Cost of a Round of Golf

Theamount of money we pay to play a specific golf course depends on anumber of things. Availability, accessibility, desire to play,architectural interest (for some) and course conditions are some ofthe reasons. But what do these things mean individually and how dothey determine a fair rate?

Thereare two parts to this question. First, upon researching a course andgetting information on it, what do you feel the course is worth, siteunseen? Second, after you have played, was the price you paid worththe course you saw?

Howare we to define this five factors, however?

Thefirst two factors are used to formulate an opinion of the courseprior to knowing the rate.

ArchitecturalValue: This will mean different things to different people. Somegolfers might want courses with soft, understated features, like Old Macdonald or Rustic Canyon. Other golfers might want eye poppingvisual stimulation or "eye candy" like that seen at PebbleBeach or Shadow Creek. But each golfer knows roughly what he likes tosee in a golf course, what he considers great, good, average, bad andso forth. Any golfer will pay a premium price for a golf course thathe considers to be great. Just the same, very few, if any, golferswould pay a premium price for a course considered by them to beaverage or bad. It is up to the golfer to determine how he definesthese words in the context of golf courses.

Course Conditioning: This, again, is a subjective category. If a golferloves golf courses that play extremely firm, where the ball might beplayed along the ground and the turf flashes a yellowish-green color,the courses at Bandon Dunes will fit his eye quite well. If heprefers a vibrant green, be it firm or not, a course like Pine Valley or Pebble Beach will suit him better. But it is certainly on thegolfer to research and determine if the course in question fits hiseye. Soft and Slow, Firm and Fast, whatever the combination, golferswho prefer one style will pay to play golf courses that are of thatparticular style.

Fromthese two factors, the golfer is able to determine his desire to playthe course.

Desireto Play: For either of the above, and the two below as well, thedesire of the golfer to play a certain course greatly factors intowhat is a reasonable rate to pay. If the golfer has no desire to play Shadow Creek and would rather play the local municipal course, thenthe $500 rate will seen absurd. The golfer with a strong desirehowever, will do whatever it takes to come up with the $500 requiredto see the course.

Oncethe level of desire is established, the golfer works into the lasttwo steps, availability and accessibility.

Availability: How easy is it to obtain a tee time? Most golf courses charge moremoney for peak times and seasons. Some golf courses charge one ratefrom opening to noon, drop the rate at noon, and then drop the rateagain at 2 or 3 pm. So, people who want to play earlier in the daywhen the conditions and weather are more favorable must pay a primerate and a great number do. In the same way, golf courses typicallyhave peak seasons. In the North Carolina Sandhills, that peak isduring Spring and Fall. In Miami, peak is winter. In Michigan, peakis summer. Just the same as with peak times of the day, golferswishing to play during these peak seasons will pay a premium. It isup to the golfer to determine if it is worth it to him to pay thefull rate to play at these peak times; this writer chooses not toplay at peak times whenever possible. 

Accessibility: This basically boils down to the privacy level of the club. Thenormal public golfer might be willing to pay a significant premium toplay a private course simply because it is private, even though itmight be of lesser quality than the public options in the area. Ithas been said that some private clubs charge upwards of $700 forunaccompanied guests, $500 for accompanied. But because they are highend, highly ranked, exclusive courses, people pay the rate. There arepublic courses that charge rates this high as well, Pebble Beach andShadow Creek come to mind, and this ends up being an access point aswell. Pebble Beach is one of the top 5 courses in America and ShadowCreek is typically top 20 or better. There are a select handful ofpublic courses that are ranked that highly and golfers will have toopen up the wallets in order to play. This leads to the third factorin price and that is desire to play.

So,what then, is a reasonable amount to pay for a given course? For thiswriter, he uses the top two criteria to make a preliminarydetermination on where the course will fit on his 1 to 10 scale. Howgood does the course appear to be? Things to consider are the routingof the course, meaning is the course routed smoothly and can it bewalked. Courses that do not allow walking at all get marked downaccordingly. Does the course appear to have a solid variety of holes?Does it have a variety of shot selections? And is the course in topnotch condition; reasonably firm and fast is typically the desiredset-up. If the course is great, a 10, then the desire to play is highmeaning that all reasonable efforts will be made in order to play thecourse. If the course is average, the desire is average as well, thiscourse may be played if convenient. If the course seems poor, well,the desire will certainly be low and without some other circumstancesfactoring into the decision, this course will most likely be skipped.

