Playing the Top 100 Golf Courses in The World

Augusta National Golf Club - A Cinderella Story

2013-05-01T01:45:00.000-07:00

"I shall never forget my first visit to the property... The long lane of magnolias through which we approached was beautiful. The old manor house with its cupola and walls of masonry two feet thick was charming. The rare trees and shrubs of the old nursery were enchanting. But when I walked out on the grass terrace under the big trees behind the house and looked down over the property the experience was unforgettable." - Bobby Jones

Augusta National Golf Club (ranked #5 in the world) is the hardest course in the top 100 to get on. I probably have to qualify my prior sentence so I don't get bombarded with email from Down Under reminding me that Ellerston Golf Club is probably the hardest in the world to get on, but that's another story and wasn't on my to do list. It took me fifteen years to get invited to Augusta National, but I finally managed to do it in style. All the pictures on this post were happily taken with my camera, and as you can see, the conditions were perfect when I was there. It was 74 degrees and sunny with a slight wind.

What better circumstances are there to play Augusta National than when the azaleas are blooming, when the course is in tournament condition and with with a winner or two? Well, none.

I saved the best experience for last, and walking off the eighteenth green of Augusta National as the last hole to complete my quest is the only way to finish. I am one very lucky bastard.

After I was invited to play at Augusta National it was overwhelming, and it took several days for me to come back down to earth. Because I am just a little anal and clearly I like lists, I immediately began to keep three: 1) People who were previously my friends who told me they now hated me from jealousy; 2) People who offered to caddie for me if needed; and 3) People who wanted "Augusta National" and not "Masters" logo items that you can only buy in the pro shop in the clubhouse. Sleeping the night before playing at Augusta was restless at best, the sense of anticipation was crushing. Sitting in my hotel room prior to the round, I was a clinical example of adult ADHD and displayed all the symptoms in classic form: inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness. I was babbling, moving things around the room senselessly and not listening to a word my wife said.

What was it like?

Short answer: Wow!

Long answer: It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, if a bit overwhelming. Driving under the canopy of trees lining Magnolia Lane is something I never dreamed would happen to me, so the range of emotions that I felt when it happened were wide, as I was trying to comprehend my dream being realized. The most prevalent feelings were joy, fear, excitement, disbelief, exhilaration and anticipation.

As anyone who has ever been to the Masters knows, everything about the place is perfect. Walking through the door of the plantation-style antebellum clubhouse is as memorable an experience as riding down Magnolia Lane. Having previously been to the Masters twice, I had already experienced the jaw-dropping awe of the property and its rolling hills. Not that it ever gets old, because it doesn't. Being anywhere on the verdant Augusta grounds is special, no matter how many times you have been there. This time, being able to walk into the clubhouse, an act previously verboten, was truly amazing. I do believe I had the biggest smile of my life on my face when I entered.

As with everything else in this adult version of Disneyland, the interior of the stately clubhouse is flawless. It is the antithesis of glitz and ostentation; it is simple, but elegant; the ultimate embodiment of understated Southern charm. There are scores of little touches they get right, including a mounted display board in the entry foyer. The board has slots that hold the engraved names of members who are currently on the property. They slide little brass name plates in and out as members enter and leave the property. I did my best not to gawk at the board, but did recognize a couple of names, including a former Secretary of State who was present. The clubhouse, with a two-story veranda around the entire building, and was built in 1854; is a veritable museum; touring it is special, as it holds the permanent Masters trophy, special golf clubs donated to the club from past champions and a big oil painting of President Eisenhower. Ascending the winding stairway leads you to the second floor, which houses the dining room where they hold the champions dinner each year and the champions locker room. Starting with Bobby Jones, and thinking about all the great golfers who have been in the clubhouse and walked over these hallowed grounds over the last 80 years gives me goosebumps.

My warm-up was on the driving range used during the Masters instead of on the members driving range. I have obviously played a lot of good golf courses and have experienced teeing off at some famous locales that are pressure packed, such as the Old Course at St. Andrews and the first tee at Merion with lunch in progress. Hitting my first tee shot at Augusta was the most nerve-racking of all and shortened both my breath and my back swing. My palms were sweaty and my stomach full of butterflies. The first drive is over a big swale, and although the fairway is wide, the target area is not, since it narrows between the huge bunker on the right and the big Georgia pines on the left. In retrospect, it was one of the narrowest fairway landing areas on the course. Making contact with the ball on the first tee was special. Having the ball actually go my normal distance down the fairway was a bonus!

I played well on the first six holes, then the gravity of the situation hit me and I fell apart for two holes. It is really hard to comprehend that I was lucky enough to be able to actually play Augusta National. Many thanks to the caddies who helped me stay calm and in the present and enjoy the moment. Just as all roads lead to Rome, all golfers dream of the back nine at Augusta on a Sunday afternoon, and here I am in just such a spot.

The practice putting green is near the tenth tee at Augusta National. After we teed off on ten, a multiple-time winner and Ryder Cup captain walks up to the tee and says, "Do you guys mind if I join you on the back?" Hard do conceive of, right? My playing partner says, "No problem with me, John, is it ok if he joins us?" What am I going to say, "No, I'm sort of in a groove, why don't we continue as a two-some!" My fairy tale story continues...

Nelson Bridge over Rae's Creek from the 13th tee to the 13th fairway, as seen from Hogan Bridge

From tee to green there is no rough; so, truth be told, putting your ball in play is actually not that hard. The course plays 6,365 yards from the member tees. The fairways are generous, they look and feel like carpets, and every lie is perfect. The greens are also perfection, without question the best in the world. The most difficult shots tee to green are those you have to hit off of the pine needles if you hit off the fairway. The real tests of Augusta National are chipping, holding your ball on the greens and putting. The greens are fast, as you would expect. They are significantly harder on the back nine, in my humble opinion. In particular, I found the thirteenth, fourteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth to be like putting on the top of a glass table.

I am an average golfer (15 handicap) and if there is one hope that I had going into the round it was to play Amen Corner well. A sense of calm and peace overtook me as I walked onto the eleventh tee. To be able to hit the same shots the professionals hit is a dream every golfer has. To be able to pull it off and not cease up was a treat. One of the highlights of my life was hitting the middle of the eleventh green in regulation (the hole plays 400 yards from the member tees) with a shot that got a "great shot" shout out from two former tournament winners. Luckily, my birdie putt was captured by my alert caddie who knew the gravity of the moment and took the camera out of my golf bag without being asked. I rolled it to within six inches. I was not disappointed with a tap in par to start Amen Corner. Walking over the Hogan Bridge is something that cannot be described; it is a solemn, spiritual experience.

Putting for birdie on #11 on a brilliant day with the azaleas in bloom

Standing on the twelfth tee I mentally blocked out the water, the ultra-shallow green, the bunkers in the front and in back, and everything else. I adjusted perfectly for the one club wind, visualized the shot, saw only the flag and took a very deep breath. I ended up hitting one of the best shots of my life, eight feet from the hole. This is the reason you stand on the range year after year and hit tens of thousands of practice balls; so that when you need to, you can pull off the shot of your life, and it was satisfying. On #12 the member tee and the pro tee are in the same place, so I had the exact same shot they hit during the Masters, a 155-yarder over Rae's Creek. My putt broke a good cup and a half and when it landed in the bottom of the hole for birdie, it was hard to absorb. I was one under through two holes on Amen Corner, and hit a drive straight down the middle of the thirteenth fairway. I didn't so much walk over Nelson Bridge as I did float over it.

The view from the back tee on the thirteenth

My luck ran out when my ball rolled back off the thirteenth green, but I was still overjoyed, having just lived every golfer's dream. When the legendary golf writer Herbert Warren Wind coined the phrase "Amen Corner," he described it as your second shot on the 11th, the entire 12th hole and your tee shot on 13. In the original true sense of Amen Corner, I played it to near perfection. My favorite hole was the thirteenth; it is just breathtaking and on a scale that most golf holes can never achieve. The back tee on the thirteenth is one of the most peaceful places in the world. It sits in a little alcove set among the splendor and beauty of Augusta, and standing there one has not a care in the world.

The approach to the par five thirteenth green over Rae's Creek

I am blessed, and for some reason the golf gods were good enough to let me play to my handicap when I played Augusta National. As is typical, I had my ups and downs. I hit my tee shot on sixteen into the water, pulled my ball through the Eisenhower Tree on seventeen, hit my fair share of chip shots fat and three putted more than normal, as the greens were tournament ready. After my final putt dropped on the eighteenth green I shook hands with two green jacket winners. To say I was in a state of elation is a gross understatement. At that moment, I was the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

As an added bonus, after the round I also got to play the par three course and to have a drink in the champions locker room. It is quite small and intimate, with only three tables that seat four at each. The veranda outside the room overlooks the circular entry drive and Magnolia Lane. The room was full when I entered and I will leave it to your imagination as to who was in the room and what happened next. If I told you, you wouldn't believe me anyway. Hollywood couldn't have scripted it any better.

I have a big imagination. You have to, to envision playing Augusta and completing this quest. My experience at Augusta National exceeded anything I could have ever imagined. Any one of my experiences that day are remarkable in and of their own right. Are my descriptions hyperbole? Not in the least, when you experienced what I did as the culmination of a long journey. Collectively, they are truly hard to take in and represent a dream come true. The title song from The Wizard of Oz sums up my day:

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There's a land that I've heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream,
Really do come true.

Would you go if invited?

Links Magazine did a readers poll a couple of years back and asked the following question, "You're on a business trip in Atlanta and have an important meeting that cannot be rescheduled. The night before the meeting, you receive a last minute invitation to play Augusta National Golf Club the following morning. What do you do?"

57% responded that they would skip and meeting and play
43% said they would attend the meeting

The 43% are clearly out of their mind. Are you kidding me?

What PGA players think about Augusta

Sports Illustrated polled the players in 2012 about the Masters. Their answers are below and my opinion in parenthesis.

1. The 11th hole was ranked as the hardest. (I think the seventh and tenth holes are harder)

2. The 12th hole was ranked as the best hole and as the favorite shot on the course (hard to disagree)

3. The 13th hole was ranked as their favorite hole (I agree)

4. 62% of them had never tried the pimento cheese sandwich!

5. 50% of those polled said the major they would most like to win would be the Masters

Some of my favorite quotes about Augusta

"The course is perfection, and it asks perfection" - Nick Faldo

"You get the feeling that Bobby Jones is standing out there with you" - Lee Janzen

"I always said that if they have a golf course like this in heaven, I want to be the head pro" - Gary Player

Augusta truisms

There are three truisms that anyone who has been to the Masters knows:

1. The neighborhood the course is in is more befitting to a suburban strip mall in New Jersey and is lined with Waffle Houses and fast food chains.

2. The steepness of the terrain doesn't come through on TV. Especially how much the first hole plays down and up. Also, the uphill shots required on nine and eighteen are much more dramatic when seen in person, given the big elevation changes. The most dramatic hole of all is the tenth, which plays almost straight down hill.

3. The entire property is perfect. Quite literally perfect. There are no weeds. Nothing is out of place. I don't know if they paint the place every day, but the interiors of the buildings look like they were freshly painted. The flooring is polished, the carpets are spotless and look freshly laid, and the lucky people working there are charming and gracious, and make you feel at home.

Unlike any other

Pine Valley is the #1 ranked course in the world and Cypress Point is #2, and an absolute dream land. Everyone talks about Pebble Beach, and you get chills playing the Old Course at St. Andrews when they announce your name on the first tee. But the course EVERYBODY asks about when I tell them what I've been doing is Augusta. Have you played Augusta? How did you get on Augusta?

I have played in some unreal and memorable places. My day at Loch Lomond was exceptional. My experience and the ambiance of the hunting lodge at Morfontaine is still something I think about all the time. It is also pretty hard to beat an overnight stay at The National Golf Links of America. Yet, this is the one to tell the grand kids about (some day). Everyone I meet in my life from now on will hear about my birdie on the twelfth hole.

The 13th fairway looking back toward the tee shows the massive curve around Rae's Creek

Augusta trivia

Some interesting trivia facts about Augusta taken mostly from David Owen's The Making of the Masters:

1. The tress that line Magnolia Lane were planted before the Civil War

2. President Eisenhower never attended the Masters because of possible security problems

3. Before there were tour caddies, golfers recruited bellhops from the local Bon-Air Hotel to serve as caddies

4. Cliff Roberts handled Eisenhower's personal finances and investments

5. The golf shop makes change with new bills because Clifford Roberts didn't like dirty bills

6. There are no tee times at Augusta National. Captains of industry are very civilized and no doubt don't all show up at once. The limited number of cabins for overnight play self-regulates the number of people that play, as most members don't live locally.

7. The two nines originally played in reverse. The 1934 Masters was the only one played with the front and back opposite of the way they play today.

