Shots that go too far right will find a similar fate. A safer tee shot is down the left side. Your second shot has to carry 170 yards over a giant chasm to the tiny green, with a safer play being to the left. Pebble Beach is such a good course because it offers many of these risk/reward choices during the round.
The next three holes, seven, eight and nine, are some of the most beautiful in the world. We'll get to the middle of the course in a minute as we jump ahead to the finish. The seventeenth hole is a bit disappointing and looks better on TV, since, in reality, it's not actually set that close to the water, and the figure eight green shape is a bit tricky.
The 8th at Pebble Beach The par five eighteenth is a spectacular hole. This is the ultimate heroic hole in golf, which asks the golfer how much risk they are willing to take hitting over the water and thus potentially they can be rewarded with a shorter shot to the green. I can't think of a better finishing hole in all of golf.
The Other Pebble Beach
One of the reasons why I hesitate to unequivocally pronounce Pebble Beach as one of the absolute top courses straightaway is that the holes away from the water - eleven through sixteen - are not very good or exciting holes. They are in marked contrast to the holes along the water. To emphasize my point I quote Robert Trent Jones from The Complete Golfer: "Unfortunately, the 'inland' holes at Pebble Beach are not in the same class with the holes that follow the bay. The course is, in fact, a complex of ordinary holes and thrilling stretches. The first three holes are adequate. After the tenth green, the course leaves the bay and becomes somnolescent again, for none of the next six holes is above average and their difficulty is not organic. While the architects of Pebble Beach deserve acclaim for the intrepidity with which they seized the opportunities the headlands afforded, it remains an enigma to me why they did not invoke the same shot values for the interior holes."
Jones sums up the weaknesses of Pebble Beach perfectly, getting extra credit for using the word 'somnolescent,' and ten points of extra credit for using it in the same paragraph as 'intrepidity.' His ivy-league repertoire of expressive prose is as vast as his body of work designing courses.
17th at Pebble Beach Thus, you can begin to see the dilemma of rating Pebble Beach. Is Pebble Beach overrated, or are the water holes so good that even with nine weak holes, it still ranks as one of the top ten courses in the world?
Is Pebble Beach Overrated?
You hear often that Pebble Beach is the most beautiful setting in the world for golf because of the dramatic views. I have found in my travels that there are many courses that have as good or better views than Pebble Beach. I can name ten courses that are as scenic without much thought: Pacific Dunes, Bandon Dunes, Kauri Cliffs, Old Head, Cape Kidnappers, Turnberry, Kingsbarns, Sand Hills, The National Golf Links of America and Royal County Down. As you can see from the pictures here, the scenery is breathtaking. My point is not to disagree with this obvious fact, but simply to point out that it is not unique in this regard; and thus, beauty alone is not justification for a top ten world ranking.
14th at Pebble Beach Saying that Pebble Beach is the most beautiful course in the world is like saying that the best looking girl in your home town is the best looking girl on the planet. As far as your world goes, it may be true. The problem is, once you get out and see the wider world, there are prettier girls and dramatically more beautiful golf courses. So it is with Pebble Beach; once you've seen Royal County Down or Turnberry, it's hard to go back and say that Pebble Beach is the prettiest in the world.
My view of Pebble Beach has evolved over time. I used to think that Pebble Beach rates so highly because for many people it is the greatest course they have ever seen. If only more people had seen some of the other world-class scenic courses, Pebble Beach wouldn't rank so high. I used to think that my well-honed view gave me a superior position to judge these courses appropriately, since I have seen a lot of the world's top public and private courses. Essentially, my view is more informed than the un-educated swine masses who have only seen one dramatically beautiful course, Pebble Beach, and naturally think it's the greatest in the world. The problem with this position is that once you actually put it down on paper, it is intolerable. Since my aspirations in life don't include sounding like Prince Charles, I have moderated my position.
8th hole looking backwardI used to tell people, when asked, that I thought Pebble Beach was overrated. However, when I actually put pen to paper and try to rank courses myself, it's hard not to put Pebble Beach near the very top. In fact, looking at the top 100 list, I would move only Merion, Royal Portrush, The National Golf Links and Sand Hills ahead of Pebble Beach, but not many others. So, ok, maybe it should rank as #12 in the world, but the basic point remains, despite its flaws, Pebble Beach is one of the best places on the planet to play golf.
The reason the course is so highly ranked is that the holes along the water are so well designed and strategic, in addition to being so visually dramatic. By way of comparison, the land at Old Head in Ireland is equally as dramatic as Pebble Beach; however, the design and routing of the course puts Pebble Beach ahead of its peers.
The Pace of Play
It can be difficult sometimes to separate out the experience of playing the course from the course itself. Pebble Beach is not the fastest place in the world to play golf, and it is a bit touristy. Pebble Beach used to be famous for its annoyingly slow pace of play, with a six hour round being not uncommon several years back. It now has the opposite problem: an annoyingly fast round. An annoyingly fast round is one where a marshal tells you to play fast every two holes even though there are groups all around you. It does help improve the pace of play to a more tolerable level, but it is annoying. The problem here is everyone wants to stand around and take pictures, and that slows down the round. This is not the type of golf I like. Because I have a grandiloquent and boastful manner, I much prefer playing in isolation at a place like Somerset Hills, Morfontaine or Woodhall Spa, where you are playing fast because you are exhilarated and because you can, and not because someone is pushing you.
To separate out the course from the experience, it can be helpful to imagine for a minute that Pebble Beach is a private course. Visualize yourself teeing off at 7:00 am in the mist and you are one of only a handful of groups playing the course that day. It completely changes your perspective of the place. Now, it takes on an entirely new view. Also, to fairly judge the course's place in the golf world you also have to understand the history of the the epic struggles contested there (go, Tom Watson!) and the quality of the champions that have played on it, and how this impacts its ranking. For this reason, when you collectively look at Pebble Beach on a variety of criteria, it truly is a special place to play golf.
9th at Pebble Beach The lodge, food and resort at Pebble Beach are all world-class, especially the Tap Room overlooking the bay. It would be tough to argue there are many better places for an apres-round cocktail. I note that in the November/December issue of Links Magazine, 43% of the respondents in a survey said that if they could only go to one golf destination for the rest of their lives, they would go to Pebble Beach. This ranked ahead of the other three choices offered: St. Andrews, Pinehurst and Bandon Dunes. No surprise to me that I'm again in the minority.
If you are planning a golf trip to the Western United States my advice is to go to Pebble Beach if you haven't already, and if you want to stay in plush surroundings, eat well and be pampered. If you're really into great golf and want to experience the game as it was meant to be played, walk at a good pace, and be surrounded by beautiful scenery and solitude, I suggest a golf trip to Bandon Dunes instead. Bandon is closer to the soul of the game, and its less commercial feel appeals to me more.
Pebble Beach's web-site has a cool feature of live web-cams.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Golf in Japan

