The Kiwis Are Back!

The crazy Kiwis are once again barnstorming America! This time, in fact, North America, my Canadian readers will be happy to hear. Our friends from down under are back and have another spectacular jaunt planned. For those eager fans who didn't get to visit with them during their first tour, they have an itinerary planned through the northern reaches, including D.C., Boston, Toronto, Michigan, Wisconsin, Chicago, Nebraska, Colorado and Oregon.

Of course, they have a blog, which I expect will be as cheeky and insightful as their last one: Tumbling Across America. A pair of antipodean Jack Kerouacs', their theme during 2012 is On the Road Again.

It was good to see Jamie in New York a few weeks ago. I think he liked the Upper East Side. He looked a bit more tired than the last time I saw him in that special city of Wellington.

Aside from their road trip, they plan to spend the summer caddying at one of the finest places on the planet, going to the Masters, visiting Yosemite, and I'm sure, depriving themselves of sleep.

When I described this year's odyssey to the Mrs. she came to the same conclusion that I did: that two good looking, well educated kiwis, with endearing accents, spending the summer in the Hamptons, could do some damage. Word has it that some of the pipes burst over the winter at the storied club they will be carrying bags at, and thus, there is plenty of new pipe to be laid this year.

These two Kiwis are filled with vim and a sense of adventure. They plan on buying another van to sleep in as they embark on their road trip. They would never ask outright, but being a shameless New Yorker I am not afraid to do so on their behalf. I'm sure they would appreciate a real bed to sleep in or an invite to play golf. I can vouch for them as they did not burn down my house when they stayed. Meeting them or following their blog is sure to be an enriching experience.

St. Enodoc Golf Club

What does a golf fanatic do when faced with Garden leave? Garden? Certainly not. He embarks on a pilgrimage. The BBC estimates that over 100 million people a year take a pilgrimage. I'll bet you have already guessed that I'm not going to Santiago de Compostela. My pilgrimage is a golfing one, of course, to some out-of-the-way courses I have always wanted to play.

First up is St. Enodoc, which requires some effort to play because it is not located near any other golf destination or well known courses. The club was founded in 1899. It doesn't have a marketing department or isn't pitching itself as a must play course, so it is truly a destination for the die-hard golf nut. St. Enodoc is located on the Cornish coast of England. That would be the bottom left part of the country (Southwest for you sticklers). Way down there. Cornwall (the Royal Duchy of Cornwall is its full name) has a very rugged and dramatic coastline.

Cornwall, England, home of St. Enodoc

My regular readers know I'm crazy. One of my first posts on the blog was a winter visit to Ganton and Woodhall Spa in Northern England. England has always held a great appeal to me because it is such a quirky country and it fits my personality to a "T." To me there is nothing in the world like getting behind the wheel of a stick shift car after a red-eye flight, driving on the wrong side of the road, with a little mist coming down on my way to play a new golf course!

The rolling hills of the English countryside never disappoint. Its bucolic beauty is timeless. American real estate developers like to use names from the English countryside when building developments and naming streets. Most new sub-divisions have at least one neighborhood or model home named Devon, Exeter, Dorchester, etc. The trip to St. Enodoc took me through these actual historic places.

The last ten miles to St. Enodoc are a driving experience, with its narrow, twisting lanes through the rolling countryside. I'm a veteran of this type of driving, where you can't spare a half inch on either side when a car or truck is passing from the other direction. More than once, I have knocked off the mirror on the left side of the car. The road approaching St. Enodoc is lined with Cornish hedges. No, not Cornish hens, Cornish hedges.

The hemmed in roads of Cornwall with their hedges tight to the roadway

A Cornish hedge is some kind of crazy earthen embankment that creates the effect of driving through a tunnel, with no lateral visibility at all. The roads would be bad enough if they were straight, but of course, they are almost always winding with lots of blind curves. The hedges are made variously of mud, shrubs, ferns, rocks or all of the above, and are a driving nightmare because they create a situation of near zero visibility at almost all times. I'm sure they served some sort of useful purpose in the past like keeping sheep in a field or blocking the wind. For the modern driver, they are a terror.

Fittingly enough, the entry drive at St. Enodoc is a one-lane road straight up a big hill lined with hedges. I was lucky to play St. Enodoc on a Sunday afternoon in the late fall. Throughout my drive to St. Enodoc BBC radio described the day's weather as variously: Fine and dry. Crisp and clear. Lovely, with a fresh breeze. A spectacular day by any standard.