8. Augusta has no slope and course rating from the U.S.G.A. thus you can't really post your score after playing. I'm not sure why they never had the course rated, perhaps to do with privacy and limiting access?

What will you do now that you are done playing the top 100 courses?

People have asked me this question a lot. I contemplated giving up golf altogether, since what I just did can't be topped. Like Bobby Jones, I thought, wouldn't it be great to go out at the top. Jones retired at his peak in 1930 after winning the impregnable quadrilateral, as he termed the Grand Slam. My friends reminded me that I'm no Bobby Jones, so a few other ideas I'm kicking around:

1. Go back to Cruden Bay and play it over and over and over

2. Go and sit in the Sunningdale clubhouse for a week drinking Guinness and smoking cigars

3. Try to join the Links Club in New York

4. Eat at the top 100 restaurants in the world

5. Move to Queenstown, New Zealand, herd sheep and drive a taxi while playing golf at Jack's Point a lot

How did you get on the course?

Unfortunately, like in Las Vegas, what happens at Augusta National stays at Augusta National. This will remain my secret. That is, unless my book deal comes through with its big advance, in which case I will give all the details :). What I can say is that asking to play is futile. Like joining the club, you can't ask them, they have to ask you. Asking to play is an automatic no. Think about it, members would be inundated with requests every day if you could ask them to play since this is the course every golfer obsesses about. In this regard, Augusta National is truly unlike all other golf courses in the world. If you meet a member of Shinnecock Hills or Riviera or many of the other top courses, chances are you can ask them and as long as you are not a total JO, you can usually get invited, as they are proud to show off their course, especially to those that appreciate the history of the game and golf course architecture. A prior post of mine does outline the ways you can get onto the course: A Dozen Ways to Play Augusta. Good luck if you are trying, and sorry, I can't help.

What are your favorite courses and holes?

Alas, a complex question best answered by this post: The Best Holes and Courses. My day at Augusta was by far the best overall experience of my journey playing the top 100 courses given what happened to me on that day. In terms of the course only, I would rank only a half-dozen or so courses above it including Cypress Point, Sand Hills, the National Golf Links of America, Merion, and Sunningdale. My top five holes in the world are the thirteenth at Augusta, the fifteenth at Cypress Point, Maidstone's fourteenth, Kawana's fifteenth and the seventh at Sunningdale.

Was it hard to play the top 100 golf courses in the world?

Yes. To put the feat in perspective, by completing my quest I become only the 23rd person to do so, the same number of men who have been to the moon: The list of those who have completed playing. I tried to calculate the percentage of people in the world that have done this and dividing 23 into 7 billion gave a result with a lot of zeros after the decimal point. The odds of winning the lottery are higher than the odds of playing all 100 of the top golf courses in the world.

The hardest courses to get on aside from Augusta are Morfontaine in France, Hirono and Nauro in Japan, Wade Hampton in North Carolina, San Francisco Golf Club and The Golf Club in Ohio.

Thank you

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been kind to me along the way, particularly those that hosted me and had to tolerate looking at my terrible swing. Thank you to all my loyal and supportive readers. Special thanks to my mates Tom, Chris and Sheldon who accompanied me to many of the world's great golf courses and are fabulous company. We have shared many laughs together. Thank you for being such good friends, I couldn't have done it without you. The biggest thanks of all goes to the most tolerant and greatest wife in the world! Thank you.

One of the lessons learned from this experience is to be patient. I pressed hard to get on Augusta for years and for the last two had sort of given up, and figured completing the top 99 courses in the world would be a pretty good feat. Little did I know that all those previous no's and rejections in my attempt to play the course were for a reason. Fate had decided that my quest should end with the ultimate climax. Just like in your game, sometimes when you give up, you play your best. Other lessons learned: be nice to everyone you meet, think big, have perseverance and persistence, and believe. There is no way to pay everyone back that helped me, so I will continue to pay it forward and share my luck and good fortune with others.

This will be my last post now that the quest is complete.

Post Script - Did I mention I birdied twelve?

White Smoke

2013-04-08T01:38:00.003-07:00

Perfectus Questus!

Finito!

The Quest is Complete!

Golf's Holy Grail has been found

A full write-up of my final course to come...

Happy...more to come

2013-03-23T05:10:00.000-07:00

Wentworth (West Course)

2012-12-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

When I first played Wentworth seven years ago I was tired, didn't have my camera and did not do the course justice in my writeup. I returned recently with camera in tow and present this new and improved post.

The Wentworth West Course (ranked #78 in the world) is part of the sprawling Wentworth estate in Surrey. Originally owned by the Countess de Morella, the development rights for the housing estate and golf course were acquired in 1923. The West course was designed by H.S. Colt in 1924. Today, Wentworth has a large golf footprint with three 18 hole courses. Wentworth is located in the Surrey region outside London in Virginia Water, across from the Windsor Great Park, part of the Queen's Crown Estate. Virginia Water got its name from Elizabeth I, the 'Virgin Queen.'

The Wentworth housing estate is large and occupied by the jet set, to borrow an expression from the 1960s. Among today's leading European golf pros who live or have lived at Wentworth are: Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Colin Montgomery. One of the attractions of Wentworth is its proximity to Heathrow airport, but it is also one of its pitfalls, as you can hear the jets all day. The 1953 Ryder Cup was played at Wentworth and Ben Hogan and Sam Snead played on the U.S. team.

Wentworth's castle clubhouse

Surrey is blessed with sandy soil and beautiful terrain and Wentworth makes the most of it. I must say I hated the course the first time I played it, but this time around I saw that it is better than I realized the first time. The first hole is a nice par five playing 473 yards. Before you hit your tee shot the starter presses a button that puts up red lights on the entry road, so that you don't hit a car if you skull your tee shot. There is a big dip before the first green.

Approach shot to the first green on Wentworth's West course

The second hole is a 154-yard par three that plays from an elevated tee to a shallow green guarded by a big tree on the right side of the green.

The par three 2nd hole's green

I enjoyed the par four seventh hole very much. It is 396 yards and sweeps down the hillside to an elevated green sited up a big dogleg right. You can see the beautiful Surrey countryside clearly on this hole.

The beautiful Surrey heath land from the 7th hole at Wentworth

The green is interesting and challenging.

The green on the nice 7th hole on Wentworth's West course

The terrain at Wentworth is demanding and the course is long and the walk wore me out both times I played it. It is one of the most difficult courses I have ever played and is very long at 7,302 yards from the tips. The course's nickname is aptly, the Burma Road. Because the estate is so sprawling, the course is spread out and many holes have hills to walk up as well. The course also has active roads running through nine holes. I did find this to be very distracting. A lot of the world's great courses, in fact, have roads running through them including the National Golf Links of America, Cypress Point, Maidstone and Merion. What makes it different at Wentworth is the overall volume of traffic and the large number of holes where cars cross while you are playing. The view below is off the tee on the 203-yard par three fifth.

Fore!

The long 449-yard par four ninth hole was also very good. If features an active railway along the left side, which, like many U.K. courses is quite charming. The hole features a really interesting and well-protected green.

The green on Wentworth's 9th hole

Ernie Els has made changes to Wentworth over the last decade, many of them controversial, including to the 539-yard par five finishing hole. I rather liked the hole as it stands today. The hole sweeps to the right and the shot to the very small green is over this new burn.

The approach to the green of Wentworth's final hole

The estate grounds are idyllic, especially the giant rhododendron plants and the way the roads and houses are set back around sweeping drives. Wentworth also serves as the home of the European Tour and as a result the overall feel of the club is more like a resort or large corporate entity rather than a private club, which it also is. My preference is for more intimate clubs such as nearby Sunningdale.

On balance, I came away with a much better appreciation for Wentworth than my initial impression gave. My chief complaints are the demanding shots the course requires and the fact that between the planes from Heathrow overhead and the cars criss-crossing the course, it feels a lot like the movie Planes, Trains & Automobiles. The Wentworth Estate is also now a favorite place to live for über-wealthy people from the Middle East and Russia. There were several mega properties being built on the estate just off the course when we were there, also adding to the less-than-idyllic noise levels. A security-minded bunch, many of the houses feature cameras and some warn of guard dogs and one even has an electric fence.

An entrance to one of the large estate homes on the drive into Wentworth

My biggest complaints, however, are the $600 cost of the greens fee and compulsory caddie, and the fact that the round takes over FIVE AND A HALF HOURS!!!!!!! which is frankly not fun. Wentworth does a lot of corporate outings, so on the days they do allow visitors, it is a grueling experience.

Ganton Golf Club

2012-11-01T04:51:00.000-07:00

The Ganton Golf Club (ranked #62 in the world) was formed in 1891 and orginally called the Scarborough Golf Club. It is the course where Harry Vardon served as the professional between 1892 and 1903. If you don't appreciate who Harry Vardon is, then you had better brush up on your golfing history. One of the greatest players of all time, Vardon won the Open Championship six times and the U.S. Open once. Ted Ray, winner of the Open Championship and U.S. Open also served as the head professional at Ganton.

Some of golf's most esteemed architects have had a hand in shaping Ganton including J.H. Taylor, H.S. Colt, Alister MacKenzie and James Braid. The Ganton railway station, now gone, was 300 years from the course and caddies used to meet their players at the station and accompany them to the clubhouse.

Located in Yorkshire, Ganton has hosted three British Amateur Championships and a Walker Cup (2003). It also hosted the 1949 Ryder Cup, won by the United States and captained by Ben Hogan. My regular readers know how much I love the British Isles and visiting Ganton is no exception. The course is located in North Yorkshire which has beautiful rolling countryside and impossible to decipher thick accents. The nearby North York Moors are a national park and the areas surrounding Ganton are comprised of moors rich with bracken, heather and grass that give off a glowing color. The area has a purple hue in the summer from the bursting heather. There is something mysterious and romantic about this part of England and its old stone walls and alluring views.

The nice entry road into Ganton

Ganton is golf from the old school. Aside from 150-yard markers, there are no yardage markers at Ganton. The tops of the flag sticks DO NOT have a GPS target in them. This is golfing the old fashioned way, played by feel, trying to judge the wind and distance by eye or from the distance measured by a bunker or a tree. No golf carts here. This is pure golf.

I suppose that deep bunkering is part of the character in the north of England because Ganton also has deep, penal and large bunkers in the style of nearby Woodhall Spa. These are bunkers so deep that you need a ladder to climb in and out of them. I played Ganton without a caddy in sunny, windy conditions. The winter sun was at a low angle in the sky with the crisp air filling my lungs.

A bunker on the 10th hole is typical of the deep bunkers at Ganton

The course has a relatively easy start and the front nine isn't terribly difficult or dramatic, although you quickly get a sense that is is wise to stay out of the bunkers and to look around at the idyllic countryside in all directions. Ganton is not unusually short by today's standards, with back tees of 6,935 and would be a real challenge with the wind blowing. The growing conditions in this part of England are ideal due to the rain and cool temperatures, thus, the greens and fairways are as good as any course in the world.

I think the back nine is far stronger than the front. The course's strong finish picks up steam on the sixteenth hole, seen below, with a huge and rough cross bunker running across the fairway. The hole is 446 yards and has a line of trees along both sides. You can see some of the pastoral beauty in the distance in the picture below. Farming has been going on in this area for over 1,000 years.

The view of the 16th fairway as seen from the tee

I particularly like the 258-yard par three seventeenth hole, where you must hit your tee shot across the entrance road to the course. Yorkshire men are known as a hearty breed, and this hole is built for them.

The difficult par three 17th as seen from the tee box

The 435-yard eighteenth features a blind tee shot on the drive and a shot over the entry drive as your second. The shot below shows the tee shot over gorse bushes, a big sand hole and other local flora, especially gorse. If you hit your tee shot to the left, you have no shot to the green and are blocked out by trees.

The blind tee shot as seen from the 18th tee

After the round, one of the great pleasures of this quest is retiring to the clubhouse to have a sandwich. At Ganton it is egg mayonnaise on brown bread or roast beef with classic English mustard, with the edges trimmed off as they do here, accompanied by a local beer. Or, if you are so inclined you can have sausages and cakes with tea after the round as a hearty group sitting nearby us did.

As is the custom for most proper English courses, you must have on a jacket and tie to enter the dining area at Ganton, even though you are far from the big cities. I can appreciate that they are trying to uphold the standards and traditions of proper English clubs. The classic English club, Ganton has everything that is quintessentially English: The locker room has separate hot and cold water old-fashioned faucets. The TV is tuned to the BBC. The course is surrounded by beautiful English hedges that grow so perfectly here given the growing conditions. Of course, there are dogs being walked through the course by non-golfers.

The Ganton clubhouse is a throwback to an earlier era, probably not changing much since Vardon's time. Their locker room is seen below.