I had fun last year trying to get on the #47 ranked course in the world, Morfontaine in France. It was a learning experience to try and play a course in a foreign land without any contacts. I received a lot of good feedback about my many aborted attempts to play this ideal French course and I was ultimately successful. So, I'm at it again.
This time, I am trying to gain access to the top ranked courses in Japan. As usual, I am aiming high, trying to get onto the best private courses in the land of the rising sun. I did a Google search for both Hirono and Naruo and found the phone numbers for both. I figured a good first try would be to just call them up and see if I could schedule a round. I was steeling myself for a tough time. My odds of this being successful are low, however, given the language barrier. I'm not too worried about breaking through eventually, since I've been rebuffed, turned away and put in my place by some of the best private clubs in the world. I have become very resilient and feel that when I put my mind to something I can achieve it.
With my calling card in hand, I decided to ring them up and give it a try. Since so much can be lost in translation, I have included an actual audio transcript below of my first attempts to play a round at Hirono and Naruo. Well, as you'll hear, the language barriers between Japan and English are high.
I'm still not quite sure whether she told me 'no' or whether it was 'no problem' and I actually have a date and time when I'm supposed to play. My guess is the former. Japan is a country with a lot of customs, traditions and protocols. Perhaps asking directly for a tee time was the wrong approach at Hirono. Maybe I need to be more polite and respectful of their customs first.
My phone call to Naruo took a different tact. Naruo is one of the oldest and most distinguished private clubs in all of Japan, so I thought rather than asking for a tee time directly, I would ask to be introduced to a member. Still a disaster. A total breakdown in communication, even though they could hear me.
Apologies about the herky-jerky nature of the recording. I went to the Richard Nixon school of tape recording management.
Clearly, I've got to find someone who speaks Japanese for my next attempt. I think having someone who better understands the nuances of Japanese cluture better would be in an easier position to help me arrange a round.
As I continue on this quest, I'm getting excited as I learn the differences of playing golf in Japan: the multi-tiered driving ranges, the white-hooded female caddies, a long break and massage after nine holes, and learning how to yell "fore" in Japanese.
I've also decided to learn some basic Japanese so I can at least show some respect when trying to ask to play the course. I've already learned that Japanese people tend not to say things directly. For example, it is impolite to directly say "no," so they have developed an elaborate ritual and process around saying no. They are much more obtuse and circuitous than Americans. I see that there are actually ten ways to say no in Japanese: "iiya, non, ina, ie, iie, ieie, no-sankyu, nain, hi, iya." What's curious is that two of the words, "iiya" or "iya" also mean yes. My new goal is to at least get an "iiya" and "iya," instead of the more serious sounding "no-sankyu" and hopefully I can turn the ambiguity into a round of golf. I'll keep eveyone apprised as I continue my attempt to golf in Japan...
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Golf de Chantilly
It is hard to describe Golf de Chantilly properly without describing its location. You get there by taking the A1 motorway north, out of Paris, and then by driving through the thick forest in Chantilly. It is a centuries old town with the perfect french château in the middle, surrounded by a moat. As you leave the forest, the streets turn from pavement to cobblestone. You then approach a big cobblestone round-about, and the famous race-course is directly in front of you. To your right, down the hill is the imposing château. You have to drive past the château and through the old town gate to get to the golf course. Like at Morfontaine, you have to pass through an electronic gate to get into this private course. The château and the great stables at Chantilly were featured in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill. Chantilly has the world's largest concentrated area for trainers and racehorses.
I played at Chantilly this past October, during the week of the races, and the area has a regal atmosphere. It is a spectacular sight to see the locals on horses galloping through the beautiful surroundings and forest. When we were at Chantilly, there were elegantly dressed people on horseback riding through the narrow allées carved in the forest. One guy was decked out in all his Sunday best, including a curved hunting trumpet strapped around his chest.
Although Chantilly is not ranked on the world's top 100 list I am playing, I jumped at the chance to play this beautiful course when offered. As my readers know from my Morfontaine experience, I am a huge fan of France. Chantilly was also designed by the same architect as Morfontaine, Tom Simpson, whose courses I absolutely love.
The chateau at Chantilly
Like most of the elite french courses, the history here is intertwined with the aristocracy. Golf de Chantilly was founded by a local prince in 1909. Baron Edouard de Rothschild was the president of the club from 1927-1940.
Like at Morfontaine, Chantilly doesn't open until nine o'clock in the morning. Perhaps it's related to the 35 hour work-week the french have, but it seems a bit odd to give up a couple of great dawn hours when you could be playing. C'est la vie.
The Golf Course
Golf began at Chantilly in 1909, when a nine hole course was laid out. Tom Simpson was brought in to re-design the original course and design a new eighteen hole course in the 1920s. Unlike Morfontaine, Chantilly was heavily damaged during the Second World War, and nine holes were abandoned as a result. In the 1980s Donald Steel designed thirteen new holes and integrated them in with nine holes from the earlier Longeres course. There are 36 holes at Chantilly today: the Veneuil course, which has most of the original Simpson holes, and the Longeres course. They play championships on a composite "Vineuil Old Course" which is made up of fourteen holes from the Vineuil course and four from the Longeres. The course has hosted the French Open championship ten times. Nick Faldo won twice at Chantilly. Other winners include Roberto de Vicenzo, Peter Oosterhuis and Arnaud Massy.