The golf course was designed by James Braid and opened for play in 1907. Along with Prestwick and Merion, St. Enodoc has one of the best opening holes in the world. A par five of 528 yards, you hit into a wildly undulating fairway with a big set of sand dunes guarding the right side of the hole.

The fabulous opening tee shot at St. Enodoc

Your second shot is at the big striped pole and plays to a green set slightly down a hill. Once you walk up to the crest of the hill, the most amazing landscape unfolds all around you.

The wild, untamed undulations of the fairway on the 1st hole at St. Enodoc

You can see the massive rocky landforms in this part of Cornwall tumbling down to the beautiful blue sea. Behind the big mountain is the gorgeous English countryside, perfectly manicured. Where the land meets the sea is a series of perfect wide sand beaches. You can also clearly see for the first time that the golf course is perched on top of a massive headland and that St. Enodoc is going to be a treat. As you progress from tee to green, this amazing landscape reveals itself. What a jewel. I was bowled over.

The dramatic view from the first green at St. Enodoc

The third hole is a par four of 440 yards, doglegs to the left and plays down a big hill. Your drive is again at a striped pole.

The downhill tee shot at St. Enodoc's 3rd hole

Your approach shot plays over this rough stone wall to the green sitting below you. The sheep up on the hillside above you add to the bucolic setting.

Approach shot over stone wall to the 3rd green

The sixth hole has a Himalaya bunker, is 428 yards and features a blind drive. It is said to contain the biggest sand bunker in Europe, and I'm not arguing the point. If you can avoid the bunker, you still have a blind shot to a punchbowl style green set in a little alcove area. It is a very, very good golf hole.

The sixth hole at St. Enodoc with the Himalaya bunker and hidden green

As is typical in England, St. Enodoc has people walking the course, almost always with dogs. The people walking the course have the right of way. As it was a brilliant Sunday afternoon, the course was quite crowded and on a few occasions I had to wait to allow people to pass before I could hit.

I do most of my golf trips with friends, but at St. Enodoc I played alone, which I like to do on occasion. It was a great opportunity to recharge the batteries, exorcise demons and clear my head. It was also a nice relaxed round where I got to drop balls and try out multiple bump and run shots into various greens and in general just play around.

View from the 7th green toward Camel estuary

The course is visually dramatic the entire way around. The view above is off the seventh green looking toward the Camel estuary with Stepper Point in the distance.

When you read about St. Enodoc, you hear about the tenth hole being the Church hole. The tenth is a wicked difficult 457-yard sharp dogleg left par four, but you only get a glimpse of the church from the hole. The church really comes into view on the twelfth and thirteenth holes which are set above the fairway and have a commanding view looking down on both the church and the sea.

The 10th "Church" hole as seen from the 13th hole above

The church was uncovered among the sand dunes in Victorian times. It was originally built in the eleventh century by the Normans!!! The hole plunges from an elevated tee to a narrow fairway below. The green for the tenth hole is seen to the left of the church in the shade. I'm still not quite sure how you are supposed to hit this green in two unless you absolutely kill the ball off the tee since the dogleg is so sharp. Even then, you have to be able to shape your ball flight from right to left.

St. Enodoc had as much variety of sounds as I have ever heard on a golf course, all of them pleasing. There were the waves crashing on the rocks below the course, sheep baaing, gulls crowing, dogs barking, the wind blowing and the church bells ringing. There was also the smell of burning leaves from a nearby land owner, which brought back memories of my childhood, when the practice used to be allowed in the U.S. and an old maid near our house diligently burned leaves every Sunday during the Fall.

The golf course is a unique one and has a collection of standout holes (one, two, four, six and ten) that give the course a cult following among those learned in golf course architecture. The course combines dramatic water views with beautiful dunes links land as seen below on the finishing hole. The course is better than some of the courses in the top 100 I have played and it's a bit of a wonder to me why the course doesn't get more accolades.

The 18th green at St. Enodoc shows the dunes landscape

I read somewhere that if you like Cruden Bay and Prestwick you will like St. Enodoc, and I agree with this. The course is a bit quirky and short. From the tips it plays 6,547 yards to a par of 69 (there are only two par fives). St. Enodoc is an unconventional but very fun course set in an idyllic location.