The historic locker room at Ganton

It is important that clubs and courses like Ganton remain in the top 100 rankings. It is certainly easy to have courses like this replaced with the newest $20 million Tom Fazio made-for-US-Open-design. To do so would be a shame. The history of the game is important and places like Ganton are standard bearers for upholding its traditions.

I have now visited Ganton twice and I must say they are some of the friendliest people I have encountered each time. The long-time pro greeted us and was happy to give the history of the course. The caddie master went back to his house to get me a plug so I could charge my phone while we played. The members were also all welcoming and proud of their below-the-radar gem of the golfing world.

By chance, as we were driving back to our B & B on the A171 we spotted the Hare & Hounds because there was smoke rising from the chimney on the chilly night we went by. Inside, it the most English of pubs, with regulars and visitors happily mingling in a lively atmosphere. The fireplace burns coal and the food is locally sourced and provided the perfect ending to a perfect day.

Kingsbarns Golf Links

2012-10-12T06:35:00.000-07:00

New pictures updated from my recent trip to Kingsbarns. I like the course more every time I visit.

The exciting finishing hole at Kingsbarns Golf Links, Scotland

The first golden era of golf course design was in the 1920s when some of the best all time architects were alive and designing: Alister Mackenzie, Seth Raynor, A.W. Tillinghast, H.S. Colt and George Thomas. "The Roaring Twenties" were also a time of unprecedented global prosperity with markets booming around the world. Of the 100 top courses in the world an astonishing 28 are were built in the 1920s.

We are lucky to live in the new golden era of golf course architecture. Kingsbarns (ranked #65 in the world) is one of the new generation of courses that have graced the world in the 1990s and 2000s, specifically having been built in 1999. The new golden era is characterized by architects such as David Kidd, Tom Doak, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and Kyle Phillips, the designer of Kingsbarns. This new group has designed many new courses that rank in the top 100. This new generation of world-ranked courses follows a dearth in good design. During the entire forty year period between the 1940s and the 1970s, only nine courses were worthy of inclusion on the top 100 list, and most of them were toward the latter half of the period and were designed by Pete Dye.

Part of the reason we are in a new golf course design renaissance is the favorable economic environment we find ourselves. A new generation of multi-millionaires, fueled by entrepreneurship and rising real estate and capital markets, have had both the vision and the money to put together some of the these great new courses.

Kingsbarns, located in the Kingdom of Fife, south of St. Andrews in Scotland, is a course I like very much. I have been fortunate enough to have played Kingsbarns three times on two different trips.

The great 414-yard opening hole at Kingsbarns takes you right out to the North Sea

The course is varied and interesting and a lot of fun to play. A lot of land was moved to build the course and critics of Kingsbarns cite this as something that detracts from it, since it is not pure links land. Hogwash! The course is great and feels and plays like a links course.

The 516-yard Par 5 third plays along the water and is a terrific hole

From my point of view, there really is no let-down at Kingsbarns. I find the opening holes to be very exciting. The third, in particular plays along the North Sea and is a great par five in the dunes. If your blood isn't pumping with excitement by the time you reach the third green you need to have your pulse checked. The green, seen below, is demanding. Be sure to avoid the deep bunker front, right.

The third green at Kingsbarns

The fifth hole is a 424-yard par four that plays back toward the opening hole. Your approach shot is over some big humps, hollows and gorse, seen below. The hole's name, "Tassie", means small cup or goblet and refers to the punch bowl nature of the green.

Approach to the fifth green at Kingsbarns

I have been keeping track of the greatest holes in the world as I progress through the courses, and Kingsbarns has a couple on my list. The driveable par four sixth hole is on the list.

The world-class driveable par four sixth hole at Kingsbarns

The sixth is 337 yards and the tee shot is over a little valley. The play is to the right since a strip of land protrudes out of the hillside. If you can hit your ball about 220-240 yards, it will ride the slope all the way down to the hole. A hole is one is possible and eagles are also in the offing. The hole's name "Auld Links" refers to the original 1793 Kingsbarns 9-hole course that existed near this part of the course.

The fantastic sixth green at Kingsbarns

The sixth green is set in a little cove, and as you expect from a short hole, the green is difficult with a lot of undulations. Laying up into the valley isn't really the play from my point of view, since it leaves you with a blind shot to the green. It is tons of fun to play this hole. The hole reminds me of the sixteenth at Royal County Down, because you have to hit your ball over a valley to land it on the green if you are going for it.

Green on the par 3 eighth hole at Kingsbarns

The par three eighth hole, seen above, plays only 168 yards from the back tees and 132 from the front. It also plays down hill and possibly down wind as well. As you can see, the green is two tiers and the lower tier is 10-12 feet below the upper. A very good hole.

Memorable holes on the back include the par five twelfth hole that is often compared to the eighteenth at Pebble Beach, rightly so. In my opinion, the views at Kingsbarns are as good as those at Pebble Beach, as is the hole. Avoid the big bunker guarding the green on the left side. There are some old stone walls down on this part of the course too, which add to the charm. I also like the par 3 fifteenth hole, which plays over water. And the long par 4 seventeenth hole has a diabolical green!

What do I like so much about Kingsbarns? It has everything I like in a course:

1. An interesting routing, not just an out-and-back layout
2. Holes of varying length which test your skill on short shots as well as long. I'm not a big fan of having to hit 80% of your shots all day as long shots.
3. Six holes along the Ocean that rival any course in the world for scenic beauty
4. The ability to hit a variety of shots - bump and run, pitches, and a variety of wedge shots
5. Challenging but fair greens - some contoured significantly, some not, but appropriate for the size of the green and the type of hole
6. An intelligent use of terrain and elevation - some uphill shots, some downhill, but not overdone.

The course should rank higher in the world rankings in my view. It is, I believe, the first modern course worthy to be put on the rotation to hold an Open Championship. To me, the place the feel of a Scottish equivalent of Bandon Dunes.

About 80-90% of the people that play Kingsbarns are visiting Americans. They have a great caddie program as well and I recommend taking one. The clubhouse is great and I recommend the onion rings.

Members Only

2012-09-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome!

Well, conditionally welcome, if your name is on our list. This month we feature a sampling of the guard gates, warning signs and protective fences guarding the elite golf courses of the world from the unwashed masses.

Pine Valley Golf Club, Clementon, NJ

Yeamans Hall, Charleston, SC

Southern Hills Country Club, Tulsa, OK

Seminole Golf Club, June Beach, FL

Sand Hills Golf Club, Nebraska

Quaker Ridge Golf Club, Scarsdale, NY

Oakland Hills Country Club, Bloomfield Hills, MI

Cape Kidnappers, New Zealand

The Country Club, Brookline, MA

Morfontaine, Senlis, France

Los Angeles Country Club, Los Angeles, CA

The Honors Course, Ooltewah, TN

Sebonack, Southampton, Long Island, New York

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, Long Island, New York

The First Man to Play the World's Top 100 Golf Courses

2012-08-01T04:27:00.000-07:00

This is the tale of the first man to play the World's Top 100 Golf Courses in the world. A trial lawyer from New Orleans, Louisiana, he completed the task in a mere seven years. The editors of Golf Magazine played with him on his final round and presented him with a hand-lettered, framed list of his accomplishment.

His name is Jim Wysocki and he completed the task in 1986, two years before the next person to do so. Prior to golf magazines' publishing top 100 lists, Golf Magazine published the "50 Greatest Golf courses in the World." Wysocki also holds the distinction of being the first to complete this initial list. He did so in 1982.

Jim Wysocki pictured in a Times-Picayune article from October 20, 1982

It took some time to find Jim's story, as he did it in the pre-Google/Internet era. I had to research the old fashioned way, looking at old newspapers in his home town. Some interesting things struck me: The article says that he somehow played three top 100 courses on three continents on one day in London, New York and Tokyo. Last time I checked flying to Japan crosses the date line in the wrong direction so I don't think he actually did it in one calendar day. It helps that Sunningdale, Garden City and Tokyo are close to the big city airports, and even if it wasn't in the same day, playing these three back-to-back-to back is still quite a feat! As a frequent traveler, I would love to be able to get one of the "good-conduct passes" he mentions to get through customs.

It was as hard to get onto Augusta for him as it is for everyone else. He also accomplished the task in the era before MapQuest and GPS technology. He planned the trips using paper maps!

Jim was also an amateur pilot and tragically he died in a Cessna plane crash in Louisiana in 1989, three short years after his accomplishment and in his early 50s. In his honor The James Wysocki Award is granted each year to students at Tulane who excel in Trial Advocacy.

As the unofficial keeper of the list of golfers who have completed playing the World's Top 100 Golf Courses we proudly add James Wysocki to the #1 position and pay tribute to his trailblazing. He accomplished quite a feat. Even today more men have been to the moon than have played the top 100 courses in the world. Many thanks to Top 100 golfers Randy Pace and Robert McCoy for cluing me into Jim's story.

James A. Wysocki - Golf Enthusiast and Pioneer

His story as told by by Ronnie Virgets of the Times Picayune on July 30, 1986:

New Orleans – Jim Wysocki is the first and only man to play every one of Golf Magazine’s Top 100 Golf Courses in the World, and it has taken him seven years, about 9,000 strokes and a score of 1,800 over par to brag about it.

Tough audiences can consider some of the nuances of Wysocki’s feat. Since 1979, the 47 year old New Orleans lawyer has spent almost every weekend and vacation getting to golf courses like Royal dar-Es-Salam in Rabat, Morocco to Bali Handara in Bali, Indonesia. He’s shanked drives in Sardinia, buried six-irons in Sweden and rimmed putts in the Dominican Republic.

But it was the tricky seven-footer slightly up-hill on the 18^th hole of the Yale University Golf Course that made Wysocki proudest.

A group from Golf Magazine, the guys who had started it all, showed up play with Wysocki in his final round. Publisher Pete Bonanni was there, with editor George Peper and writer Robin McMillan.

After Wysocki and teammate Bonanni won $2 on the round from Peper and McMillan, Peper gave the now-famous weekend golfer a framed list of all 100 courses with the dates he had played them, all hand lettered.

A picture of the list presented to Wysocki in 1986. From Times-Picayune July 30, 1986

On top was the legend, “To the only man to play each and every one of Golf Magazine’s top 100 Greatest Courses – presented July 3, 1986, with incredulity, by the editors.” “I looked up the dictionary definition of ‘incredulity’ when I got home,” Jim Wysocki said. “It says something about ‘an unwillingness to believe.’”

When he finished his seven-year task, “I had two completely opposing emotions,” Wysocki said. “The first was almost total depression; The biggest challenge of my life was now gone. The second was almost total exhilaration; As soon as that put dropped, I would be the only man in the world that had done it.”

He says he remembers having his putting concentration broken by the appearance of elephants from the game preserve adjacent to the Sun City course in Bophuthatswana, South Africa. And once he was chased from a water hazard at Shinnecock Hills by the biggest and fiercest swan in Southampton, NY.

Still not impressed? How about 299,000 miles logged in the completion. 12,000 of them by private plane and 3,000 more on the QE2? How about playing three different courses on three different continents on one day?

“My wife Christine says in so many words that I’ve got my priorities all screwed up,” Wysocki says. Mrs. Wysocki shouldn’t have been surprised, though. After all, it was her father, Gus Longoria, that gave Wysocki a taste for golf.

“I only played golf about a half-dozen times a year.” Gus was the one who pushed me into joining Metairie Country Club and starting to play regularly,” Wysocki says. “He wanted someone to play golf with.”

In 1979, Golf Magazine first published a blue-ribbon committee’s ranking of the world’s best golf courses. “It was only a top 50 list then, and we had already played about 10 of them,” said Wysocki. “And I figured, what the heck.”

Jim Sysocki moves with the self-assurance of one who feels firm in the king’s gratitude. He began collecting books about golf courses, about 400 of them. He soaked up golf history and architecture the way a well-kept green soaks up an afternoon shower. And he began ordering street maps of every city that housed a course on Golf Magazine’s list. “Part of my nature is to get into things with both feet,” Wysocki says with a straight face.

His favorite tale of compressed golf came on July 24^th, 1984. On that day, he teed off on the first tee at Sunningdale, England at 5:08 a.m. By day’s end he had added rounds at Garden City, NY and Tokyo. “The Japan Air-Line people were great,” he recalled. “They arranged me good-conduct passes through immigration and customs, or else I wouldn’t have made it.”

The most memorable hole of them all? “That would be the 18^th at St. Andrews,” Wysocki said without hesitation. “It ends just in front of the stone clubhouse that sits there imposing, majestic, site of all those British Opens. And there are always townspeople who come out and sit around the 18^th green and watch the golfers come in.”