Chantilly 1st hole
Some courses ease you into the round, and it takes awhile for you to find the courses' charms. Not at Chantilly. It announces right away that it will be a great round of golf. The opening par five hole shows the strategic use of bunkers that are present throughout the course. The three bunkers on the right side make the only safe shot one that lands in the middle of the fairway, right of the clump of trees guarding the left side of the hole.
3rd green at ChantillyThe 159 meter par three, third hole shows off the great bunkering at Chantilly. The routing at Chantilly is varied and interesting, and although you are in a dense forest the fairways generally aren't choked with trees (the fifth hole below is an exception).
The tee shot on the narrow fifth hole
The World Atlas of Golf describes looking down the fairway from the fifth tee (seen above) as the golfing equivalent of looking down a gun barrel. It plays as the #1 handicap at Chantilly and is a tough hole through a tight chute of trees. I was very pleased with my par.
The dog-leg right seventh hole reminded me of playing at Garden City on Long Island and Myopia Hunt Club in Massachusetts, with its flat terrain, fescue and bunkering.
Both the front and back nines at Chantilly have back-to-back par fives. The back nine is the clearly superior of the two, with the six stretch of holes twelve through seventeen being very good. The thirteenth hole was my second favorite on the course (after the 17th). It is a 400 meter dog-leg left (below) that demands you hit your tee shot over two large cross-bunkers. Your second shot is then to an elevated and well-bunkered green.
Like at Morfontaine, the feeling on the course is one of complete solitude and isolation since it is located in a dense forest.
13th green from the front
13th green from behindThe sixteenth hole is a dogleg left that starts out simple enough. As you walk up to your ball you see that you have to hit your second shot over a ravine to the green. The ravine is interesting, it is about 50 yards long and, unusually, has a fairway at the bottom of it. The second shot plays through the trees toward the clubhouse in the background.
16th approach to green over ravine
Chantilly now offers a startling discovery. It is hard to describe just how good the seventeenth hole is at Chantilly. For those that remember the original Planet of the Apes movie with Charlton Heston, remember the sensation, the chills, and sense of surprise you got when the camera pans over and you see the top half of the Statue of Liberty. The same type of feeling overtakes you here when you realize there is a hole located where the seventeenth is. Shock and awe. It is a stunning par three that plays 199 meters from the back tees down into a tight tree-lined valley.
Par three 17th from the tee
There is an extremely steep hill on the left side of the hole and a large slope on the right side. It is somewhat reminiscent of the par three fourteenth hole at Pine Valley, but without the water in front. Chantilly is basically a flat course, but when you get to the seventeenth tee, the hole is at least sixty feet below you in an enchanted setting. Like both the Valliere course at Morfontaine and Cruden Bay, it shows off Simpson's absolute genius in hole design. How he pulled this off is amazing. The World Atlas of Golf describes this hole as being located in a "secret dell," and I think it is an apt description. The prior sixteen holes give no hint of what the seventeenth hole will be like. It really is surprising and inspiring.
Unfortunately, I got stains on my pants when I dropped to my knees after seeing the hole and started to shout, "Damn you, you maniacs...," but there were tears of joy running down my face!
17th par three as seen from the side
The next hole, the par four finishing hole, has the most difficult walk to a tee box anywhere in the world (you can see it in the back right carved into the trees in the picture below). The walk to the tee box is without the benefit of a stairway. You have to walk up a steep mountain to a tee located behind the seventeenth green. There is a small rocky path winding up through the trees that gives your calves a workout. After you hit your tee shot over the seventeenth green to the fairway on the other side of the valley, you have to navigate your way back down the sharp incline, across the valley and then up the other side of the steep hill to get to the fairway.
After playing seventeen, eighteen is a bit of an anti-climactic hole, but none-the-less, Chantilly is a great place to play golf.
Chantilly dining room
Chantilly clubhouse
Like at Royal Dornoch, Chantilly only allows two balls before eleven in the morning. It really is a great way to play and the pace of play is fantastic. I played some of my best golf at Chantilly, and our two groups were essentially the only four people on the course in the morning. It was easy to get into a rhythm playing this fast with no distractions. We played on a damp, misty and un-seasonably warm autumn day shrouded in heavy fog that lifted about halfway through the round. Although I shot a good score, the other two people on the trip with us, who were playing in front of us, played off-the-charts. How is a 64 from the back tees? Well done, Mark!
Either French people don´t play a lot of golf or Morfontaine and Chantilly are really exclusive clubs, since we barely saw anyone on either course during our mid-week rounds.
We stayed for lunch after our round, and although the clubhouse at Chantilly doesn't have the same charmed feel as Morfontaine, it is a nice quaint clubhouse that overlooks the vast property. In England or in the U.S. you often see people having a couple of beers after a round, in Scotland during the round, and in a classic French move, here, it's a bottle of Bordeaux after the round. While we lunched on French fries with vinegar several members were lounging around having a leisurely lunch over a bottle of red wine.
Chantilly's web-site is helpful, but a bit rough on their translation into English. Among other things stated in the dress code are "no long-line bra nor straps for women."
Perhaps short-line bras or strapless bras are permitted?
Hello?
Vive la France!
Golf de Chantilly's web site