After my round I sat in the clubhouse enjoying a Guinness and an egg mayonnaise sandwich on brown bread. I sat savoring the moment eavesdropping on a group of four Englishmen who were as quirky as the course. The perfect ending to a perfect day.

An old phone box that is still found in North Cornwall, near St. Enodoc

My Personal Top 50 Courses in the World

Have you ever been asked "If you could play just one course, what would it be?" For Ben Hogan, the one course he said he could play happily for the rest of his life was Seminole. Tom Lehman wrote a letter to Shinnecock Hills in 1995 stating, "If I were given one day to live, and could play any course that I wanted for my last round, I would choose Shinnecock." I actually think this is the wrong question. I'm too greedy to limit the list to just one course.

The right question would be, if you had unlimited time and money, and access to whatever courses you wanted, which courses would you put on your short list to play. Think of it as your own personal global Open Championship rota of courses.

Try sometime to rank the top golf courses you have seen or played. Then take out a blank sheet of paper and try to write it down again. Or think about it a few days and try it again. Try it again and see if you come up with the same list. It's a futile exercise. My own personal experience is that it is easier to bucket courses into categories or group them together. Below is my current list:

The bunkering on Royal Adelaide's 7th hole

Top 10
Cypress Point
National Golf Links of America
Sand Hills
Carnoustie
Loch Lomond
Sunningdale (Old)
Cruden Bay
Maidstone
Royal Portrush (Dunluce)
Royal Adelaide
Merion
Morfontaine

Sunningdale's 12th green

Next 10
Shinnecock Hills
Camargo
Shoreacres
Pine Valley
Yeamans Hall
Royal County Down
Jack's Point
Woodhall Spa
Barnbougle Dunes
San Francisco Golf Club

Jack's Point's fifteenth hole in Queenstown, NZ

Next 10
Turnberry
Whippoorwill Club
Los Angeles Country Club
Seminole
Somerset Hills
Royal Melbourne West
Kauri Cliffs
Kawana
Bethpage Black
New South Wales

Whippoorwill's par three 4th hole

Next 10
Pebble Beach
Riviera
Crystal Downs
Prestwick
Kingsbarns
Baltimore (Five Farms)
Lahinch
Garden City Mens Club
Naruo
Myopia Hunt Club
Highlands Links

Prestwick's ideal opening hole

Next 10
Bandon Dunes
The Valley Club of Montecito
Kiawah (Ocean Course)
Pinehurst #2
Royal Dornoch
Hirono
Chicago Golf Club
Valderamma
Royal St. George's
Royal Liverpool

Hirono's crazy sloping 14th fairway

The smart aleck's among you have probably noticed that I don't know how to count. I did take a little liberty to include eleven courses in each category because it's very difficult to keep it to ten and I've never been particularly good at math. If you don't like that approach, create your own list.

Highlands Links

It would have seemed like I would have played a public course much earlier in my quest. Why is it that I played a public course my penultimate? Because it is remote and difficult to get to. While at Highlands, the pro told me that one of the people who has already completed playing the top 100 in the world also played Highlands as course #99 followed by AUGUSTA as #100. Surely a good omen.

Located on the northern portion of Nova Scotia off the Cabot Trail, Highlands Links (ranked #64 in the world) takes work to make the trek to, but it is worth the effort.

The golf course was designed by Canadian architect Stanley Thompson, aka "The Toronto Terror," in 1935. The course is set in a dramatically beautiful part of the world, within Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The park covers almost 600 square miles and features steep cliffs and deep river canyons carved into a forested plateau, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Thompson was given a huge swath of land to work with and had the luxury to put the holes where he wanted.

Playing the first hole at Highlands gives you an immediate sense that the course is not going to be "typical." Its sense of uniqueness asserts itself right out of the gate. The 405-yard hole plays uphill, and both edges of the fairway taper off into the deep woods that line it. Thompson liked to use moguls as a design feature, and this hole smacks you in the face with them. It's a great way to start a round of golf! Thompson didn't use a lot of bunkering at Highlands, and the first hole is a good example of why he didn't need to. Between the moguls, the uphill terrain and the trees, no more hazards are needed.

The second hole is one of the best I've played in my travels. A 447-yard dogleg right, the hole plays sharply down a big hill. You hopefully won't see your tee shot land, since if you hit it well, it will carry the crest and your ball will bound down the hill. The second hole features NO bunkers at all. You can see the beautiful birch trees that line the hole (and entire course) in the picture below.