How to get onto Augusta National

The story of how he got onto Augusta from a Times-Picayune story on October 20, 1982:

“You can’t imagine how many avenues I took and I was turned down,” he says. He tried a former United States Attorney General and failed. A

U.S.

district judge and failed. A vice president of Lykes Brothers whose brother is a member and failed; a sportswriter and failed.

He finally accomplished the impossible in a round-about way. His wife Chistina’s sister introduced him to a couple who introduced him to their daughter whose husband is a doctor in Meridian, MS. The doctor has a sister in Augusta who is married to someone in the trucking business. His trucks are insured by a company whose vice president is Phil Harison. Phil Harison’s father is Montgomery Harison who helped found the club.

It was that easy. Got the picture?

The Original Golf Magazine List of Greatest Courses

2012-07-15T06:21:00.000-07:00

In the process of researching my next post I came across the original list that Golf Magazine published in October 1979. In fact, it was not a "top 100" list but was the "50 Greatest Golf Courses in the World". It wasn't until 1982 that Golf Magazine expanded the list to 100 courses.

For the golf crazed, it gives us something more to do. I have long been looking for a reason to go to Italy to play golf and this list provides the incentive. The Pevero Golf Course in Sardinia was designed by Robert Trent Jones in 1967 and is on the original list. It rates a passing note in the original limited edition Confidential Guide to Golf Courses by Tom Doak and notes that it was funded with money from the Aga Khan. Sadly, like many courses that are new and initially hyped, but fade from the lists, Pevero is now a footnote among the world's greatest courses (a 1960s version of the idiot Trump courses).

The Pevero Golf Course in Sardinia

There are some shocking absences from the original list including Sunningdale (Old), National Golf Links of America, New South Wales and Royal Portrush. Asia and the Mediterranean also rate a lot high than they do today.

The 1979 list, which is organized by geography and is not numbered:

United States

Augusta National

Baltusrol (Lower), Springfield, NJ

Butler National, Oak Brook, IL

Champions Golf Course, Houston, TX

Cypress Point, CA

Firestone Country Club (South), Akron, OH

Harbourtown, GC, Hilton Head, SC

Medinah #3, Medinah, IL

Merion (East), Ardmore, PA

Muirfield Village, Dublin, OH

Oakland Hills (South), Birmingham, MI

Oakmont

Olympic Club, San Francisco, CA

Pebble Beach

Pinehurst #2

Pine Valley Golf Club, Clementon, NJ

Riviera Golf Club, Pacific Palisades, CA

Seminole Golf Club, North Palm Beach, FL

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, NY

Southern Hills CC, Tulsa, OK

Winged Foot (West), Mamaroneck, NY

Canada and Latin America

Club de Golf Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico

El Rincon Golf Club, Bogota, Columbia

Glen Abbey Golf Club, Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Britain and Ireland

Ballybunion, GC, County Kerry, Ireland

Carnoustie Links, Dundee, Scotland

Muirfield, Scotland

Portmarnock Golf Club, Dublin Ireland

Royal Birkdale, Southport, England

Royal County Down, Newcastle, Northern Ireland

Royal St. George's, Sandwich, England

St. Andrews (Old Course), St. Andrews, Scotland

Troon, Ayrshire, Scotland

Turnberry (Ailsa), Turnberry, Scotland

Wentworth, Surrey, England

Mediterranean

Club de Golf Sotogrande (Old Course), Cadiz Spain

Pevero Golf Club, Sardinia, Italy

Real Club De Campo, Madrid, Spain

Royal Golf Rabat, Dar-es-Salam, Morocco

Pacific, Far East and South Africa

Bali Handara Golf Club, Bali, Indonesia

Hirono Golf Club, Kobe, Japan

Kasumigaseki (East), Tokyo, Japan

Kawana Golf Club (Fuji), Ito, Japan

Royal Durban Golf Club, Durban, South Africa

Royal Hong Kong Golf Club, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Royal Melbourne (Composite), Melbourne, Australia

Royal Selangor Golf Club (Old), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Singapore Golf Club (Bukit), Singapore

Taiwan Golf & Country Club, Taipei, Taiwan

Wack Wack Golf & Country Club (East), Manila, Philippines

Royal Golf Rabat, Dar-es-Salam, Morocco

The Greatest Day of Playing the Top 100 Golf Courses

2012-07-12T16:22:00.003-07:00

The greatest day in the history of playing the world's top 100 golf courses was July 24, 1984.

More to come...

Apologies to my loyal readers for not posting of late. I have been unable to play of late on my doctor's orders recovering from surgery. My posts will resume with frequency later this year, but later this month a tale of joy and sadness for those following the quest to play the world's top 100 courses!

Royal North Devon - Westward Ho!

2012-05-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the sign that hangs above its front door, Royal North Devon, originally known as Westward Ho!, is the oldest golf course in England. To put that in perspective, it was founded when Abraham Lincoln was President in 1864. Westward Ho! is the name of the village the course is located in, and the exclamation point is an integral part of its name. The village name comes from the title of Charles Kingsley's novel "Westward Ho!"

As part of my golfing pilgrimage to Devon and Cornwall I decided to pay a visit to Royal North Devon. As you can see from my photos, I didn't come for the weather; I hit a typical English grey day. In my St. Enodoc post I wrote about how the hedgerows in Cornwall were so severe that it was hard to drive. I spoke too soon. The hedgerows in Devon are even more stifling. Check out this one-lane road boxed in with hedges that I went through on my way to Royal North Devon. How you are to avoid head-on collisions driving like this is beyond my limited imagination.

A hedgerow near Royal North Devon

When I got to the first tee box I could tell that something was up right away. You hit your first drive at Royal North Devon from an elevated tee box over a fence to a pasture area. The tee box is on private property but the rest of the course is not; it is on common land. To get to the first fairway you have to go through a fence with a difficult to open gate. The gate is to keep out animals. One of the things I like about the English is their eccentricity. Like the game of golf itself, the English are hard to figure out. Common land is one such thing. It has a complicated history, as does land ownership in Britain generally, but the concept of common land evolved from medieval times. In sum, it gives people and animals the right to use the land as if it were a public park! My friends at L.A.C.C., with their fancy guard gate and perimeter fence, just let out a collective sigh of relief. It's a good thing the New World doesn't have common land. The horror!

As I was walking down the first fairway I saw horse shoe marks all over and horses grazing to the left of the fairway. Not one or two impressions in the grass mind you, but quite a few hoof marks. Game on at Royal North Devon. This is going to be interesting.

Horseshoe marks on the fairway at Royal North Devon

The front nine plays near the water and the back nine through grass and marshland away from the water. The course is a classic out-and-back layout and does not route back to the clubhouse after nine. Similar to St. Andrews, the course is very flat and wide open.

The first hole is a 478-yard par five that eases you into the round. The second hole "Baggy" runs parallel to the ocean and is a 422-yard par four. I noticed that I had to walk very carefully at Westward Ho! because there are loads of rabbit scrapings on the front nine. Rabbit scrapings are little holes that rabbits dig in the ground to hide and stay protected. From what I could tell based on the number of scrapings, there are lots of rabbits in the vicinity.

The fourth hole is a "Cape" hole that plays 350 yards and doglegs sharply to the left. You can see the massive set of railway sleepers that line the bunker that you must hit over from the tee. This is a man-sized bunker that runs the entire width of the fairway and is at a higher level than the teeing ground.

The view from the tee box on the 4th hole at Royal North Devon

Notice the poles and white cloth fences that protect the green as seen below. These are found on all the greens at Royal North Devon. Their purpose? To keep sheep and horses off the greens, of course!

The green on the fourth "Cape" hole

Royal North Devon is a rough-hewn course and is not in the least bit polished. Therein also lies its charm. Playing at Royal North Devon is the antithesis of sitting in a golf cart for a five hour round waiting for the group ahead of you to line up their fourth putt. This is golf at its simplest and purest. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the common land, the course is a bit rough around the edges. There are also no yardage markers, but only simple grey rocks to mark off 150 yards. The greenskeeper here clearly doesn't have Augusta envy like almost all courses in the U.S. This is a course where you play the ball where it lies, commune with nature and go back to the game's roots. If golf is a metaphor for life, then Royal North Devon is its best example. It's not all neat and tidy. Rub of the green as it's called.

Horace Hutchinson describes the course in his book Golf in 1890, "The bunkers on St. Andrews links are for the most part well defined, but on many of the very best links, Carnoustie, Prestwick, Westward Ho!, Sandwich, there is a lot of loose ill-defined rubbish, the sandy out-blowings of bunkers, which is very hard indeed to play out of." His description is still apt.

A good illustration of this is the picture of the sixth hole from the tee box. This 408-yard par four plays along the ocean and has a fairway that is shaped by the natural slopes of all the dunes. The hole is completely exposed to the wind coming off the water.

View of the par four 6th, "Alp" hole

As common land, Royal North Devon is open to the public at all times and the locals seem to have access from any and all directions. Along this hole and the ocean is a path where people are strolling about, walking dogs and enjoying the outdoors. There are signs all over the course reminding you, the golfer, that the walkers have the right of way. Even in the less than ideal weather, there were a lot of dog walkers.

Around the sixth hole I couldn't help but notice that I had been dodging poop the entire time I was walking the course. Loads of poop. Of various varieties. Rabbit, dog, horse and sheep were all present and accounted for. There are a lot of bowels moving out on the common lands at Royal North Devon! Not since playing Medinah have I seen so much fecal matter on a golf course.

In case you think I am exaggerating the issue with stool on the course, local rule #8 listed on the back of the scorecard is the "Embedded Ball and Heaped or Liquid Manure" rule. It reads, "A ball which lies in or touches HEAPED OR LIQUID MANURE may be lifted without penalty, cleaned and dropped..." I rest my case.

Royal North Devon also features a lot of blind tee shots. There are aiming poles on quite a few holes, especially on the back nine. The back nine plays away from the water and features an abundance of marshland grass as can be seen in the photo below. These grasses are called 'Great Sea Rushes' and you want to steer clear of them since they eat golf balls. Horace Hutchinson describes these "Rushes" as a "peculiar kind of long rush, very sharp and stiff pointed, which we sincerely hope to be peculiar to itself."

The aiming pole on the par four 11th hole

The thirteenth hole is a 442-yard par five named "Lundy." It is a unique hole in several regards. First, it is short for a par five. Second, it is really a sheep pasture masquerading as a fairway, and third, the green is diabolical.

Sheep grazing on the 13th fairway at Westward Ho!

One of the original club rules, published in 1864, states, "As the Burrows are public pasture, great care must be taken not to drive, frighten or injure any horse, cattle, sheep or geese." I almost hit a sheep with my drive. It is hard not to. Luckily, my ball landed safely on the grass.

Left of the thirteenth fairway is grazing land for sheep. They obviously don't have any regard for where the grazing lands end and the golf course begins, so they graze wherever they please. The grazing is quite heavy on both the twelfth and thirteenth holes. I must say that not even at Brora in Scotland have I seen so many sheep on a golf course. This is not the occasional sheep mind you. There were hundreds on the hole as I played it, as you can see below!

The full herd of sheep on the 13th green at Royal North Devon

If this isn't worth flying to England to see, I don't know what is? My yoga teacher has been emphasizing that I should not judge. Just take it in and accept it for what it is, she advises. This is the mindset you need when playing at Royal North Devon. Experience it for all its glory. Certainly, keep a keen eye out on where you step. Take a deep breath through the nose to stay in the present. Bring a towel to every green to wipe your ball before lining up your putt. Make sure you dodge the heaps of dung as you put your golf bag down. Strive for a tranquil state. Forget the conventional, be open to new things. Watch for rabbit holes and slippery poop. Let your mind and body be as one. Enter a state of serenity. Don't let the mind wander. After all, if I wanted to experience a cookie cutter set of golf courses I could have taken a trip to Myrtle Beach. Instead, I am expanding my horizons.

The small, hard to hold green on the 13th hole at Royal North Devon

Have I digressed? Back to the golf hole. How do you make a very short par five a difficult hole? Put in an inverted saucer green, make it circular and only 25 feet in diameter. Holy shit (pun intented), was it hard! I am embarrassed to say that I four putted the darn thing after being 10 feet off the green in two.

To emphasize my point about the animals at Royal North Devon, this is how I found the seventeenth tee box as I walked to it. It had about a half dozen horses grazing and doing their droppings near by. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Royal North Devon is a trip!

The 17th tee at Royal North Devon

After you putt out on the 18th green, you leave the common land and go back through the fence to the civilized world of the clubhouse, safe from the animals. I immediately went to the ancient locker room at the conclusion of my round and washed my hands very well!