Monday, January 14, 2008
Friar's Head
Friar's Head is about a thirty minute drive from Shinnecock, although in a distinctly different area. Shinnecock and the other great courses on the Eastern end of Long Island are located in the posh, consumption-oriented Hamptons. Baiting Hollow is quite a contrast. It is a quaint little town and a throw-back to the way most of Eastern Long Island used to be. It is still primarily a farming community, and approaching the course you drive past farms growing sod, corn, potatoes and past even vineyards.
The term "Friar's Head" is derived from a large sand formation that early sailors thought looked like a Friar's head when approaching this part of the North Shore from the water.
When you turn off the road and drive behind the high hedge rows and into the Friar's Head parking lot, it is clear that this is an understated affair. There is only room for about thirty cars, and the pro shop and caddie shack are old buildings left over from the farm that used to occupy this land.
The Golf Course
Friar's Head was built by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and it has all their signature design features including the natural blown-out bunkers and wildly undulating greens.
The first and ninth holes are at the far end of the property, close to Long Island Sound. There is a new clubhouse under construction near these holes. Since the clubhouse is not finished, however, many groups start on the third hole (as we did), which is nearer to the driving range and club entrance. Friar's Head is a walking only course with caddies required, and a brisk pace of play is encouraged.
Take a quick look at the Friar's Head scorecard and see if you notice anything missing. Note that there are no yardages, no hole handicap rankings and no hole names. The lack of hole handicapping is apparently due to the shifting winds; hole difficulty depends upon the direction of the wind. Keeping with the natural feel of Friar's Head, no cart paths, no rakes anywhere (like Pine Valley) and no frills. There is no slope rating on the card either. I had to look up the Friar's Head slope rating from the Metropolitan Golf Association's website in order to post my humbling score. The slope and course rating are 74.1/144 from the back by the way.
The course is built on very sandy soil along a massively sloping ridge of land that rises up as it approaches the water. No holes play along the water and it is only visible from two or three holes. As you can see, the sand is a vibrant shade of white - it has the appearance of refined white sugar. This is the natural sand color and is in stark contrast to the more subdued sand color at other courses on Long Island. I'm highlighting the sand color here, because it really is one of the defining characteristics of the course and gives Friar's Head its unique look and feel, which some have likened to Cypress Point. Also, unlike many courses, which have very white sand in their bunkers, at Friar's Head, the sand is omnipresent and is not just in the bunkers.
The first hole bears some likeness to the second hole at Pine Valley, although, here the hole is a bit shorter. You hit your tee shot over a waste area to the fairway. Your second shot plays blind, sharply uphill to a fast green that slopes back to front and side to side.
The par five 2nd hole
The second hole, seen from the tee above, is a downhill par five with a snaking fairway.