The 447 yard second hole from the tee

The second green is protected by a big swale that runs across the line of play. You won't find many even lies on this hole. It's a real gem.

The downhill approach to the par four 2nd hole

The third hole is a beauty set next to the adjacent estuary. It plays 160 yards, and the scenery in all directions is breathtaking.

The idyllic par three 3rd hole

I liked the short 324-yard fourth hole quite a bit. The tee shot demands a smart, well placed shot into a narrow, hilly area instead of requiring the golfer to bomb away off the tee with a driver.

The 4th hole at Highlands Links as seen from the tee

The tabletop green on the fourth hole is a tough target to hold and has a challenging, undulating green set amidst the birch trees.

The 4th hole's tabletop green

The sixth hole ranks among the top 100 holes according to The World's Greatest Golf Holes book, published by Golf Magazine in 2000. The name alone is worthy of ranking the hole. Thompson named the hole "Mucklemouth Meg" after a Scottish woman who could apparently swallow a turkey egg whole. The par five hole is 537 yards and plays from an elevated tee along the beautiful river estuary.

The par five seventh hole is also one of the best I have ever played. It is 570 yards and is the #1 handicap hole on the course. Thompson used the rolling hills in this part of the park to great effect when designing this hole. You hit your tee shot into a chute of trees and watch it run up and down the hills like a ball bouncing in a pinball machine.

The world-class par five seventh hole

The hole is narrow, lined with birch trees and with a lot of interesting land forms. The approach to the green is a challenging shot and could be blind depending upon where you leave your approach shot.

The seventh hole embodies Thompson's design philosphy perfectly. He wrote in 1923, "In clearing fairways, it is good to have an eye to the beautiful. Often it is possible, by clearing away undesirable and unnecessary trees on the margin of fairways, to open up a view of some attractive picture and frame it with foliage."

The par five 7th approach to the green

Around about this part of the course Highlands Links becomes a "no doubt about it" course. Sometimes when I play a course ranked among the top in the world, I have to think why it is ranked there. I didn't have to do much thinking here. Highlands is what a top 100 course should be: it is something special. The dramatic scenery in all directions is intertwined with great golf holes and a varied routing, which make it a standout course.

Like at Cypress Point, the routing at Highlands is unconventional by today's standards. There are two sets of back-to-back par fives (holes 6 and 7 and holes 15 and 16). The front also has in a three hole sequence a par three, followed by a sub-300 par four, followed by another par three. The course measures 6,592 yards from the tips, but I found it plays longer due to the use of uphill shots.

Part of the genius of the course design is how Thompson juxtaposes different hole types and mixes uphill shots with downhill shots. A good example is the eighth hole which has a blind uphill tee shot. Not to worry though, this 319-yard par four is one of the easiest on the course.

The 8th hole as seen from the tee

After you hit over the hill, the hole drops dramatically back down the hill. The steep downhill approach makes judging the distance to the green tricky. As Thompson's biographer, James Barclay, wrote about the colorful man, "At times his work seemed to transcend architecture and become the poetry of shape."

The 8th green with its dramatic mountain backdrop

For a course designer I am sure it is the ultimite luxury to be given such a huge swath of land to work with and to be able to spread the course out to take advantage of what you think will make the best holes. Thompson did good in this regard. The course is a true walk in the park, but not for the faint of heart. The walks between the 6th and 7th holes and the 8th and 9th holes amount to miniature hikes through the woods. Although the course has an out-and-back routing, with the ninth hole playing far away from the first tee, the overall routing amounts to nothing less than genius.

The ninth is another unique golf hole that fits perfectly into the routing and landscape. You drive from an elevated tee down into a valley. Your approach to the 336-yard hole's green is sharply uphill and to the right, to a blind green. It is a very imaginative use of a ravine and side of a hill, since you cannot see the green until you walk to the top of the hill.

The 9th hole from the tee

The back nine is quite a challenge as well, although it is not as visually arresting as the front. The twelfth hole is a demanding par three that plays a crazy 240 yards from the blue tees!

The walk from the twelfth green to the thirteenth tee is one of the best in the world. After putting out on the testy par three you meander along a long path which hugs the Clyburn river, nestled among birch trees. The walk can be savored because it is more than a third of a mile long. The scenic beauty of Nova Scotia is in full evidence as you walk along the rocky river bank and breathe in the pure Canadian air. Golf is metaphorically called a walk in the park; at Highlands, it really is one.