I am glad I made the trek to Royal North Devon. It has a rich and storied history. It was originally designed by Old Tom Morris and has hosted the British Amateur championship three times. I am a voracious reader and early golfing history frequently mentions many storied links courses often by their pre-Royal names. Specifically Prestwick, St. Andrews, Sandwich (Royal St. George's), Hoylake (Royal Liverpool) and Westward Ho! (Royal North Devon). That's some pretty lofty company Royal North Devon keeps. The other four courses have all changed quite a bit. You can't really visit Sandwich anymore, you are visiting Royal St. George's. The same with Hoylake. What a treat to be able to actually visit an old-school course like Westward Ho!

To be sure, Royal North Devon has some uninspiring holes. The eleventh, fifteenth and seventeenth come to mind, but on balance Royal North Devon is an experience worth having. There are at least a half dozen really good holes (the 4th, 5th, 6th, 10th, 13th and 16th).

The course received its "Royal" patronage from Edward the Prince of Wales in 1865. Edward was the son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He would go on to become King Edward VII. The Prince was indeed a golfer and laid out a course at Windsor. He was the first Royal to serve as Captain of the R & A. He also granted Royal status to both Dornoch and Portrush. The Prince/King led an active life outside of golf, and it is well known that he had many mistresses. A particularly virile monarch, it is rumored that he had at least 55 liaisons. His Majesty is pictured below. God save the King!

I mean no disrespect to the course or club at all with my descriptions of the course conditioning or the abundance of droppings. As my readers appreciate, I am simply pointing out facts and not trying to sell magazines or hype anything; thus I give the unvarnished truth. Not to point out such an obvious and plentiful set of facts would misrepresent an integral part of the experience here. Royal North Devon remains a true rarity. It offers the golfer the possibility to transport himself back 150 years and see what golf was like before it became a popular pastime and when it was played on common lands. The club is also very welcoming and accommodating to visitors, and the clubhouse is a veritable museum with its trophies, artwork and match boards showing results back 150 years.

I hope by the next time I visit they trim back some of those bloody hedge rows in Devon so I can see where I'm going!

The Kiwis Are Back!

2012-04-09T04:33:00.000-07:00

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

2012-04-01T05:31:00.000-07:00

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

2012-03-01T02:12:00.001-08:00

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

2012-02-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-01T05:14:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-24T04:10:00.000-08:00

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.

Cabot Links

2011-11-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

How many real links courses are there in North America? Not many. A real links golf course is one "built" on sandy soil near the sea and was formed over the millenium. The British Isles are chock full of links courses. In the U.S. and Canada, they are a lot rarer. The book True Links, published in 2010, lists only four true links courses in all of North America: Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Old Macdonald and Highland Links*. Cabot Links joins this small and special group.

Cabot Links is located on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia in Eastern Canada. This part of Canada is one time zone east of New York. Given the course's location, it would be natural to think that the course is located on the Atlantic facing east; however, it is not. Cabot is located on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the largest estuary in the world, which is on the Western coast of Nova Scotia. The location is blessed for a variety of reasons. First, because it is set right on the water; second, because this area is located in a micro climate and is impacted positively by the trade winds. This means it gets warmer weather than you would expect for this part of the world. Water temperatures can reach up to 74 degrees! And third, because of its western orientation, the sun sets over the water, creating some fabulous sunsets for those who play at twilight.

For our trip to Cabot we flew into Halifax, which is an hour and 20 minute flight from New York. This part of Nova Scotia is famous for the Cabot Trail, a scenic drive full of quaint Bed and Breakfasts and a haven for campers, hikers, canoeing and whale watching. The multi-hour drive up from Halifax was a scenic delight.

The golf course was designed by Canadian Rod Whitman, whose design philosophy is "strategic design coupled with great contour." His mentors were Bill Coore and Pete Dye. Cabot Links is located in the old coal mining town of Inverness, a classic company town whose early housing, built at the turn of the century, still stands today, and can be seen as you drive into Cabot. Mining ceased in Inverness in 1958; the town also has a fishing heritage, as is common in Maritime Canada.

The full eighteen holes were not open at Cabot Links when we played. They are expected to fully open in July 2012. We played the ten holes that are open, currently organized into a front five and a back five.

The hole numbers in this post reflect those that will be used in the final 18 hole routing. The second hole is a par five of 619 yards from the tips and plays up a very large sand dune. Your approach shot to the green will be a blind one to a putting surface whose entire right side falls down into an abyss. Approaching from the left gives the golfer a lot more options and some great bump and run choices.

The 2nd green at Cabot with the abyss to the right

The sixth hole is a tricky, very short par four. Although only 307 yards, you have to drive the ball between a marshy area on the right side of the fairway and scrub on the left hand side. It really shouldn't be that hard a shot, but there is a big chocolate drop mound down the left side of the fairway in the driving area that makes the fairway seem considerably smaller. The green is long and narrow and set over another chocolate drop which is situated right in front of the green. The day we played, the pin was positioned right behind the chocolate drop, making it very difficult to hold the ball anywhere near the pin. The hole plays into the prevailing wind coming off the Gulf, making approach shots even trickier. The hole reminded me of two short holes at Cruden Bay: its third and eighth holes. They are reminiscent because of the dunes landscape and their quirkiness.

The tricky, short par four sixth hole with its chocolate drops

Right behind the sixth hole is a charming, meandering boardwalk that predates the course and runs parallel to a handful of holes.

The meandering boardwalk behind the 6th green

The eleventh hole is a very good par five of 582 yards that plays parallel to the ocean. Like many of the tee shots at Cabot, there is a forced carry off the tee, this time over what looks like an expansive Saskatchewan wheat field.

The par five 11th hole from the tee

A good drive will leave you with a completely blind second shot over a sand dune that runs right through the hole, perpendicular to the water and your line of play. Similar to the second hole, your second shot will be a blind one up over the dune toward the green. The green is part of a double-green complex and the flag you are shooting for is to the left. The green and the area in front of it is pure links golf and an absolute joy to play.

As you would expect on a true links course, Cabot offers plenty of opportunities for bump and run shots that can either make you look like a brilliant golfer if you pull them off, or can make you look like a complete fool if you don't. I experienced both at Cabot, and I must say it is exhilirating to hit a long punch shot and watch it bounce along the humps and hollows and bound its way close to the hole. It is not so rewarding to stuff your wedge into the side of a hill and advance the ball five feet!

The sand ridge running through the eleventh fairway

The eleventh green is a challenging one with almost no flat spots on it. The hole was my favorite on the course.

The eleventh green as seen from a dune above, part of a double green complex

The short, 102 yard, par three fourteenth hole plays from the highest point on the property back down toward the water and directly into the prevailing wind. How can you dislike a hole with this water backdrop and when you get a birdie the first time you play it, like I did? The drop from tee to green is severe, so with no wind the hole will play as a half wedge shot. I have a feeling given the winds, though, that many mid-irons (or longer) will end up being hit here.

The fourteenth green as seen from the elevated tee

The next hole, the fifteenth, is in my view the prettiest on the course. A par four of 418 yards, it is a gem. Standing on the tee box you could be forgiven for mistaking that you are at Royal County Down with the beautiful Gillis Mountain in the distance. As you play the hole, the water is lapping on the nearby beach, the links landscape unfolds in front of you in a beautiful fashion, and the mountain backdrop has a similar shape and feel to that of the Northern Irish beauty. The hole itself requires a forced carry from the tee, and the green is well protected by a bunker right in the front. The contouring of the land around and in front of the bunker allows you to play some bank shots on your approach if you want to. The small, kidney shaped green has subtle contours.

A view of the gorgeous fifteenth hole as seen from the fourteenth tee

People often ask, what the best part of playing all these courses is? The answer is that it is moments like these, standing on the sixteenth tee at Cabot Links. Reminiscent of Maidstone's ninth hole, the sixteenth hole has a tee box right next to the water and the beach. All is good in the world as you stand here.

The water view from the 16th tee box could just as well be at Maidstone

Aside from the view, a beautifully laid-out hole awaits you. The drive on this hole looks rather straightforward, but it is not. There are two hidden bunkers over the ridge on the right side of the fairway and one hidden over a hill on the left side.

A view of the 16th green from the right side of the fairway

If you manage to navigate them, the approach shot requires finesse. As a true links, Cabot plays firm and fast; no hole more so than the sixteenth. All the golfers in our group learned the hard way on our first time around that on this hole, you MUST land it short and run it up to the green. The penalty for not doing so is to be in a small bunker behind the narrow green, which requires a delicate sand flop shot across the neck of the green, else you risk ending up in the small bunker in front of the green.

What separates a good golf course from a great one? The quality of the holes that are not natural locations for a golf hole. In other words, designing holes near the ocean or dramatic landscapes is no doubt a lot easier than designing inland holes, especially on a site like this. While many of the remaining holes still to open at Cabot are not as close to the water, if they are anything like the 171 yard par three seventeenth hole they will be equally as good as the holes along the water. Hint: the hole plays longer than the yardage and avoid the deep bunkers.

The tricky par three 17th hole at Cabot Links

Cabot is a walking course and is an easy walk. We played the course in late September in short sleeve golf shirts. Lodges are in the process of being built, and a second course is planned to be built on headlands located nearby. The concept is to develop an East Coast Bandon Dunes and I would say they are off to a smashing start.

The service and food at Cabot were great (I recommend the fish chowder), and the people of Nova Scotia are naturally very, very friendly. At first, it's a little off putting sitting in a restaurant having strangers come up and talk to you. One of the rules of walking the streets or taking the subway in New York City is to never make eye contact with anyone; so my immediate reaction when approached by a stranger is to put up my guard and think, ok, what do they want? The truth is they don't want anything; they are just friendly to a person: gas station attendants, store clerks, waitresses, the caddie master, the course rangers, the golf pro, etc.

We played Cabot Links on a Friday afternoon and as the evening went on the locals started coming out to play. As a links located directly between the water and the town, it could just as well have been in North Berwick or Prestwick. The laid-back atmosphere of the town combined with a world-class set of holes creates a great environment. It's really not too much of a stretch to imagine you are back in the homeland. Nova Scotia is after all Latin for "New Scotland".

Post Script

I look forward to a return trip to Cabot in the summer months with the Mrs., while she enjoys the wide beach and I can play a guilt-free round of golf. I would especially like to play the holes designed around the harbor that weren't yet open to play.

* While True Links is a nice book, not including Maidstone on its list of true links courses is inexcusable.

Homestead (Cascades) Golf Course

2011-10-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

The Cascades Golf Course (ranked #94 in the world) is part of the Homestead resort located in the Allegheny Mountains in southwest Virginia. I'm not quite sure how I let a public course in the same time zone I live in be one of the last courses played to complete my quest. Probably because the course is hard to get to, located three hours east of Charleston, WV, three hours west of Richmond, VA and four hours southwest of Washington, D.C.

Once you get off the interstate highway and onto local roads the real flavor of this part of Virginia comes to the fore. It is an unusual sight, for a Yankee at least, to pass a Robert E. Lee High School on the road up to the Homestead.

During the early part of the 20th century the Homestead was the place to see and be seen. J.P. Morgan was a frequent guest and had a financial stake in the resort. Between 1914 and 1929 it was a magnet for American Presidents, particularly those whose first and last names start with the same letter. During this period Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson all stayed at The Homestead. Not to be left out, Ronald Reagan also visited the resort in the '70s. More than half of all American Presidents have visited the Homestead, so it is long on history for sure and shows it off nicely, particularly in the Presidents Lounge.

Homestead has three golf courses: The Old Course (1892), The Lower Cascades (1963) and The Cascades (1923). It is The Cascades course that is ranked in the top 100. The course was designed by William Flynn, who also designed Cherry Hills, Shinnecock Hills (with others) and The Country Club at Brookline. Sam Snead was an assistant pro at the Homestead at age 19 and also served as head pro for many, many years. In many ways, the Homestead is a golfing shrine to Sam Snead, who was one of the greatest golfers of all time, having won 7 majors and 82 tournaments overall. For the avid golf fan, this alone is reason to visit this peaceful mountain resort.

The Cascades course is short, tree lined, narrow, hilly and has small greens. If you play well off uneven lies, then The Cascades is for you. The entire course can neatly be summarized by describing the second hole, which is indicative of the style of golf on the Cascades course. Named "The Dip," you hit your tee shot through a chute of trees up a large hill which slopes from left to right.

Your second shot is to a small green set in a hollow partially hidden behind a hill. While this hole is a long one, at 432 yards, the course plays 6,667 yards from the tips to a par of 70. Short does not equate to easy, as the course has a slope rating of 137.

The second hole at Cascades, "The Dip"

The third hole, "Shelf," is a 289 yard uphill par four that plays through a chute of trees to a small, elevated green.

