Scenic Hills Country Club-Pensacola, FL

This is a solid course, but could be better without the housing around it. Course hosted the US Women's Open in 1969 and the course makes certain anyone who plays here knows that. As far as being walkable, Scenic Hills is as easily walked as a course routed through housing like this can be. Most of the holes are high on options, allowing for ground play at times and requiring the high lofted shots at others. The only negative is that, while walkable, the course requires that non-members take carts. While this course isn't anything really special, it is a solid public course and a good value.

Holes to Note
Hole #1: Par 4, 443 yards
This is a very solid opening hole. Playing substantially downhill off the tee brings the effective yardage down much lower than the card yardage. The fairway is also quite wide, giving the player a generous target even though the hole plays between houses on both sides of the fairway. The preferred angle of approach into the green will come from the left side of the fairway, allowing the player to avoid the bunkers that protect the right side of the green.

From the left side of the fairway, the green, while being a small target, is accessible with a straight forward shot, and the player could even attempt to roll the ball onto the green.

However, from the right side of the fairway, the angle of the green is not quite so inviting and a slight push for players going for the center of the green will likely find one of the two flanking bunkers.

The green is nicely perched up, falling away into the bunkers on the right, a depression on the left and a bunker awaits beyond the green for those players suffering from a lack of distance control.

Hole #13: Par 4, 357 yards
This is a fancy little mid-to-short par 4. The tee shot has to carry a water hazard, a hazard that was likely unavoidable in the design of the course as it is part of the Escambia River watershed area, but the hazard is not that difficult to cross, a mere 100 yards from a back markers. The hole itself bends to the left and the fairway will kick shots down towards the left side of the fairway. However, the player looking for the easiest approach into the green had better play his shot up the rigth side so as to not be forced to carry the two bunkers lying in wait off the left side of the green.

From the right side of the fairway, the player is left with a simple, straight shot into the green, most likely with a wedge in hand.

Hole #17: Par 5, 507 yards
This very scenic par 5 provides the player a great chance to make a birdie coming home in the round. The hole plays virtually straight, although an arguement could be made that it is a double dogleg hole, going slightly right from the tee and then back left into the green. The green can be reached in two shots by the longer players. However, the player wanting to go for the green in two shots must play close to the dual purpose bunkers down the right side of the fairway. These bunkers are effective in two ways: first, they force strategic from golfers who are attempting to go to the green in two, and second, they act as saving bunkers for the less skilled golfers, possibly keeping the tee shot from going down into the hazard.

From the left side of the fairway, the player gets a solid view of the significantly elevated green. Any player attempting to reach the green in two shots is going to have to navigate a field of bunkers, both surrounding the green and flanking the fairway about 50 yards short of the green. The best play into the green, for those normal players not hitting a 6 or 7 iron, is a draw that lands short of the green and rolls up. That shot however will have to thread between the greenside bunkers.

For the player choosing to lay up, once again the right side of the fairway provides the best line into the angled green. Obviously any shot that comes up short of the putting surface or is struck with too much spin is liable to roll back off the green a significant distance.

Overall, this is a solid little golf course. With exception of the houses running down the holes, there are only a few negatives. The course does have one feature that always irritates this writer to no end and that is the forced water carry with no strategic value. The 11th hole has a forced carry of a creek that is in the range of 400 yards off the tee, giving no strategy to the tee shot, and also some 150 yards short of the green, offering nothing to the green either. No, the creek merely sits there offering no thought or strategic interest to the player with enough skill to easily carry it on the second shot (and it must be the second shot because, lets face it, there are perhaps half a dozen people in the world who could reach it off the tee) and yet offers nothing but a huge penalty to those golfers who struggle to get the ball into the air and make the carry. Those golfers must either attempt to make a tough shot and possibly dunking a ball into the water or lay up short of the hazard leaving a shot into the green that they likely can not make. No, forced carries are fine, but not like this.

Other than that, the course is solid. It has solid variety in all the holes and an understated character that is sadly missing from many new courses. 4 out of 10.

"Most Fun" Golf Course Ranking

In this month's edition, Golf Digest published three lists of the Most Fun Golf courses, one for public in America, one for private and one for Great Britain and Ireland. These lists will not be reproduced here due to the fact that they have not yet been posted on the Golf Digest website. However, I feel a little discussion is in order about some of the rankings. The private and GB&I lists are both discarded from this discussion as I have played none of the 70 courses listed. However, I have played 7 of the top 50 public courses.