The world class walk from 12th green to 13th tee

A good ten minute walk from green to tee? This Thompson fellow sounds a little nuts. Perhaps, but he routed a genius course and looked for the best place to put holes, apparently without too much regard about the walk from green to tee. Shinnecock Hills this is not, in terms of tees being next to greens. The total walk at Highlands was as tough as any I have done; the distance from the first tee to the eighteenth green is seven and a half miles. A typical walk on a golf course is five miles, so it is 50% more than average.

On balance, the back nine is not as dramatic as the front, partially because the first nine holes are all unique and very interesting. It got too dark for good pictures on the back (sorry), but I really liked the par five fifteenth hole, where Thompson uses his moguls strategically and with great impact.

Categorizing Highlands Links is difficult to do. Thompson called it a "mountain and ocean course." Although it isn't set at an elevation, it feels like it is since the terrain is so mountainous. Part of what makes Cypress Point unique is that it is routed through three types of landscapes: A forest, sand dunes and along the ocean. Highlands Links is similar: it starts along the Atlantic, crosses a lake and river tributary with marshland, and is routed through the forest. I don't compare courses to Cypress Point without giving it a great deal of thought, but in this instance it is an apt comparison. The grandeur of Highlands is worthy to be among the world's best.

I would personally rank Highlands Links higher on the list of top ranked courses. Rather than #64, perhaps in the top 25 or 30.

Pre-war golf course architects were sometimes colorful characters: Tom Simpson and A.W. Tillinghast come to mind. Thompson seems to fit the same mold: A lover of thick steaks, expensive cigars and Canadian Rye, he has been described as red faced with a "roast-beef complexion". His design skills matched his big reputation.

As I mentioned, Highlands Links is located off the Cabot Trail, a spectacularly scenic part of the world with an abundance of lobsters. On this trip I was able to answer two of life's more vexing questions definitively. Is there such a thing as playing too much golf? And, is there such a thing as eating too much lobster? The answer to both questions is a resounding NO. Throughout our visit to Cape Breton Island we binged on cheap and plentiful lobster everywhere we went. The people of Nova Scotia are also among the friendliest in the world and are quite hospitable. It is a great place to visit.

My journey winds down
The opera is now in its last act. We all know who sings in the last act, don't we? She's ready to go; hopefully, she will belt out the final tune in short order!

2011 Year in Review

As has been my tradition, I reserve my first post of the year to a review of the prior year and to share reader comments over the prior twelve months. My golf photo of the year, even though it really isn't of golf, is the one I took of Wellington harbor while touring this great city with my Kiwi friends. What a place.

Wellington Harbor as seen from Lookout Point

2011 was again a watershed year and brought some renewed ad hominem attacks from Fishers Island supporters. Their garrulous postings are taking up too much space on my blog, and I wish they would be briefer. All their sturm und drang is wearing me down. A good example follows, "Not a lot of substance in this review. Maybe you can clarify what you liked and didn't like about ... #17 may not be the best hole on the course, but the #18th as a par 4 is the best closing hole I have ever played. So tough. Try to review the golf course. You use the bad egg analogy (parts are great), why don't you explain what parts are great and which parts are bad in your amateur opinion?"

To counter this hokum, I do have some fellow supporters, "I have played Fisher's 4 times now and agree this is possibly the most overrated track in the top 100...the ocean views are beautiful, and there are a couple of spectacular holes...but place this course anywhere else and I think its not anywhere near top 100".

To the amazement of many of you, I did play Fishers Island again and have a new more balanced writeup about the course. Hopefully, the inimical comments around this topic will slow down. And, I'm always open to an invite back guys, to reconsider the error in my ways!

Fishers Island Biarritz hole

My views are simpatico with the comment I received from this fan of Camargo in Cincinnati, "I finally played Camargo (not easy to get on) and sweet Jesus it is safe to say you got this review right! ALL WORLD course."

I love this comment on Augusta and the sense of introspection. "I rebelled against the game in my late teens as part of that general dissatisfaction with reality we males face around that age. I came to associate golf with my father (who taught me to play at an early age), and with preppy country club banality. sinister sounding, 'exogenous forces were at play.' An old family friend of means, himself a member of Peachtree and Atlanta Athletic, invited us to play Augusta. Today, I have no access to Augusta. I am no longer a quasi-interesting teenage rebel but a 30-something divorced monster. The gentleman who invited us is dead; his sons hate me and I may never play Augusta again. Talk about youth wasted on the young..."