The third hole's elevated green, "Shelf"

The fourth hole, "Carry On," is a testing 210 yard par three that plays down the mountain to a small green. My round at the Cascades was marred by a continual attack of gnats. I haven't been attacked this badly by the American version of midges since my round at Royal Dornoch about five years ago. It's tough to hit a ball with 100 gnats flying around your head; or to putt while one flies into your ear or eye; but these are minor inconveniences to suffer, being in such a beautiful setting.

The downhill par three third hole

The ninth hole, "The Take Off," is a wicked-hard 448 yard par four that features a tee shot hit down to a valley, followed by a second shot that plays blind to a small green set at the bottom of a hill. The front of the green has a little swale in it, making bump and run shots to the green tricky to judge. You can get some sense of how dense the trees are on the Cascades by looking at the trees behind this green and the next.

The par four ninth green

The tenth was my personal favorite hole called "Slippery Hollow," and you have no sense of how treacherous the hole is while standing on the tee. The smart play is to hit as far left as possible because a well struck drive on this 377 yard hole will bound all the way down the hill if you hit it on the correct line. The entire landing area shoots balls from the left to the right and if you are anywhere right of center you will have a hanging lie like you've never seen before in your life.

The green on the 10th hole, "Slippery Hollow"

Although a short hole, like a lot of what makes The Cascades course a challenge, it tests your ability to hit a precise shot to a small green off an uneven (often severely sloping) lie. I hit what I thought was a good drive down the middle but the ball ended up kicking down to the right. The lie I had was as severe as any I've ever experienced, with the ball sharply below my feet and sloping away from me.

The eleventh, "Lucky Strike," is a testing par three of 207 yards. It has a baby green size for such a long hole.

The par three 11th green

The course has a non-traditional finish, ending with pars of 3-5-5-3. The seventeenth, "Hemlocks," is a 522 yard dogleg left with a stream bordering the right side of the fairway and short right of the green. You can also get a sense of the majestic mountains in this part of Virginia looking at this picture. Since the Homestead is at an elevation of about 2,000 feet it also tends not to get the oppressive heat and humidity other parts of the South get in the summer.

The par three seventeenth with the beautiful mountain backdrop

The Cascades course is located about a 10 minute drive from the main resort. The old clubhouse predates the course and was the home of the Rubino family. It is quaint and picturesque and serves a fabulous trout sandwich for lunch. The Cascades is like an American version of the Gleneagles resort in Scotland. It features a ton of outdoor activites including falconry, fishing, shooting, tennis, archery, horseback riding, etc. Homestead is quite family friendly. When I was there the kids were swarming almost as badly as the gnats.

The Cascades course elegant clubhouse, whose picture adorns the scorecard

I suspect it is ranked in the top out of respect to Sam Snead more than anything else. The Homestead is a very nice, well run resort with charming Southern hospitality. Their formal dining room requires a jacket and has a charming gentility you expect in the South. I would like to return again and play in the autumn with the leaves turning colors; it must be fabulous.

My Journey Draws Near Its End

When the earthquake hit Japan and the meltdown struck the Fukujima reactor, I had to re-route my flight from New Zealand away from Japan, back directly to the U.S. Because of the late change, I had to suffer the indignity of riding in the back of the bus and sat next to a woman on the long flight back to LAX. It's never a good sign when the first thing the person next to you says (in broken English) is, "I'm sorry I'm so fat". She did the whole routine, including the seat belt extender, and lopped over onto me for the next 12 hours. No doubt this is just some kind of karmic payback for all the unkind things I have written about heavy people on airplanes over the years. As fate would have it, she's an operatic performer. A Samoan soprano, in fact. She was accompanying me back to the States to see me through until the end of my quest.

As I teed it up at The Cascades, I got a text message from her informing me that the opera has begun and they are in the first act, and she's getting ready to sing. Only two more courses left to play!

Post Script

I also played the Old Course while at the Homestead. This delightful course plays 6,227 yards from the tips but has some really fun and interesting holes. I especially liked the par five fourth hole, which features a blind tee shot and two islands of fairway separated by rough. It slopes right to left from tee to green and has a small elevated green. If you think 473 yards isn't a demanding length for a par five, play this beauty and think again. The course has a mixed, but great pedigree. It was designed or changed by Donald Ross, William Flynn and Rees Jones and has dramatic vistas of the mountain valley. I recommend playing it if you go to the Homestead.

Jack's Point

2011-09-01T02:56:00.000-07:00

As a first time visitor to the South Island I am in awe. The breathtaking mountain range near Queenstown, part of the Southern Alps, is known as the "Remarkables" and it is obvious how they got their name after seeing them. The flight path into Queenstown is either exhilirating or hair raising depending upon your perspective. With the possible exception of landing at the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong, I don't believe I have ever been so close to a mountain in an airplane. The approach is right through an opening in the mountains and it feels like you can reach out and touch them.

Queenstown at night seen from the air

Queenstown was settled in the 1860's as a goldmining camp and is still a very small "city" of 10,400 people. It is the adventure capital of New Zealand and bungee jumping was popularized here; it is known as a haven for outdoor sports. New Zealand has one of the toughest emigration laws in the world. The place is so damn beautiful and idyllic that if they had an open door policy they would quickly be overrun with people.

Jack's Point Golf Course is set in a valley between the Remarkable Mountains and Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown. The course was designed in 2008 by Kiwi John Darby who studied golf and landscape architecture at Harvard. After seeing what he designed here, I would say he graduated magna cum laude. Darby's design philosophy is an interesting one, "look hard, play easy." Jack’s Point was named in honor of “Maori Jack” Tewa who first discovered gold in this region and made a dramatic rescue of a passenger of an overturned ferry off this point of the lake.

Jack's Point is easily ranked as one of the top 25 courses I have ever played. Like my experience at Sand Hills, playing at Jack's Point permanently changes your perspective. The place raises the spirit, elevates your mood and leaves your yearning to come back for more.

The course begins with a conventional enough par four running parallel to the Remarkables. From the fairway to the top of the nearby mountain peak, it rises precipitously, to over 6,000 feet.

The Remarkables taken from the 4th fairway shows how steeply they rise

The remaining holes and overall experience at Jack’s Point are anything but conventional. Holes two through five play sharply uphill and take you out of the valley floor. Like at Gullane in Scotland, the opening holes here rise quickly and sharply. The real drama begins on the 376-yard par four fourth, which offers the first glimpse of the lake.

The fourth fairway aligns with a grass airstrip used by a local skydiving company and our group played Jack's Point while they were diving. When the small propeller plane climbed off the meadow and just cleared the mountain top, it was hard to concentrate on hitting a golf shot. When the divers jumped out of the plane, we didn’t hear or see them; the next audible sound was of the skydivers free falling. The unusual sound was easy to pick up because the golf course, like all of Queenstown, is isolated and eerily quiet.

The local skydiving plane taking off above Jack's Point

The sound of a body slicing through the air in free fall, is unique. After what seemed like an eternity, a series of color parachutes opened above us in rapid succession. The sensation is both mesmerizing and frightening, and I can assure you it is impossible to putt a golf ball when you hear bodies in free fall above you. Like skiers on a slope doing run after run, as soon as the skydivers landed on the ground, the plane came back and they began another jump. The multi-color parachutes present a unique vista against the backdrop of the near vertical rock faces. (Look closely at the picture below and see one red parachute against the middle of the mountain and one just above the tip of the peak. The little white speck behind that top diver is another diver still in free fall, yet to pull his chute). Golfers must muster up all the focus they can to continue their game in this environment.

The skydivers with parachutes opening between the Remarkables and Jack's Point

The fifth is a demanding 511-yard uphill par five and ends the onslaught of the initial uphill holes. The hole sweeps up the hill in a dogleg from left to right. The fifth is also your full-fledged introduction to the "Wild Irishman," a plant native to New Zealand. Like a crazy uncle, you take pains to avoid them; they grow around the fifth green, and the whole course, as a hazard. Locally called matagouri, they are a thorny bush somewhat like gorse, with small leathery leaves that grow up to 6 ½ feet tall.

View from the fifth hole of Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown

The 5th green is at the apex of the hill and offers the most dramatic view of Lake Wakatipu. The panoramic view from this spot features Cecil Peak across the lake and Queenstown situated at its southern end. The magnetic vista is hard to take your eyes off of, but the golfer needs to push ahead, as the best is yet to come.

View of Lake Wakatipu from the sixth hole

The 149-yard par three seventh hole can be compared to Pebble Beach's hole of the same number in both style and scenery. The small green sits almost 90 feet below the golfer and your tee shot appears to defy gravity for a few seconds above the water, with an astounding view in all directions. The hole was sited here because the prevailing wind is off the lake directly at you so it can make club selection a challenge. The setting of the course between the crystal clear waters of Lake Wakatipu and the dramatic craggy Remarkable mountains creates a vista comparable with many of the great ones in golf; think Royal County Down's ninth hole in the antipodes, and you've got it.

The amazing downhill par three 7th hole at Jack's Point

The fifteenth hole at Jack's Point is both unexpected and unconventional. The walk from the fourteenth green to the fifteenth tee is up a small incline. When you reach the crest of the hill, there is a handmade rough-hewn stone wall, the first on the course. A peek over the top of the wall reveals a 383-yard uphill par four gem. The tee box is built above a high meadow and the golfer must hit a forced carry over it, to a long fairway set at an angle to the tee box. I remember back to the first time I played North Berwick and was awestruck over the placement of the stone walls. The fifteenth rekindles that kind of wondrous feeling.

The par four 15th as seen from the tee box

The stone wall frames an elevated fairway and is part of a sheep paddock. If your drive doesn't carry the stone wall and ends up in the paddock, you may be able to find your ball, as the area is still grazed. Our friends at Brora would be proud to see sheep back in vogue on golf courses again.

The world-class 15th hole as seen from the fairway looking at the uphill green

The fifteenth is a classic risk-reward hole that dares the golfer to take an aggressive line left, with a severe penalty for missing. The approach shot to the well bunkered green plays a couple of clubs longer because the green sits about 30 feet above the fairway. Darby didn't quite achieve his stated goal here since fifteen is a "look hard, play hard" hole, although everything about it is just brilliant.

When this hole was originally designed by Darby he wasn't happy with the way it came out. The original green was down lower. He sat on a nearby rock all day as the crew shaped the hole and came up with idea of the rock wall and elevating the green to a higher position. It is now arguably the best hole on the course. Don't be surprised to find yourself hitting two balls off the tee even if your first drive is perfectly in play. The hole is that much fun. When I mentioned this to Darby, he said he does the same thing when playing the course!

The 15th hole looking back from the fairway shows the imaginative use of the stone walls

The sixteenth takes you most of the way down the hill in one long 463-yard par four. It is a glorious driving hole and lets you take a no-holds-barred swing given the width of the fairway. The course plays a demanding 6,691 yards from the blue tees and 7,088 from the tips.

The 18th green at Jack's Point at sunset

Jack's Point is sui generis. A buzzing plane, skydivers with colorful parachutes, a sheeps paddock, dramatic mountains and a perfect lake combine to create a unique setting for golf. It offers the perfect storm of distractions no matter where you turn, in an environment so pure and unspoiled it is hard for the senses to absorb it all. Even without the extras, the golf course itself is interesting, challenging and fun. All the fortissimo superlatives I have spouted about Jack's Point are not in the least big exaggerated, the place is revivifying!

As the southernmost course I have ever played, Jack's Point is also one of the most unique. After completing his studies at Harvard under the tutelage of Geoffrey Cornish, Darby apprenticed with both Gary Player and Arnold Palmer's design firms. In my view he is the most under-rated architect designing course today. I have a feeling we will be hearing more about John Darby.

The taxi driver who took us from the airport to Jack's Point was an Englishman who moved here thirty years ago. He came over and spent the first couple of years mustering sheep on horseback. People often ask me what I'm going to do when I'm done playing the top 100 courses in the world. I think I've got it: I'm going to drop out of the rat race, move to Queenstown and do the same damn thing. For many weeks after my trip to New Zealand my wife and boss would ask me frequently whether I was listening, "Did you hear what I just said?" Fact is, I didn't. I would just sit there with a dumb grin on my face looking right through them. Mentally, I was up on that sheep meadow in Queenstown, 14,950 kilometers away. Such is the appeal of this place, that it still has a grip on me.

A Mulligan at Fishers Island

2011-08-01T04:17:00.000-07:00

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases - Carl Jung

I am always trying to get better, so in the interest of being objective, I subjected my first Fishers Island writeup to a peer review. The simple conclusion of the learned and well-traveled group of golf aficionados that read it was that I am a moron.

They suggested I go back and check out Fishers Island again and in the interim repeat the following sentence often, "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." I finally found a member brave enough to invite this heathen back to experience Fishers Island again. It is my hope that by coming clean I can avoid the road to everlasting perdition. Bless me father for I have sinned.

I always like to start with my conclusions, which are, that I liked Fishers Island a lot more the second time around and can really see why people fall in love with it.