7th fairway
The seventh fairway, seen above, shows the signature Coore/Crenshaw look, similar to their masterpiece at Sand Hills. At Friar's Head, on virtually every hole, there is a severe penalty for missing the fairway on the wrong side of the hole. On the fifth hole, missing to the right puts you in a waste area. Similarly, on the sixth and seventh holes, missing left puts you in the same waste area.
Also consistent with the Coore/Crenshaw design philosophy, there is usually a driveable par four on every course. At Friar's Head, the fifth hole is a short par four (280-290 yards if I remembered from the caddie correctly), with artfully placed, and difficult bunkers in the fairway in front of the green for those that dare go for it and miss.
10th hole par 3
The tenth hole, pictured above, starts off the back nine with a jolt. It is a very interesting par three that plays about 200 yards to a green that is semi-blind with a couple of very large sand dunes guarding the front. It took a great deal of imagination to design this hole. It would not be immediately intuitive that a hole would fit in this narrow corridor. The Long Island Sound is behind you when you are on the tee, and the wind is very tricky on this particular part of the course. This is exacerbated by the alley effect that is created between the rows of trees on either side of the green. It was also a brilliant decision to leave the over-sized sand dune on the left side, in front of the green.
The hole is all carry. Being just a few yards short leaves you in serious trouble, as I can personally attest to. Do I hear seven, anyone?
I thought that the back nine was clearly superior to the front nine. I thought the front, which is on the flatter terrain away from the water, was not as interesting. I absolutely hate to say anything negative about Coore or Crenshaw, since they are such gentlemen, and I love their overall design philosophy, but the front didn't grab me.
The best stretch of holes on the course are numbers fourteen through seventeen. This brilliant succession of holes include the par five uphill 14th, the downhill, signature par four 15th, the blind tee shot, par four 16th, followed by the postage-stamp, par three 17th.
14th hole
The fourteenth hole, pictured above, is a hole reminiscent of the second hole at Gullane's #1 course in Scotland. It plays up a big hill and the fairway gets narrower as it rises up. To the left of the hole is a massive blown-out sand dune. The green is interesting and, consistent with Coore/Crenshaw courses, has many humps and bumps.
Stairway to heaven
When you leave the fourteenth green, you walk up an infinity staircase, seen above, which looks like it rises to the heavens. Like all Coore and Crenshaw designs, everything fits into the natural surroundings beautifully.
The par four 15th hole
When you finish climbing the stairs after playing the fourteenth hole and continue walking up the hill, you then walk through a clearing of trees. You are now at the most dramatic vista on the golf course, which is the fifteenth tee box. The hole from the tee is pictured above.
15th green
The shot from the fifteenth tee plays down a large hill into a valley with the dog-legged fairway stretched out below you. Your second shot approaching the green plays uphill and has a false front, as do many of the greens at Friar's Head.
Fourteen and fifteen are as good a pair of back-to-back holes as you'll find in the world of golf. They are beautifully designed, challenging and offer great risk/reward options for all levels of golfer.
The seventeenth hole is a short par three with a postage-stamp size green and a dramatic fall off on the right side of the hole. As with many holes at Friar's Head, the penalty for being short or on the wrong side of the hole (the right side in this instance) is serious. Local lore has it that Raymond Floyd took double digits on this hole.
17th green
The Golf Bubble
Clubhouse at Friar's Head
The clubhouse at Friar's Head, which is still under construction, is pictured here, and it's a real monstrosity. There are also six cabins being built near the clubhouse for overnight stays. The clubhouse seems over the top to me. Everything else about Friar's Head is understated, but this looks like some sort of 21st century Gatsby contraption. The Eastern end of Long Island has always been a show place for Wall Street money, and when building becomes excessive it usually means it is not sustainable. This second 'golden age' of golf course architecture has been fueled by gangbusters economic growth in the world over the last 20+ years, allowing the new generation of newly-minted money-men to spend vast fortunes building their dream courses and clubhouses.
The building of a clubhouse like this seems to me to signal that we are probably getting near the end of the party, and the punch bowl will soon be taken away. The excesses of wealth have reached obscene proportions and the bell is ringing to indicate the end of the bull market. Not that I'm complaining about this, since its been one hell of a run and I've been privileged enough to experience many of these new world-class courses first hand.
Personally, I prefer the quaint, older and more understated original buildings and shingle style of architecture found on this part of Long Island. But then again, I have always preferred something like the clubhouses at Bandon Dunes or the under-stated style of clubhouse found at a place like Sunningdale or Royal Liverpool.
Friar's Head has been rocketing up the world rankings since it was built in 2002. It made its debut at #71 and, on the most recent ranking, jumped all the way up to #33. Even though I am a major fan of Coore and Crenshaw designs and think that Sand Hills is probably the best course in the United States, I think Friar's Head is getting way ahead of itself. Having now played all the top courses on Long Island I would rank them in order: 1) National Golf Links of America; 2) Shinnecock; 3) Bethpage Black; 4) Garden City; 5) Sebonack; 6) Maidstone; 7) Friar's Head; 8) Piping Rock; and 9) Fishers Island.
No doubt there will be complete unanimity among my fan base regarding my well thought out rankings.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Golf Smarter Podcast
Click here to listen to the interview. Or, if you prefer, you can download Golfsmarter podcasts from iTunes Store Podcast section.

My next couple of posts, coming soon, will feature Friar's Head on Long Island, Chantilly in France and my first attempt to make a tee time in Japan.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Cypress Point Club
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
2007 The Year in Review
The 1st tee at Merion
By any measure 2007 was another banner year on my quest for golf's holy grail. I'm never quite sure how many courses I will be able to line up in advance with any certainty, but this year I was able to play eleven new courses on my list of the world's top one hundred. I visited five countries on my travels and have now completed playing 71 of the top 100.
It's interesting how certain themes develop each year, depending upon the mix of courses I end up playing. One of the themes this year was Jack Nicklaus. I visited the course he played as a young man, Scioto, and two courses he co-designed: Sebonack and Harbour Town.
Another theme that remained constant this year is that lovers of Fishers Island still think I'm an asshole. I've received more invective comments on my Fishers Island post than any other, although the comments on my Royal Troon polemic are piling up fast as well.
I visited the lowcountry of South Carolina and have now completed playing all three world-ranked courses in the state - Yeamans Hall, Harbour Town and the Ocean Course at Kiawah. Yeamans Hall was a discovery I shall remember for a long time. The understated elegance and majesty of the plantation setting, coupled with an absolutely world-class golf course, make it a special place.