It is not often you find someone who dissents about Merion being a great course, "...it was simply the most overrated course I have ever played in my life. We actually made the mistake of going to the wrong tee box twice, as some of the holes are a shooting gallery. I have been invited back several times to play, and won't consider it, and keep making excuses". As they say on TV, the views shared by my readers do not represent the view of management.

I consider myself very lucky to have played Maidstone three more times this past year. I rank it in my personal top ten in the world, so I completely agree with this comment, "Pound for pound, yard for yard, Maidstone is the finest members golf course in the world IMHO. Wind, season - lush in Spring, baked out in August - means the course never plays exactly the same round to round."

Another fantastic comment, which I agree with regarding the three golf courses in the Hamptons, "I think of it like this: If you're a real nut for course design and tradition, it's The National. If you're an excellent and talented player (or just a prick who equates difficulty and 'shot values' with greatness) it's Shinnecock Hills. If you're a laidback person who truly enjoys just being in beautiful scenery and not struggling, it's Maidstone."

One of the best comments I have gotten in the six years I have been doing the blog, "you rate golf courses like girl friends - It depends how you scored".

It's always nice to get some media coverage and this year I'm happy I was featured in a story in the Journal of Addictive Behaviors. So, it's only an academic publication with a small circulation, and I don't agree with the author's conclusion that I'm clinically nuts. It's a trifling disagreement. As Donald Trump says, there is no such thing as negative publicity.

Cabot Links on Canada's Cape Breton Island

My golfing travails of 2011

It seems like so long ago, but it has been less than a year since I visited New Zealand. The incomparable beauty of the place left me feeling quite gay. It's hard to find a greater collection of courses than Kauri Cliffs, Cape Kidnappers, Paraparaumu and Jack's Point. I still have fresh memories of my amazing visit to Queenstown. I hope to return some day to this great country.

My revised writeup of Riviera got much better feedback and I was really happy to have played the Whippoorwill Club again. Having done so three more times, I am now of the firm opinion that this is one of the top 50 best courses in the world. I also returned to Los Angeles late in the year and was gobsmacked by the changes made to L.A.C.C. and have a new review of it as well.

I finally made it down to the capital of the Confederacy and played The Homestead Cascasdes course in Southern Virginia.

I capped off the year with another rousing visit to Canada to play both Highlands Links (review coming next month) and Cabot Links, both worth the journey.

Highlands Links par five 7th hole

Results from this year's polls include a preference for Bethpage Black as Tillinghast's best course:

Bethpage Black 36%
San Francisco 28%
Winged Foot (West) 17%
Somerset Hills 6%
Baltusrol (Lower) 6%
Baltimore (Five Farms) 4%

Bethpage Black's 14th hole

The best course on Long Island poll had the following results, which are hard to dispute, although playing any of these courses is special:

Shinnecock Hills 34%
National Golf Links of America 25%
Bethpage Black 16%
Friar's Head 9%
Garden City Men's 5%
Maidstone 4%
Sebonack 4%

After visiting all these great courses and traveling around the world I have lost none of my the wanderlust and love for golf, travel, being with good friends and meeting new ones. I'm living the dream out here. What a year. Thank you to all who have helped me over the years. A happy and healthy new year to all! Best wishes for 2012, and a little wisdom to start the new year:

Life isn't about finding yourself,
Life is about creating yourself.

-- George Bernard Shaw

We Love L.A.! - Los Angeles Country Club

This post continues a series of updated write-ups for courses I have played again, and which specifically, this time I brought my camera. It has been some five years since I played Los Angeles Country Club (#59 in the world). The club is located in the heart of some of the most valuable real estate on the planet. While technically accurate that the course is located in the City of Los Angeles, the city is made up of many neighborhoods. L.A.C.C. is located in the heart of one of the toniest neighborhoods. The course is bounded by Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Century City, Brentwood and Westwood.