I took a lot of heat for my original description of being stared down by a state trooper as we disembarked from the ferry and of a kid sitting at a checkpoint looking at us as we drove down the entry road to the course. People have accused me of making it all up.

Balderdash.

It was all true. I subsequently learned that there was a very simple explanation for it. The then head of the CIA, Porter Goss, has a home on Fishers Island and was there, thus the heightened security. All very cloak and dagger. I'll bet the innocent looking kid probably had an Uzi in that little shed in case things got out of hand!

I didn't take the ferry over this time. Instead, it was a little water taxi from Groton which drops you off by the seventeenth tee. I must admit that there is really no better way to get to a golf course than skipping across the water on a little Boston Whaler on a perfect, bluebird day with the sun shining down on all God's creation and spray coming off the boat splashing in your face.

Fishers Island is a seven mile long island, located on the narrowest part of the Long Island Sound between New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. It is quite small, the entire island being only 3,200 acres, and is one of the most affluent places in the world. It is hard for a U.S. locale to have a WASPier origin or a better pedigree. Fishers Island was granted to John Winthrop Jr., Governor of the Colony of Connecticut in 1640. The family owned the island for several generations and finally sold it in 1863. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it evolved into a retreat for families with last names like Dupont, Firestone and Whitney. Fishers Island remains a secluded enclave, and more than a handful of billionaires summer on the island.

The Golf Course

I entered the pro shop with some trepidation since I'm on their 10 most wanted list. I kept my camera hidden and my sunglasses and fake mustache on so as not to be spotted, and then off we went to the first tee.

I'm not a huge fan of the first hole, a 396 yard, straight par four. The second hole is a Redan hole of 172 yards. I'm a traditionalist and don't think a Redan should have water in front of it. Where is the treacherous bunker? Where is the green sloping away? Now that I have played over a dozen of the world's greatest Redan holes, I can tell you that this one is one of the least interesting.

The Redan green as seen from the rear

Although I was a bit disappointed in the opening holes, nine of the next ten holes (the eleventh excepted) are fantastic golf holes, some of the best in the world, in fact.

The 335 yard third hole named "Plateau," is a fabulous one. The fairway is set at an angle to the tee, and the hole plays uphill the entire way. The green sits up on, you guessed it, a plateau, which falls off sharply on three sides. It's a great, fun hole with beautiful views.

The third green with its sharp falloff

The fourth hole, "Punch Bowl," is without a doubt one of the best in the world. It is 397 yards of delight. Your tee shot has to carry over a ravine to a broad fairway. Your second shot is a blind one over a hill. The hole takes its name from the green, which is true to its name. The approach shot to the green is aimed at a big Fishers Island flag over the top of the hill. It is really exhilarating when you hit a good shot to run up and see where your ball has rolled to and whether it is near the pin.

The fourth "Punch Bowl" hole from its daunting tee

The huge Punch Bowl Green

The next hole is world-class also. It's a true terror. A 207 yard "Biarritz," it is on a scale that is hard to describe. Everything about it is big. The carry from the tee is over a big ravine. The size of the green is big. The swale that splits the green is big. The view in all directions is expansive. The bunkering is both deep and oversized. The fescue hazards are big. And more than likely, your score when you walk off the green will also be big. It's a doozie of a hole!

The big "Biarritz" hole as seen from the tee

A wider view of the "Biarritz" hole shows how it is perched on the shoreline

The next hole, the sixth, "Olinda" is also a "big" hole. A 520 yard par five, its proportions are outsized. Your tee is over a daunting ravine to a fairway that slopes severly upward. Over the crest of the hill, the incline back down the hill is just as severe. Any shots pulled to the left on this hole would be painful. The hole reminded me quite a bit of the twelfth hole at Shinnecock, which has a similar feel and shape to it.

The 6th hole with its heaving fairway

The seventh, "Latimer," is a great downhill par four with dramatic views of Long Island Sound. When you are on this green, you are closest to the stubby red and white lighthouse, which has a charming ping that lulls you throughout your round.

The idyllic setting of the seventh hole at Fishers Island

The finishing hole on the front nine is also world-class. "Double Plateau" is the hole's name and it plays 364 yards. It reminded me of the fifth hole at New South Wales, also one of the world's best. You hit a blind tee shot into, and hopefully over, a big hill. After you walk up the top of the hill, the rest of the hole is below you, again, with a sweeping view of the Sound. The hole takes its name from the treacherous and fun green, seen below.

The "Double Plateau" green

The tenth hole, "Knoll," plays a lot longer than its 401 yards. The green sits at the top of a massive hill. If you ever get to play Fishers Island, I would bet money that someone in your group (more likely more than one person) lands the ball short and watches it painfully travel 50-60 yards backward to the bottom of the hill!

The 10th hole from the tee

I also liked the twelfth hole named "Winthrop". A 389 yard par four, the hole is named for the Winthrop family house left of the green. The hole sweeps from left to right with a green set high on a steeply declining hillside.

The 12th hole with its big slopes

For my taste, the rest of the holes are good but not great holes, although I think seventeen is decidely weak. I also think the "Short" hole (sixteen) doesn't compare with prototype "Short" holes at a lot of other great courses such as Camargo and the National Golf Links. The "Long" hole (fifteen) also didn't strike me as brilliant.

Fishers Island Place in the Golf Rankings

The first time I played Fishers Island it was in quite poor condition, which I thought really detracted from it. Aside from the fairways being really burned out, the sand traps were in poor condition and the greens were bumpy. There is a fine line between 'fast and firm' and not maintained, and the first time I played it, it was just over the line. This time around the conditioning was great: the sand was in good condition, and the greens were quite good.

I originally played Fishers Island early on in my quest and thus didn't have a lot of other courses to compare it to. Now that I'm virtually done I can better articulate it. I took a lot of heat for not appreciating the designs of the course architect Seth Raynor. Unfortunately, Fishers Island was my first exposure to his work; thus, I came away thinking he was overrated. Having played several of his courses including Yeamans Hall, Camargo and Shoreacres, I can honestly say he is one of the greatest to have ever plied the trade. I count these three among my personal favorites. They all have a uniqueness and polish about them that are memorable. The other thing that they all have in common is that they have been restored and refreshed over the last fifteen years and were in great shape when I played them.

Despite all the vitriolic comments I have received, I don't hate the people who disagree with my initial assessment. My initial point about Fishers Island was (to some degree still is) a simple one: Should a course with nine great holes and nine ok/good holes be ranked as the #29 course in the world? My initial impression was that it was overrated, although, in fairness, I have always said it is a delightful and memorable place to spend a day.

As an aside, I have learned a lot about why a great deal of what you read in the newspaper and see on TV tends to be negative. I have written great things about some unbelievable courses and received minimal comments. My initial Fishers Island post is by far the most commented on of any of my course reviews. Negativity attracts people like flies to honey. I have enjoyed this ongoing debate more than any other as I travel around the world and compare notes with people and with my readers.

Three things have led me now to upgrade my opinion of Fishers Island: 1) I am older and wiser and have seen a lot more great golf courses, thus I am better able to compare it to others than I was when I first saw it. 2) The course conditioning had improved significantly since the last time I played it. The greens are also in the process of being expanded back to the size they were when originally built, and the edges are now squared off on many of them, like on other Raynor designs. 3) I played better this time around. As much as we like to say that how we play doesn't affect how we like a course, we're all human, and it definitely does. Brilliant weather conditions don't hurt either.

For the record, my two hosts at Fishers Island have been among the most down to earth and gracious hosts I've had in all my travels.

The idyllic setting of the beach club as seen from the Plateau hole

While I have for sure upgraded my opinion of Fishers Island, let's not get carried away either. Many people have left me comments that the views at Fishers are as good as Pebble Beach, and I don't agree. You can see water on every hole, the argument goes. Old Head has water views from almost every hole also, but does that make it a great golf course in and of itself? No. The knock on Old Head, Tralee, Bayonne or any number of courses that have great water views is that they don't have great holes. I think there is a lot of confusion about Fishers Island because the water holes blind most people's perception. Water views shouldn't give a free pass to criticism or to questioning whether a course is ranked in the right place relative to other great courses. As I stated in my original post, all water views are not the same. I'm sorry, but looking over to Connecticut, as beautiful as it is, is not the same as looking at Monterey Bay, the Irish Sea or the Tasman Sea.

I had not yet played Cypress Point when I first played Fishers Island. I received several comments that Fishers Island could be compared to Cypress Point. Comparisons between the two are not in order. Visually and routing wise, it is another Long Island course, Friars Head, that is a closer comparison to Cypress in my view, although Cypress is really beyond a direct comparison to any other course.

I have now completed playing all of Seth Raynor's courses ranked in the top 100. I think his best, in order, are Yeamans Hall (1925), followed by Camargo (1921), then Shoreacres (1919) and Fishers Island (1926).

The overall experience at Fishers Island is a unique one: The boat trip, the exclusiveness of the island, the lighthouse pinging, the laid back beach atmosphere and an overall experience that feels like you are going back in time. It wouldn't be hard to imagine it was still 1954 while you're on Fishers Island. While I personally prefer Maidstone, which has a similar set of characteristics, I can see why a lot of people love Fishers Island.

Hell, if this trend continues and some brave soul invites me again, who knows, I may continue to raise my opinion and write an unqualified glowing review of Fishers Island!

Paraparaumu Beach

2011-07-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

Kia ora from New Zealand. Before Cape Kidnappers and Kauri Cliffs put New Zealand squarely on the radar of golf enthusiasts worldwide, Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club (ranked #99 in the world) held the distinction of the best course in this remote country. To get to Paraparaumu we drove down about four hours to the capital city, Wellington, from Cape Kidnappers, through another beautiful part of the country. One of the great things about this quest is the unexpected, pleasant discoveries I've made: rounding a blind curve, going south on New Zealand Highway 2, presented one of them. The first glimpse of Wellington Harbor left the four of us, who were seeing it for the first time, gobsmacked.

Wellington, New Zealand's Capital city

Wellington has one of the most beautiful natural harbors in the world. The water color is similar to that of the Caribbean, a light aquamarine. The city is reminiscent of San Francisco with its compactness and steep hills that rise from the harbor. It is visually very attractive, and unfortunately, like San Francisco, it is prone to earthquakes.

Wellington's fantastic natural harbor

Located 40 minutes north of Wellington on the Kapiti coast, Paraparaumu is the home course of caddy Steve Williams and has hosted the New Zealand Open 12 times. Paraparaumu means "scraps from an earth oven" in Māori, and it seems obvious why they don't use the native translation in their marketing of the club. Pronounced a tongue twisting "para-para-OO-moo," the locals call it "Paraparam’" for short.

Paraparaumu was designed by Alex Russell on a small plot of just 130 acres. Russell was an Australian Open champion who co-designed one of the world's great golf courses, Royal Melbourne, with Alister MacKenzie. The course opened in 1949, 23 years after Royal Melbourne, in a decade that didn't see much in the way of good golf design. Russell left the rumpled fairways as he found them and exercised restraint in his design choices. The result is a quirky links course with a dearth of bunkers and an abundance of table top greens.

The first green at Paraparaumu Beach with native grasses in the background

A true links course, Paraparaumu has the feel of a course in the British Isles, although the weather is decidedly better here. Similar to Royal Lytham & St. Annes, you never actually see the water while playing. In addition to sharing the topography of Lytham, the course also has an element of the quirkiness of Scotland's Cruden Bay thrown in. There are a half dozen blind or semi-blind shots, including the 1st tee shot, and holes with some interesting greens, including the 11th, which is a punchbowl.

A collection of short par 4s, the 6th, 8th and 10th take full advantage of the dramatic natural land forms. They make up for their lack of length and bunkering by using the natural contours of the true links land, placing a premium on shot accuracy. Paraparaumu offers plenty of opportunity to be creative and bump and run the ball: a key consideration when playing in "windy Wellington."

Paraparaumu's eighth shows off the rumpled fairway and green set amidst the dunes

One of the defining characteristics of the course is its appropriate sense of scale, with a continual change in hole direction. The dunes are perfectly proportioned, and Russell routed the course among them with skill. The front nine is routed further from the sea, which is about 500 yards away at its closest point. The front nine is nearer the water, with all but two holes on the course designed to play in a cross-wind.

In the same way that Whistling Straits is defined by its generous use of bunkers, Paraparaumu is defined by the absence of them. There are less than a dozen fairway bunkers on the entire course; and the 1st and 5th holes have none of any kind. The scarcity of bunkering is most pronounced on the par 3s. The two best, the 5th and 16th, have tabletop greens that fall off sharply on three sides. Anything less than the perfect shot will not hold them. As my host said in typical straightforward Kiwi fashion of the 155-yard 5th, "you are either on it, or you're not," meaning correctly, that there is a harsh penalty for missing. New Zealand native and Open Champion Bob Charles calls the 5th "equal to any short hole in the world."