The 15th at Friar's Head
Although I was not able to complete the Shinnecock-National-Maidstone triumvirate this year like I have in the past two years, I did manage to play an equally awesome triumvirate in Sebonack-National-Friar's Head. I have said it many times before, but will repeat it once again in case you didn't hear me: Long Island has the best collection of golf courses in the world.
I managed to access some very private clubs this year - Yeamans Hall, Chicago Golf and the cynosure of private clubs: The Links Club, arguably, three of the hardest clubs to gain access to. I also ran into Charles B. Macdonald again and again. His baronial statue looked right at me as I walked into Chicago Golf Club; his imposing portraits stared down at me from The National Golf Links, The Links Club and The Mid Ocean Club. Charley liked to create monuments to himself and if you undertake a similar journey you will no doubt keep running into him as I have.
The Valley Club of Montecito was a special treat for me not only because it is an Alister Mackenzie beauty but also because it's nice for me to be able to play golf in January in Southern California, when I can't play at home. St. George's in Canada also proved a worthy spot among the world's great golf courses.
I achieved another stretch goal in 2007 by crashing the gates of Morfontaine and managing to play this world-class French jewel. In addition, I played at Chantilly near Paris, which I will post soon, and made a discovery worthy of shouting about. My French journey was such a success, that I am now working on my dinner invitation to the Élysée Palace. I got such good feedback from the series of posts detailing my attempts to gain access to Morfontaine that for 2008 I am toying with the idea of doing a similar series on another course.
14th green at Somerset Hills 2007 represented several other milestones in my golfing education. I have now played all eight A.W. Tillinghast courses on the list including three under-the-radar courses that I liked: Baltimore, Somerset Hills and Quaker Ridge. I have also now completed playing all fourteen courses in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania on the list.
The phenomenon continues of interested readers who appreciate a farcical sense of humor, coupled with an eagle-eyed, on-the-ground assessment of many of the world's elite golf clubs. Last year I had readers in sixty countries; this year, I'm up to over 119 countries including such obscure places as Burkina Faso and Brunei Darussalam.
3rd green at Bermuda's Mid Ocean I also retain a special place in my heart for emails that I receive from the Byrn Mawr-ivy-league-private-jet-pied-a-terre-finishing-school crowd who are appalled that someone as crass as me has managed to infiltrate so many of their special places. Most of this crowd doubt the veracity of my trips. I can assure them, despite their loathing, everything I do is real.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I also played the #1 ranked golf course in the world last year: Pine Valley. That alone made 2007 a banner year all by itself and something most golfers dream of being able to do. I don't for one minute take any of this for granted and count my blessings every day.
I look forward to an equally productive 2008 where my travels may include a visit to the land of the rising sun.
God speed to all you traveling golfers out there!
P.S. - Congratulations to the good looking schlog in Ft. Collins who won his senior club championship and introduced me to Monica and Windmill Bob in 2007. His victory celebration at the Marine Hotel will be rememered for a long time.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Campo de Golf El Saler
El Saler is located just south of Valencia, Spain along the Iberian Peninsula on the Mediterranian coast. Valencia is a city with great modern architecture. One of the premier architects of our generation, Santiago Calatrava was born here and went to architecture school here. He designed a bridge over the Turia river, the opera house and a science museum. For the architecture fan, Valencia is a must visit city.

Calatrava's Valencia Arts and Science Center
The golf course at El Saler was built in 1968 by Spanish architect Javier Arana. The course is located in the El Saler nature reserve, between a protected wooded area and sea-side sand dunes. It is one of the few courses in the world outside the British Isles that is truly a links course by the strict definition.
The course's design took into account its integration in the protected landscape with native plants such as the famous pale stonecrop plant, locally called "cat's claw". The course layout is varied, ranging from a links layout reminiscent of the famous British and Irish golf courses, to areas of typical Mediterranean forest. The par 72 course measures 6,468 meters (7,110 yards). Bernard Langer won the Spanish Open twice at El Saler, in 1984 and 1989.
I have also heard that the course was difficult to appreciate because its conditioning was not very good. I found the course to be in excellent shape when I played it this fall on my way back from France. I played the course with two locals who spoke as much English as I speak Spanish. I gathered that it was a father-daughter team since at the end of every sentence she called him "papa". It was a nice round, and he tried to help point out to me which way the holes went. Everyone showed good etiquette, and it is one of the great things about golf that you are able to play anywhere, with all level of golfers and have a pleasant time of it, even if you don't speak the language.
The course has an interesting routing that starts out in a pine forest with unique Arregle Piques trees. The first four holes play in the trees: then, beginning at the fifth hole you start to approach the Mediterranean and get the links feel of the course. Arana designed some interesting and challenging greens with many contours, like the second, seen below.
El Saler 2nd green The third is a world-class par five with a blind tee shot and a double dog-leg left that plays to a narrow green. The green has deep bunkers on both sides and two trees protecting the front of the green. The fairway slopes left to right. This hole is ranked as one of the 500 best in the world according to George Peper's book of the same title. The difficult green is oblong and protected by deep bunkers on both the left and right. It is a very good strategic hole with a narrow fairway from tee to green that requires precision the entire way.
After playing the fourth hole, you walk through a clearing in the trees up a rise in the hill and hit a blind tee shot on the fifth. As you walk up the fifth fairway and over the crest of the hill, the feel of El Saler changes as the water and mountains now become visible. The next four holes play along the water. Both the fifth and seventh greens are set in dunes near the water.
The eighth is a very good short par four that plays along the Mediterranean. There is a sand dune about twenty feet high to the right of the green. The fairway snakes along to the right and then to the left prior to getting to the multi-tiered green that is sighted between the big sand dune on the right and the sand dunes protecting the ocean on the left.
It is a very nice hole that plays directly along the water while the sound of the waves crashing is audible from tee to green. The other benefit of this hole, that I probably should have mentioned first, is that you can see the beach from the tee box. It is the only hole in the world´s top 100 where you can see topless sun bathers from a tee box.
Uphill fairway to 8th green with sand dune on the right
Holes nine through sixteen are average, but seventeen is an outstanding par three that is set within the sand dunes and reminded me of playing at Maidstone in the US and Sandwich in the UK. In a stroke of luck, I was just able to finish playing El Saler before a major thunderstorm hit. As a result, the picture below is a bit darker than I would have liked, however, you can still see the large natural sand dunes surrounding the green that is elevated and very well bunkered.
Par three 17th hole
As you can see below from a close-up of the green, once you hit it, the challenge continues with the big contours.
So, how would I rank El Saler? It's probably not a course worthy of being ranked in the top one hundred, especially since some fabulous courses have been built in the last ten years, although I liked it and it's a very nice golf course. According to Tom Doak, El Saler's high point was when a Spanish Open was played there and the course was in great condition and was still fresh on the minds of panelists that rank courses.
As a public course that costs 100 Euros, El Saler is a good value. If you are in Spain, I recommend playing El Saler as it has three world-class holes: #3, #8 and #17. I would most certainly rather play El Saler than either Medinah or the TPC at Sawgrass, particularly in high season when the sun bathers are out on the beach.
Spain
This was my first visit to Spain and I found the Spanish people to be very gentle, pleasant and likable. I flew out of Valencia after playing El Saler and stayed in Madrid before flying home the following morning. I was exhausted after playing and traveling, so I went for a walk to get something to eat. It took me all of about five minutes to get into the Spanish way of eating. I went into several tapas bars and enjoyed the atmosphere, food and drink immensely and since I was alone on this part of the trip, I wrote this while enjoying the evening.
MadridOne of my favorite things to do is to explore cities early in the morning. I went for a pre-dawn walk in the old quarter near the Prado. I wandered into a smoky little cafe before seven AM while the locals were enjoying their morning coffee, cigarettes and pastry. The Spanish lifestyle seems very nice. There is such a difference in the way they lead their lives here. It is a more civilised and less hurried way to live. There were hundreds of little unique shops spread throughout the quarter that were the antithesis of most American cities that are becoming an alarming amalgamation of chain stores without character. As I do in almost every European capital I visit (except Brussels), I can envision myself living here quite easily.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Somerset Hills Country Club
Many people form their impression of New Jersey based on driving down the New Jersey Turnpike after leaving New York City or arriving at Newark Airport. The impression is not a pretty one with the unsightly Pulaski Skyway, industrial wastelands, refineries, landfills and a generally miserable look to that area.
The reality of New Jersey can be quite different than the first impression, particularly as you get away from the Turnpike. Somerset Hills is located about forty minutes west of Manhattan in an affluent part of the state, in the town of Bernardsville. The Bernardsville-Basking Ridge-Far Hills area is New Jersey's equivalent of Greenwich or of Manhattan's Upper East Side. This is horse country, made up of gently rolling terrain and sprinkled with mansions made from Wall Street and pharmaceutical fortunes. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Meryl Streep were one time residents of Bernardsville. The area is also home to the U.S. Equestrian Team and the U.S.G.A. The course takes its name from the name of the county it is located in. The club's logo incorporates the crest of the (English) Duke of Somerset. Given its proximity to the U.S.G.A., located about ten minutes away, and its storied place in the game, Somerset Hills has a long-standing tradition of letting executives from Golf House play the course. For the rest of us, we have to be invited by a member.
Somerset Hills represents the type of club that I like very much. It is old, traditional and conservative. It reminded me of Myopia Hunt Club in Massachusetts with its original, reassuring and discrete clubhouse and civilized and understated approach to everything. In other words, it is the antithesis of the nearby Trump debacle, which is overdone, tacky, ostentatious, crass, coarse and over-engineered in its need to show how impressive it is. At Somerset Hills, they don't have to try to impress, because they are the genuine article. The small clubhouse, pro shop and outdoor deck fit perfectly into the landscape and have a patina that can't be bought and only develops with age and a respect for the past. The course has two perfectly manicured grass tennis courts, confirming its gentrified and genteel approach as a private club.
The Golf Course
The golf course at Somerset Hills Country Club (ranked a beguiling #69 in the world) was built by A.W. Tillinghast in 1917. Part of the course was carved out of a former racetrack. A par 71, Somerset Hills plays to a total yardage of 6,659 and a slope rating of 132. As was Tillinghast's tradition, each of the holes at Somerset Hills was given a name by the architect.