The distinctive white L.A.C.C. Clubhouse

The southern boundary of the course is Santa Monica Boulevard. Wilshire Blvd. divides the North Course from the South. Sunset Blvd. forms the rough northern boundary of the course. L.A.C.C. is an oasis within one of the largest and most densely populated urban areas in the world. What makes the course even more special is that the members of Los Angeles C.C. guard the privacy jealously, making a visit here feel like a real behind-the-scenes getaway. You approach a guard gate set back off Wilshire and give your name to get into the enclave. While I have been to many courses and had to stop at a guard gate (Sunningdale, Pine Valley, Southern Hills, Riviera, Loch Lomond), at L.A.C.C. it really adds an element of exclusivity that feels appropriate for this part of L.A.

L.A.C.C. is one of only a very few remaining golf courses in the United States where you must wear long pants - there are no shorts allowed. The course does not have a lot of movie star or entertainment industry members, contrary to popular opinion. What it does have is world class golf. It is our understanding that the U.S.G.A. would like to host events at L.A.C.C., but the club has repeatedly declined (they are hosting a Walker Cup in 2017).

The first time I was fortunate enough to play L.A. Country Club was made even more special by the treatment I was given in the locker room. On the day of my summer visit, the locker room attendant let me use Ronald Reagan's locker. Reagan was a one-time member of L.A.C.C. With an American flag atop the locker, it was with real pride that I had the privilege to be able to use the locker of this great American.

L.A.C.C.'s unique custom made tee markers

L.A.C.C. was designed by George Thomas, who also designed nearby Riviera and Bel-Air. Thomas created the present layout in 1927 when he and his sidekick Billy Bell remodeled a course built by British architect Herbert Fowler. One of the first changes evident this time around was that there are now a lot less trees at L.A.C.C. Over 1,000 trees were taken out in a recent renovation done by architect Gil Hanse, and it enhances the property and the course greatly. Specifically, it opens up vistas that were previously closed off and shows the unique nature of the rolling land forms this part of west L.A. is blessed with. The other noticeable change is that many of the tee boxes now are mowed as if they are fairway. They seemlessly blend the tee and fairway, giving an infinite number of places to put tees and opening up some interesting new shots.

There are two courses at L.A.C.C., and the world ranked championship course is the North Course, which plays 7,010 yards from the black tees to a par of 70. As was Thomas's style, he starts off L.A.C.C. with an easy (easy being a relative term if you are jet lagged and amped up on coffee) par five. Your line off the tee is the "B" on the Beverly Hills Hilton sign atop the hotel, visible behind the green, which sits 544 yards from the tee.

Thomas makes up for the easy starting hole by throwing a killer par four at you on the second hole. This beast plays 484 yards from the tips and 428 yards from the white tees. The second hole also opens up a stretch which lasts until the eighth green that is simply breathtaking. It is as good a stretch of holes as you will find on any golf course, over a uniquely hilly terrain. Thomas used the barrancas (Spanish for gully or ditch) and sloping hillsides to route a masterpiece at L.A.C.C.

The tough par four third hole

You have to hit over a sloping hillside. Tee shots hit to the right side of the fairway will slide down the hillside and end up on the left side of the fairway. Your approach shot to the green has to clear a nasty barranca that fronts the elevated green. The other change Hanse made on the course was to restore the natural areas in front of the greens so that a shot that is not well struck will likely be findable now, but with a dodgy lie.

The difficult third green at L.A.C.C.

L.A.C.C. has only three par fives and five par threes, each of the latter, a gem. The first is the 210 yard fourth hole seen below. The hole plays downhill to a difficult to hold green. Note the barranca that runs in front of the green, penalizing short or topped shots.

The par three 4th hole

Like at Bel-Air and Riviera, all around you there are signs that you are in a very exclusive environment. Behind you, as you walk off the fourth green up on the hill is Lionel Richie's house. Wow.

Lionel Richie's house above L.A.C.C.

As Gil Hanse and Geoff Shackelford write in the L.A.C.C. North Course Commemorative Edition, published in 2010: "Every great course in the world features at least one par-4 under 350 yards allowing for multiple playing options. Designed with an eye toward risk and reward, these devilish little two-shotters accomplish one very simple axiom, as so eloquently written by George Thomas in Golf Architecture in America: The strategy of golf is the thing which gives the short accurate player a chance with a longer hitter who cannot control his direction or distance." Riviera's great par four under 350 yards is its tenth. At L.A.C.C. it is the sixth, and it's a doozie.