First, as Bandon Dunes noted on their site, the Resort has 3 of the top 5 and 4 of the top 6, with Old Macdonald being ranked #2, Bandon Preserve #3, Pacific Dunes #4, and Bandon Dunes #6. Bandon Trails makes the list at #27. My first thought when I read this was "I wonder how much the resort had to pay to get THOSE rankings?" I stand by that assessment. How was this list determined? I have played 3 of the 5 courses at Bandon, and while they were certainly fun to play, I can't honestly say that I had exponentially more fun at Bandon playing with a great group of guys than I had about a month later playing Metropolitan Municipal in Oakland, CA with virtually that same group of folks.

No, it seems to me that the magazine simply threw together a list of courses that are popular today and/or have some kind of scenery involved. It seemingly does not take anything else into consideration. What is their justification for the Gil Hanse designed Rustic Canyon being ranked #30, so far behind the Bandon courses? Did Gil or the club forget to cut a check to Golf Digest? What of a course like Tobacco Road, a course with more variety and visual stimulation than most on the list than I have seen?

There is little rhyme or reason here and no mention of what methodology was used to determine this list. The #1 course on the list, Pebble Beach, is certainly understandable given the course's history and aura. But beyond that, it gets a little lost, honestly leading me to believe that this list was merely bought and paid for by advertisers and glad handing course owners trying to get their names at the top of the page. Take my not so humble opinion for whatever you choose to, but do so with the knowledge that I simple tell things as I see them. Sometimes, that might irritate people...and I do not care.

Augusta National and Female members

It was announced on Monday, August 20 that the Augusta National Golf Club has admitted two females into its membership. The club's reason for accepting two ladies into the membership right now is unknown to this writer and really does not matter. Truthfully, even the fact that they now have women as members does not matter. No, in reality, this will do virtually nothing to change anything about the world of golf, any "rights" discussion among non-White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Heterosexual, Male groups, and won't affect any part of my life, either.
This little happening will not do anything to change the world of golf. Sure, now the club can be acting in accordance with PGA Tour rules about not having restrictive membership practices, but that knowledge likely did not factor into the clubs decision at all. I should say that the club cares no more today than they did yesterday, or any of the previous 29,107 +/- days of its existence, that they have female members. Nothing about the culture of the club is going to change. And nothing about the world of golf as a whole is going to change. The game will still be difficult to access for a huge segment of the population due to economic status or lack of available courses. Not to mention the outright discrimination that takes place at many clubs, which leads to my second point.
Augusta National never out rightly said that women could not be members. They simply did not have one. This in contrast to places like Shoal Creek where it was blatantly stated that they would not allow African-Americans to be members. Or some of the older clubs where there are written policies in place stating they are open to males only. Or clubs that don't allow Jewish people to be members. The list could go on, of course. Now, it is no one’s place to tell these clubs who they should or should not allow as members. They are private clubs with the ability to do as they choose. However, it should be obvious to most that individuals who do not fit into the White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Heterosexual, Male mold often times have difficulty joining all manner of private clubs. From high profile golf clubs to middle of the road country clubs to athletic clubs even down to organizations like small town hunt clubs, restrictive practices exist everywhere. Augusta National Golf Club accepting two women, no matter how high profile they may be (though, in reality, how large a percentage of the population, outside the states of South Carolina and Texas, had heard of Darla Moore prior to Monday?) will not alter the reality of the situation nor will it prompt any clubs to change practices.
But finally, does this decision by Augusta National affect *my* life or *your* life? I should think that unless you are close personal friends with former Secretary of State Rice or Ms. Moore, it does not really alter your life at all. Your chances of playing Augusta National prior to death were likely close to the chance that you will see a unicorn on the way to work today. Those chances have not improved.
No, the truth is, nothing has changed. The Master's will still go on next year, same as it did this year. As much as some might want to think this is some great step forward for golf and non-White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Heterosexual, Male "rights," it is not. This decision does not affect you, it does not affect me, and it does not break down any glass ceilings. While it is not a bad thing that Augusta National accepted women into the membership, it is no earth-shattering happening. It is really something of a neutral item that is getting blown up on a slow news day. Do not expect to see any huge shift in club cultures or anything else because of this.