The par three fifth hole with tabletop green and no bunkers, as seen from behind

The back nine features two world-class long par 4s. Hole 13 is the most challenging on the course and is a 448-yard par 4 that features a dramatic tee shot from an elevated tee. The second shot is the crucial one, since you play over a large swale to an elevated back-to-front sloping green. The prevailing wind is at your back on this hole, and as is often the case on links courses, holes playing down wind can be more difficult to judge distance on. The approach to the 13th is particularly difficult because you have to factor in the severe uphill with the wind.

Paraparaumu's thirteenth hole seen from the tee

The short but testing 138 yard par three sixteenth is seen below, from the rear of the green.

Paraparaumu's tabletop sixteenth green

The difficult seventeenth offers a choice of fairways off the tee. The hole is a renowned one. It was selected as one of the 100 best by The 500 World's Greatest Golf Holes, and Golf's 100 Toughest Holes also lists 17 as one of its selections. The 442-yard hole features a choice of two fairways, both set at an angle off the tee. With a breeze coming off of Cook Strait and the Tasman Sea, choosing the correct combination of fairway and distance makes the 17th a real test. The hole features another tabletop green that falls off sharply in the back. The genius of the hole is that by giving so many choices and no clear line to hit on off the tee, Russell ends up creating doubt, which is the last thing a golfer needs when teeing up a ball.

Paraparaumu has one of the cheapest greens fees among world-class courses and provides a good excuse to visit Wellington. No golf trip to New Zealand would be complete without visiting this classic links gem. A lot can be learned about how to make a golf course challenging and interesting by using hilly land forms and dunes as hazards instead of bunkers. I don't think Russell has been given enough credit for the brilliance of his minimalist use of bunkers here. At Paraparam’, less is truly more. This course is worthy of being in the top 100 in the world.

Paraparaumu is also the home course of my Kiwi friends Michael Goldstein, Jamie Patton and Bart De Vries of the puregolf2010.com phenomenon. Jamie and Michael were gracious enough to caddy for us when we played; thanks guys (and Bart), you are true gentlemen. Their faux-Augusta style caddy uniforms got us a lot of looks out on the course. And Jamie you should have that cabinet in your kitchen smoothed out so nobody rips their pants in the future. Roger has been talking about your legendary hospitability since we got back!

Normally, a picture is worth a thousand words. This one is worth two thousand.

The fat lady is now following me around and made the trip to Wellington. She's putting on her costume and warming up her vocal cords, getting ready to perform. This can't be a good sign; I don't even like opera.

Post Script

Being a combination moron and frequent traveler, I often leave things behind on trains, planes and automobiles. On my way from Wellington to Queenstown I lost my 3G-CDMA-universal-globa-cell-phone with satellite uplink and anti-lock brakes, as it turns out, in the taxi to the airport. In how many places in the world would a cab driver return to the airport 30 minutes later to find me and give me my phone back? Not many. But mine did, as if it were not the slightest bit out of the ordinary. This tells you all you need to know about the Kiwi ethos. What a fabulous people and country.

How to Play a Top Ranked Golf Course

2011-06-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

I am often asked how I have been able to gain access to some of the world's great golf courses. There are many ways to do so, none better than bidding on a charity auction to buy a threesome or foresome.

I posted last month about Jim Colton's selfless quest to raise money for a Ballyneal caddie, Ben Cox, who was injured in a ski accident. Well, Jim has completed his marathon golfing session and raised over $77,000 for Ben's benefit.

You can read news coverage of Jim's marathon below. There is also a link to the auction which includes access to fourteen of the world's top 100 ranked courses including many private and exclusive clubs.

GOLF WORLD MONDAY

MARATHON RECAP

A SPECIAL FATHER'S DAY

THE RAFFLE

DENVER POST ARTICLE

JASON SOBEL GOLF CHANNEL COLUMN (see #10)

Congratulations Jim, well done!

Cape Kidnappers

2011-06-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

Cape Kidnappers is located on the middle part of the North Island of New Zealand, near the town of Napier. Napier is a quaint place that is known as the world's most thoroughly Art Deco city and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 and was rebuilt over the next couple of years entirely in the Deco style.

An example of the Art Deco architecture in Napier

When we flew down from Kauri Cliffs our our way to Napier after changing planes in Auckland, we never showed any identification or went through security of any kind, which is a nice change from the dehumanizing nightmare that flying in the U.S. has become. My day playing Kidnappers began with a walk on the beach, freshly brewed cup of coffee in hand, wearing shorts and a golf shirt, watching the sunrise with the cliffs of Cape Kidnappers in the middle distance. Louis Armstrong was right. "What a wonderful world." Staying in town, we had the opportunity to enjoy the fabulous architecture and got to mingle with locals on St. Patrick's Day, as opposed to staying overnight at the billionaire's playground for US$1,300 per night. Although not on the 2003 Golf Magazine Top 100 list which I am playing, Cape Kidnappers is ranked #27 in the world on a recent list.

Cape Kidnappers is the second course I have played with a Captain Cook connection (New South Wales in Sydney is the other). Cook sailed the HMS Endeavor into the cove off the course, and one of his Tahitian guides was alleged to have been kidnapped, giving the area its name. The high headlands, which Cape Kidnappers is built on, are visible from Napier and the picture below can give you some perspective on its Gibraltaresque size.

The headlands of Cape Kidnappers seen from Napier

The entry drive at Cape Kidnappers vaults to the top of my list of dramatic golf course entrances. It eclipses all four of my other top entry drives: Sand Hills, Morfontaine, Yeamans Hall and Kauri Cliffs.

The beginning of the amazing entry drive at Cape Kidnappers

The front entrance is accessible by pressing a button to speak with the pro shop, and the gates are then opened by remote control. Once inside the gate, it is still a full seven kilometer drive up a winding road to get to the course. This has to be golf's equivalent of foreplay, if there is such a thing; the tension and excitement build as you climb each hairpin turn through the forest.

Cape Kidnappers has a more rustic feel than Kauri Cliffs and is more laid back. The staff is welcoming and accommodating, as they should be charging $400 for a round of golf!

The uphill wooded entry drive at Cape Kidnappers

Cape Kidnappers has been one of the most hyped courses built in the last ten years. It begins with a good first hole, but overall I found the 2nd through 6th, 10th, 11th and 17th a bit underwhelming relative to expectations. The course has very wide fairways, and Tom Doak, the course designer, always leaves a bailout area and a more forgiving route to the green for less skilled players. This less skilled player, for one, appreciates this design philosophy. The other side of this design philosophy is that if you play aggressively and make a mistake, there is a big penalty. The big penalty at Cape Kidnappers is being in the high rough, which is almost certainly a lost ball.

Despite the initial letdown of the front, I did like the variety of hole types. The course has some short par threes and some short par fours, which are nice because they take away the tedium of hitting hybrid clubs off the fairway all day long. Cape Kidnappers also puts a premium on putting, 'cause there ain't a flat green out there. I enjoyed the par three sixth hole, which reminded me a bit of the "Calamity" par three at Royal Portrush, but with the big drop-off on the left side of the hole instead of on the right. The hole plays over 200 yards and is a tester; It offers a preview of the immensity of the rocky gorges to come. The drop from the green to the water below is over 500 feet.

The tough par three 6th hole

The seventh hole features a semi-blind tee shot and then a big hollow between the driving area and the green. It is more than likely that your shot to the large green will also be blind, because the hill is so steep.

The seventh green seen from the top of the fairway

As is Doak's trademark, the greens at Cape Kidnappers are all interesting; although very hard to read. I didn't understand the eleventh hole at all. It is a 224 yard par three that requires you to walk far from the previous green, up a hill with a dramatic view. The tee shot is played back toward the 10th green alongside it. It seems to me that it would have made a much better hole if it were designed the other way around; that is, with the green situated on the hill, with the dramatic cliffs on the sides. The green would have then taken advantage of the view rather than having your back face it.

The par three 11th green

The course really picks up steam on the twelfth hole, and it is the beginning of an unbelievable set of world-class holes in succession, starting with the twelfth and ending with the sixteenth. This part of the course plays among the fingers of rock formations above Hawke's Bay. All the pictures of the course that you see in magazines or when the course is advertised are of this stretch of the course taken from the air. Twelve is a classic 460 yard par four where the fairway is set at an angle to the tee, and you have to carry your tee shot over a gully. This hole allows you to decide how aggressive to be and is really fun. The green is situated on the top of a hill overlooking Hawke's Bay. The hole's name is "Infinity" because looking over the edge of the green, it looks like it goes on forever.

The 12th green appropriately named "Infinity"

Thirteen is a 130 yard par three ("Al's Ace") with a beautiful view of the cliffs and Hawke's Bay, and a large and severely undulating green. I recommend walking at Cape Kidnappers because some of the tee box positions are awkward to get to with a golf cart, such as the eleventh and thirteenth. With a cart it is difficult to figure out which clubs to bring to the tee because the wind is hard to factor in.

The uphill par three 13th green

Fourteen is a fun, short par four, albeit with a weird name, "Pimple." It plays 348 yards from the tips and is a good risk/reward hole with multiple playing options. There is a simple but deadly pot bunker near the green that is as magnetic as the Road Hole bunker at St. Andrews and comes into play in a similar fashion.

The short par four 14th green

The fifteenth hole ("Pirate's Plank") is one of the best par fives - make that holes of any kind, in the world. It plays 650 yards from the tips and 550 from the tees for high handicappers. The hole subtly gets progressively narrower from tee to green. The left side of the fairway falls off into a jagged gorge with the South Pacific about 500 feet below you. There are at least a half-dozen signs along the left side of the fairway warning you not to go over the fences or get too close to the edge, because it is sayonara if you do. The prevailing wind (at least the day we played) is in your face, adding to the challenge. The green sits on a cliff on the edge of the world, with a dramatic view in all directions.

The par five 15th seen from the fairway looking toward the green

Aside from the exhilirating views, the fifteenth hole offers options to be conservative or aggressive. I was lucky to play it on a day with only a mild wind. Being so exposed up on the cliff top, I can't imagine playing it when the wind is blowing. As they say down here, it is pure. Below is one of the vertiginous views on the hole. To give you a sense of the sensation you feel playing the hole, one of the guys in our group actually had to back away from the edge of the fairway because it drops off so precipitously and he is afraid of heights. The fifteenth hole is Rara Avis (for my friends in New Jersey, it is a rare bird, quite out of the common). There are not many places in the world where a hole like this can be built. It took balls to build it, and it really came off exceptionally well.

View of the gorge from the 15th fairway

Like Cypress Point, Kidnappers features back-to-back par fives. The sixteenth is a par five in the opposite direction from the fifteenth, this time playing downwind. The hole is only 500 yards from the tips. The fairway heaves quite a bit in different directions, and the green is elevated and funky. It is a very different hole than the fifteenth and has a wide fairway. It reminded me of the par five fifteenth hole at Kawana in Japan with the ripples and waves in the fairway. The hole is seen below looking back from the green.

The par five 16th looking backward down the fairway

I've heard the par four seventeenth described as a great hole but I don't think so. I didn't find much about it to be unique. Eighteen is a good finishing hole and features a punchbowl green.

The punchbowl 18th green at Cape Kidnappers

Cape Kidnappers is in many respects ultimately like Pebble Beach. What makes Pebble Beach so great is a half dozen spectacular holes, which compensate for many holes that are good, but not great. Cape Kidnappers also has a collection of holes that are so superior in their own right that they make up for some average holes and make it a worthy course to be included among the best in the world.

Not a bad view when changing into your golf shoes: Kidnappers locker room

Just like when we played at Kauri Cliffs, there was almost no one on the course in March. As a commercial enterprise, me thinks neither of these work. It's great to have Julian Robertson subsidize them; he could have chosen to build these and make them exclusive preserves like Kerry Packer did with Ellerston in Australia. It seems to me they are just too remote and expensive to make it on their own, even with the high prices. Unlike The Donald, Robertson actually has class and builds quality, and I for one am grateful he did it and opened up two unique locations for the world to see.

New Zealand has some spectacular and dramatic golf. Combine the front nine of Kauri Cliffs with the back nine of Cape Kidnappers and you've got the eighteen prettiest holes in the world. As I was walking off the eighteenth green I saw that fat lady again, this time she was arriving and looked very serious. I'm afraid at some point in the not too distant future she's going to sing. This has to be more than a coincidence.

Ballyneal

2011-05-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't played Ballyneal yet, but wanted to draw your attention to the generosity of Jim Colton and his brilliant act of kindness raising funds for someone in need.

Click here to read the story of the Ben Cox 108 Marathon which will be held on June 20th.