#2 Redan - hard start to the round
Tillinghast went with the 'difficult start' philosophy at Somerset Hills. The first hole, "Orchard" plays through an old orchard and is a very testing 448 yard par four that doglegs to the right. The second hole is a classic "Redan" hole, seen above, and it's a beauty. At 175 yards it has all the classic elements of a Redan and it plays very difficult, even though it is rated as the #15 handicap hole.
Uphill approach to the 3rd green
The third hole, named "Bunker Hill", is a shortish, 378 yard par four that plays to an elevated green that is well protected by bunkers.
5th green with the big hump cutting across
The fifth hole, oddly enough named "Nairn" (I guess it reminded Tillinghast of the town in Scotland?) has a green design that Tillinghast used on several holes at Somerset Hills. As can be seen in the picture above, there is a very large hump running across the green. As a short course by modern standards, Somerset Hills is by no means an easy course. Part of the reason is green designs such as this, and also, very fast greens.

Old race-course running through the 6th hole
I liked the par five, sixth hole ("Plateau"), which has the outline of the old racetrack still running through the fairway. You can see where the track winded around the edge of the property, through the sixth and seventh ("Racetrack") fairways and where it turns at the end of the seventh fairway and heads back toward the clubhouse. You can see the big dip in the fairway in the picture above.
You can still imagine the races running through the 6th hole
Many thanks to my caddy for providing the proper perspective and sense of scale to this unique hazard. You can get a good feel in this picture of how Tillinghast used the racetrack to great effect. It was a brilliant design decision on his part.
Some courses have a front and back nine that are reasonably similar in feel and style. Somerset Hills does not. It has two distinctly different sets of nine. The front nine is relatively flat and plays on relatively open ground in the area where the former racetrack was situated. The back nine is set within the forest, has many tree-lined holes, and has much more change in elevation.
Approach to the 11th green
The eleventh hole, aptly named "Perfection", is rated as the #4 handicap hole at Somerset Hills, but in my book is clearly the most difficult hole on the course. It is a 412 yard par four that requires the golfer to hit his/her tee shot through a narrow chute of trees to a landing area that slopes left to right down a hill. Shots hit too far to the right are blocked out, leaving no approach to the green, so the tee shot requires precision and the appropriate position.
The hole is a sharp dog-leg to the right after the tee shot. The second shot plays from an uneven lie, over a creek, to a difficult, elevated and well-bunkered green.
View from 11th green back up to clubhouse In addition to being a difficult and brilliantly designed golf hole, the eleventh hole is also scenically beautiful. There is a pond left of the green and right of the green is a sharp hill that rises to the clubhouse and is covered in fescue (seen above).
#12 par three named "Despair,"
The next hole, a 151 yard par three named "Despair", shows off a design feature Tillinghast didn't use often, which is a green set within/around water. It requires a precise shot because the area you hit from is narrow and there are trees encroaching on the right side.
#13 green The thirteenth green, above, shows that even on relatively straight forward driving holes, there is no letup at Somerset Hills, given the big undulations used strategically by Tillinghast. This one looks like a wave rolling in from the sea.
The par four fifteenth hole, named, "Happy Valley," joins a small list of truly world-class holes that I have found in my travels playing these elite courses. See the entire list here. The 407 yard par four is seen from the tee below.
15th from tee "Happy Valley"
You can see the strategic options off the tee, which allows a player to hit safely to the left, or to choose a bolder line over the bunker and be rewarded by cutting off the corner of the dogleg and advancing the ball significantly down the hill toward the green.
15th hole sloping fairway
You can see the big left to right slope in the fairway as it plunges down the hill toward a small green protected by water in front and on the left side by both water and a weeping willow tree.
15th small green down in the valley
It's during this stretch of the course that I realized why I like Tillinghast routings like this one, Quaker Ridge and Baltimore Five Farms. There is so much change, variation, brilliant use of terrain and character to his routings that they just charm you into submission. I appreciate this type of layout more than a Winged Foot or Baltusrol where so much of the character and challenge is in the greens only.
Par three 16th "Deception" green
The back nine meanders through the hills. The fifteenth plays down the big sweeping hill. The next hole, the 170 yard par three sixteenth, is carved into the side of a hill. The hole after that, the seventeenth ("Quarry"), a par four with a blind tee shot over a hill, features a second shot down the hill to a tough green. The back nine has a set of holes that fit together like a glove and are as good as any you'll find.
The eighteenth is a short, 335 yard par four that plays up a big hill toward the clubhouse and is not that hard. It is the only hole that is worthy of the slightest bit of criticism on the back nine.
Getting everything right at a golf club is more art than science, but at Somerset Hills they have it all figured out. The small locker room and bar, the discrete, respectful staff and a refined approach to everything. Maybe it was hard for me to be objective playing here. As you can see from my pictures, I played it on such a nice fall day that the course really shined. I love to golf during the fall with its shorter days, crisp weather, diffused light, the sound of leaves crunching under your spikes and the sound of birds flying south (yes, I'm still a fan of Canadian Geese despite what they've done to Medinah). Since this was a home game for me I made it back home in time for dinner to appease my delightful wife who is becoming increasingly irascible about my golfing travels. I wonder why?
After having now played all of A.W. Tillinghast's courses, I would personally rank them in the following order: 1. San Francisco; 2. Somerset Hills; 3. Bethpage Black; 4. Baltimore (Five Farms); 5. Quaker Ridge; 6. Winged Foot (East); 7. Winged Foot (West); 8. Baltusrol (Lower).
Friday, November 09, 2007
Winged Foot, Baltusrol and Bethpage
Before reviewing the New York area Tillinghast courses, I would point out that his best design might be one of his earliest efforts - San Francisco Golf Club. Tillinghast's major New York area courses are: Winged Foot West (ranked #18 in the world), Bethpage Black (ranked #30 in the world), Baltusrol Lower (ranked #45 in the world), Quaker Ridge (ranked #61 in the world), Winged Foot East (ranked #66 in the world), and Somerset Hills (ranked #69 in the world). Not surprisingly, Tillinghast did a lot of his work in the New York area since his practice was based in New York City and Englewood, New Jersey. Tillinghast was a legendary figure. He never went to college and used to walk around the course sites he was designing with a pistol and a bottle of booze.

A.W. Tillinghast
When you play a golf course designed by A.W. Tillinghast, you know it. Tillinghast's oeuvre is distinctive. His courses have what is called a "Tillinghast Polish". They are visually dramatic, especially his use of bunkering; his courses are a pleasure to look at.
Bethpage Black
The only public course of the six, Bethpage Black is the clearly superior of the New York area courses. It is built on the hilliest terrain of all his local courses and has the most variety. The 4th hole at Bethpage Black (pictured below) is a par five with three levels of elevation and is unquestionably one of the best in the world. A dog-leg left, you have to hit three good shots to get on the green. And you have to hit them to the appropriate side of the fairway, the right side being the more favorable coming in on your third shot. This great hole is immediately followed by the 5th hole, a very hard par four where you need to hit the ball a good 220 yards, albeit, downhill, to hit the fairway. Good luck if the wind is blowing at you as it was when I played. Your second shot plays very hard uphill. The beauty of the hole, among its visual splendor, is that the best shot off the tee should be played left to right and the best shot to the green should be played right to left.
The 15th hole at Bethpage is a 470 yard par four that plays MUCH longer than the yardage indicates. It is not a terribly difficult fairway to hit, but the second shot plays as uphill as any shot you will ever play. It's almost straight up-hill. Definitely one of the hardest shots I have had to hit (and hit and hit) thus far playing the top 100.

4th at Bethpage Black
I didn't experience any of the legendary waiting in line that the course is famous for. Nor did I have to sleep in my car the night before. I played with a friend who is a New York state resident and can book tee times up to a week in advance. I would comment that the Long Island male, though, is a unique breed. They are a cross between two distinct and not necessarily complimentary personality traits. Half the time charming, funny and entertaining and the other half in-your-face obnoxious. Staying to have a beer in the clubhouse after the round is mandatory so you can soak up the true attitude of the Long Island male in all his regal splendor. You will no doubt remember it.

4th at Bethpage from the tee box
The opposite end of the universe from Bethpage from a social status standpoint is the Winged Foot Golf Club located above New York City in Westchester County. Along with St. Andrews, Pebble Beach and Pinehurst, it is an undisputed golf Mecca. When you turn off Mamaroneck road, Winged Foot has an impressive winding entry drive and a dramatic, beautiful clubhouse that sits in the middle of the site surrounded by tall trees. You know you are someplace special when you arrive at Winged Foot.
Winged Foot has perfected that uniquely American art of the country club. There is a ritualized process to everything about the club. You arrive and the caddie master takes your clubs out of your trunk and welcomes you. After you park, you go into the locker room where the attendant organizes a locker for you and offers to change your spikes if needed. While playing, he cleans your street shoes off. Next, your caddie awaits to guide you around the course. After the round, you enjoy some food and drink in the grill room where the elegant wooden boards proclaim the past winners of championships held at the course. You are served by employees that have perfected the art of service and making you feel at home. Winged Foot is known for being very generous with its employees, many of whom have been in long service at the club and are treated like family. When Henry Longhurst wrote "one of the great unpurchasable assets in any golf club is the continuity of staff", he must have been thinking of Winged Foot.

The entry drive at Winged Foot
Winged Foot is the only club with the distinction of having two courses ranked in the top 100. I played the East and West courses at Winged Foot on different days and at different times of the year: The West on a brilliant summer day. The East on a cool, drizzly, fall day. Both times I very much enjoyed sitting around the clubhouse, the first time on the outdoor patio, under the awning, with its signature green-and-white stripes near the 18th green, at the end of a great day's golf. The second time, in front of the over-sized fireplace in the grill room with the fire crackling as the outside temperature dropped and a slight drizzle was falling. Sitting in that room with the dark woods and rich tones is a nice way to take the chill off and savor the overall Winged Foot experience.