The hole plays 335 yards from the back tees, and you hit into a narrow valley where the ball will naturally kick right to left. If you are brazen, you can attempt to cut off the corner on the right and incur a big penalty if you miss. The hole doglegs sharply to the right and the approach to the elevated green is made quite tricky because it is such a small target. To me, the hole felt like any number of great risk-reward holes at Merion. It is the type of hole you could play dozens and dozens of times and still find exhilirating and challenging each time.

The ideal sixth green

The 242 yard (back tees), 219 yard (white tees) par three is the middle of the three par threes on the front that play a whopping 633 total yards! No little pitch shots on the par threes on the front!

The par three seventh

The seventh is followed by one of the coolest golf holes on the planet. The 537 yard eighth requires you to hit a tee shot through a narrow chute of trees to a fairway that slopes left and right. Your second shot requires you to carry the barranca. That is Century City seen over the tree tops below.

Par five 8th hole, dogleg right, then left over a barranca

The hole doglegs first to the right and then to the left. The second and third shots are both finesse shots where the player is trying to optimize his or her position on the correct side of the fairway or green. It is a true risk-reward, shot making, three-shot hole!

The par five 8th green

The par three eleventh hole at L.A.C.C. gets photographed a lot because it features Downtown L.A. as its backdrop. The day I took the picture has too much haze to see the skyline, but on a brilliant day it is a great look.

The par three 11th reverse Redan hole

The eleventh is a 249 yard (back tees), 225 yard (white tees) demanding reverse Redan hole. The green slopes back to front. You can get away with a shot hit left because the ball bounces down the natural slope of the terrain onto the green. A ball hit to the right side is in serious trouble and will likely leave you a recovery shot where you won't be able to see the green surface.

The right side of reverse redan 11th hole with its steep dropoff

In what has to be the most exciting non-golf related attraction next to a golf course anywhere in the world, off the thirteenth green of the North Course is the Playboy mansion. It is hemmed in by so many hedge rows it is hard to see anything, although you can normally hear the peacocks crowing.

The Playboy mansion sits behind hedges between 13th green and 14th tee

The entire right side of the fourteenth hole also has a building located off of it that at first appears to be a Ritz Carlton. In fact, it is the home of one of Hollywood's most famous producers, Aaron Spelling. The house has 123 rooms and is 56,000 square feet. Although Spelling is now deceased and the home is owned by someone else, it is an impressive and well maintained sight.

The par three fifteenth hole is one of the few on the course that can qualify as 'easy.' It is 133 yards from the tips, but you have to focus intently off the tee because the green is narrow and oblong to you.

The par three 15th green

As an Easterner (and poor golfer), the Bermuda grass at L.A.C.C. gave me fits. It is just so tough to hit through consistently, especially on finesse shots around the green where you are trying to hit a specific target.

The par four 455 yard seventeenth is the prettiest hole on the course. You drive from an elevated tee down into the fairway, then to a narrow, well bunkered green.

The 17th green

The little seventeenth hole is pictured below and is an 'extra' hole that was rediscovered during the recent renovations. It was love at first sight with this little beauty and me. It is just a visually stunning little gem. The hole can be used as an extra hole or just to hit into for fun.

Little 17 from the front


Little 17 as seen from the side

If you play L.A.C.C. bring long pants, leave your cell phone in your car and get ready for a delightful walk with caddies. The overall experience is first class from beginning to end.

Routing, variety and terrain combine to make it a world-class course. Given its geographic location, L.A.C.C. North will inevitably be compared with nearby Riviera. In my view L.A.C.C. is the superior course. Thomas simply had a better piece of land to work with at L.A.C.C. than at Riviera. Riviera is built within a valley and doesn't have the elevation changes or other elements that makes L.A.C.C. so unique. From a club standpoint also, I prefer L.A.C.C. to Riviera. Riviera is a large club with a corporate feel to it. L.A.C.C. is a more intimate, low key club.

In my own world rankings I would personally reverse the order of these two courses and rank Riviera #59 and Los Angeles #36. Both are world-class, however, as is nearby Bel-Air.

Our lunch of braised beef short ribs and the little cheesy bread sticks were memorable. The only issue I encountered at L.A.C.C. is that it is impossible to buy something from the pro shop, because it only sells to members.

My two visits to L.A.C.C. have been among my most memorable and truly enjoyable in all my travels. To paraphrase Cecil Rhodes's comment about the English, "To be a member of L.A.C.C. is to win first prize in the lottery of life." Lucky bastards.