Winged Foot Clubhouse
Despite the grandeur and majesty of the club, however, I would not rank the West Course at Winged Foot as one of my personal favorites. After the round as I tried to think back about the holes, many of them blend together as being tree-lined par fours and fives with slight doglegs. I know certain fellow aficionados and technical analysts pile on to anyone who doesn't love Winged Foot West. They will sight how the genius of the course is in the green complexes, and I understand how dramatic and artful they are. But even if you take that as given, it leaves 80% of the golf course as being not all that distinctive and somewhat repetitive.
I don't hate the West course. I think the par threes are among the best in the game, especially the 3rd and 10th holes. And the 11th hole is a very interesting and memorable hole. Sixteen is also quite a good hole as well. Thus far, it is my only eagle playing the top 100. Overall, I didn't come away awe-struck by the West Course. When a course ranks in the top 25 in the world, I think it should have a distinctiveness that jumps out at you like at Merion, Sand Hills, National Golf Links or Crystal Downs.
Even if you disagree with my assessment of the West Course, you must admit, points are to be subtracted from any club that has Donald Trump as a member.
Baltusrol
In the same vein, Richard Nixon was a one-time member of Baltusrol. The club is also old, exclusive and proper and like Winged Foot has a brilliant club-house. Baltusrol, along with Cypress Point, Augusta, Los Angeles Country Club and San Francisco Golf Club requires long pants to play, although they recently loosened up the rules so that you can wear shorts between the 4th of July and Labor Day. The Lower course at Baltusrol is a lot like Winged Foot West. A lot of relatively straight tree-lined holes without much variety, in my view. Again, yes, interesting and challenging greens, which is why the USGA likes both courses.
These two courses are frequent hosts to major championships and have revered history and no doubt I'm missing something, but to me, they lack that special quality that distinguishes them from some of the other really good and interesting courses on the list. Both get an A+ for conditioning and fast greens, but I wouldn't put either on my short list of courses to play again quickly. Bethpage Black is a course I would return to. It has better terrain, more change in elevation, a more varied and interesting routing and is a more imaginative design.
The East Course at Winged Foot, by comparison, is an under-rated course, especially compared to the West. I found that the East Course had more shot variety and more interesting holes. I especially liked the par three 13th hole with its elevated green and massive fingered bunkering.
On my own personal rating scale I would place the courses in a different order in the world rankings and rank the West Course somewhere in the thirties or forties and the East in the fifties. If I returned to Winged Foot, I would play the East course again ahead of the West. I would rank any number of courses ahead of both Winged Foot West and Baltusrol Lower including Carnoustie (#26), San Francisco (#27), Kingsbarns (#65), Sunningdale Old (#44) and Royal St. George's (#32), to name a few.
Like at Baltimore Five Farms, Quaker Ridge and Somerset Hills, I feel that some of Tillies best work was done on courses that are not as well known as those that play host to major championships.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Quaker Ridge Golf Club
I am blessed to live within a three hour car ride of fourteen of the top one hundred golf courses in the world. For someone seeking golf's holy grail, there is no better place to live. I recently played Quaker Ridge Golf Club (ranked #61 in the world) on a beautiful, crisp fall day. I have now completed playing all eleven of the world-ranked courses in New York.
Quaker Ridge is located in New York's Westchester County, immediately adjacent to Winged Foot, in Scarsdale, New York. Scarsdale is an extremely affluent suburb of New York and has a bit of a New England feel to it with its rolling terrain, low stone walls bordering many properties, and its stately, mature trees. Quaker Ridge takes its name from a group of Quakers who used this land for farming beginning in 1726. The "ridge" part of the name becomes obvious when you play the course. Quaker Ridge is blessed with much better terrain that its nearby neighbor Winged Foot, which is on more-or-less flat ground.
Quaker Ridge is one of the least well known of the world's great courses. I like to research courses prior to playing them and had a hard time finding much information about Quaker Ridge. They have published no club history; it is hard to find pictures of the course and they shy away from publicity. As is their right, the members like to keep it a low-key affair.
John Duncan Dunn designed a nine hole layout here in 1916, and A.W. Tillinghast was brought in during the 1920s to redo the course and expand it to eighteen holes. Tillinghast is responsible for the course we find here today. The course was rebunkered, and some other minor alterations were made by Rees Jones before the 1997 Walker Cup matches, which were held here.
The defining characteristics of Quaker Ridge are the trees, the out of bounds and the greens. The greens are very good, subtle and very fast; sixteen of them slope back to front. The course is in many ways a typical course found in Westchester County, which are all tree-lined. I mean this in no way to be a negative, because Quaker Ridge can hardly be described as a typical course. The other thing you notice about Quaker Ridge when you begin playing is that the angles you take coming into the greens are of paramount importance. This is the sign of a brilliantly designed and thoughtfully laid out course.

Approach to the 4th green
A good example of why the angles coming in the green are important can be illustrated with the fourth hole above. The fourth is a 384 yard par four with a narrow fairway and a green that falls sharply off a hill on the left side. As you can see above, if you are on the right side of the fairway, the trees come into play, making your approach shot likely to fall off left of the green in a large bunker. In the interest of good blogging, I actually field tested this scenario (by design, of course!) and ended up in the bunker.

4th fairway from the tee
The smarter play on this hole is to hit the ball to the left side of the fairway off the tee. Well, that's easier said than done. When you stand on the tee, you see a big grass bunker that slashes across the fairway, creating an intimidating line that you have to hit over to a blind landing area. This is a good example of the type of strategic Tillinghast design you will find at Quaker Ridge.
The same principles apply at the signature eleventh hole. There are two trees on the left side of the fairway that block your shot to the green if you are not correctly positioned on the right side of the fairway. The shot to the green tightens up your anus ever so slightly because you hit to a narrow green guarded by a stone-wall lined creek (burn for all my Scottish fans) that meanders in front of the green. Meander might be too nice a word to use because it is quite a menacing little stream, seen below.

11th green
My guess is that if Charles Blair Macdonald ever played at Quaker Ridge he would have had a tough go of it. Macdonald was famous for designing his courses to favor a slicer, a category he was prominently featured in. Piping Rock, The National Golf Links of America and Chicago Golf Club, all Macdonald designs, penalize those that hook the ball, but are friendlier to the slicer. The first eight holes at Quaker Ridge have an out-of-bounds along the right side of the hole.
The first eight holes circle the property in a counter-clockwise fashion, which is the mirror image of Chicago Golf, which circles in a clockwise fashion. The next six holes at Quaker Ridge circle back in a clockwise fashion, before play goes back toward the club house. I know that Royal Liverpool (Hoylake) is probably the most famous world-renowned course that has a lot of O.B. Having played both courses, I think Quaker Ridge is a much sterner test of trying to keep the ball in play. At Hoylake, the O.B. really doesn't come into play unless you are truly wild. At Quaker Ridge, it comes into play if you are only mildly off line.

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