Oncedesire is established, availability and accessibility are evaluated.Obviously the availability means looking at whether or not it is apeak season or peak rate time. Obviously in places like Minnesota,Michigan, New York, Canada, and other northern locales, the seasondoes not matter. If the course is open for play, it is basically peakseason and the golfer will be charged as such. But for Southernlocations, golf courses are open year round. Typically the golfcourse will not be vastly different from one season to the next,though this is not always the case. But take Doral, a high end resortin Miami, FL. The peak season rate to play the Blue Monster TPC is$325 and the off season rate is $210 (these rates valid according toDoral Resort website on September 5, 2012) The golfer must come to adecision if it is worth it to him to pay the $115 premium to play thecourse in January when the average high temperature is 76 or in Julywhen the high is 90. For this writer, it would not be worth thepremium, so the lower rate, out of season, would be the selection.Same goes with twilight hours. There is, in this writers mind, noneed or purpose whatsoever in paying extra money to play a course.Why pay $25 to play at 8am when you could pay $15 playing at 2pm?

Buthow does a rough breakdown go? What is a fair rate for a 10? What is fair for a 5?

Something like this is probably fitting:

10:Virtually no limit to what would be considered a fair rate. $495 wasconsidered fair at Pebble Beach. Other courses that might be 10's,Pinehurst #2, The Old Course, Augusta National, Pine Valley, would befairly priced that the rate and the necessary steps would be taken inorder to play.

9:There are more courses that fall in the 9 category than there are10's, certainly. But these are still rare. These courses would stillhave no ceiling for pricing. Shadow Creek charges $500 and that is afair rate to play there.

Belowthe 9 though, the rating gets more complex.

8: $250 is likely the max for an 8 without something else attached. Thepremium might sneak a little higher for a private club, special eventor something with exceptional history, but in general, $250 would bea maximum.

7: $150 max. These courses are somewhat easy to find, even on the publicside, and can easily be played at a non-peak time.

6: $100 max. Some might think this is low, might even think $150 is lowfor a 7. But consider that, when using off-season rates, the Bandon Dunes courses can be played for under $100, all of them being 7's orbetter, the number looks different. There are a lot of 6 qualitycourses out there that can be had for far less than $100 if one takestime to look around.

5: $75 max. This course is above average and worth the hard earnedmoney.

4: $55 max. Certainly don't spend more than this on a 4 course if you can help it. There are likely many other courses within closedistance that will be better values.

3: $40 max. This course is just average. No need to fork over more thana half-day's pay to play something that you feel is just average.

1 & 2: If you really consider a course to be a 1 or a 2, paywhatever you think is reasonable. For this writer, $20 is the maximum, and even then, it might feel like too much, depending on thecourse.

These numbers work two ways though. First is the initial evaluation. Thearchitectural quality is determined and a preliminary numberassigned. Typically desire to play will be a function of thisnumber, though that might be inflated or deflated by other factors.But if the preliminary rating was a 7, then you might look at therate page to determine if you felt the rate the club was asking wasreasonable. Bandon Dunes can be used as an example here. The ratethis time of year for a resort guest (and let's face it, baring anextraordinary circumstance, if you are playing Bandon, it will NOT beas a golf-only player) is $230 for the first round of the day and$115 for replay rounds. So, looking at those rates, all courses atthe resort are under their respective max cost. But does the desireexist to pay that max cost? Golfers willing to brave the elements canplay the course for less than 1/3 that peak rate. All depends onpriorities. Either way, that is how the max figures could be used inthe preliminary determination.

But these numbers can also be used after the fact. After playing a given course, golfers will often try to determine if it was worth the money they just paid. Sometimes they find they made a good decision, but sometimes the might feel that they did not. One story that comes tomind was when, not too long ago, this writer played a course that hadall the credentials to be top quality. Top notch Golden Age designer, seemingly solid routing, what appeared to be exceptional turfconditions and so forth. Initial research made this course out to bea 6 or better, worth the rate of $80 they were charging. But uponplay it became apparent that very little of the Golden Age designerswork was left, the routing was slightly above average, turfconditions were below what one would expect for that rate and thecourse was just generally a disappointment. It was not worth $80, notin the slightest. It was closer to a $50 course. This makes the $130 peak rate they charge even more befuddling. So in this situation, therate scale is used to make the decision as to whether or not you gotvalue for the money you paid.

But these numbers are generally reasonable and can be used as a good baseline to determine if you really want to play a course. Of course each golfer must determine what rates are acceptable for him or her, given their situations and desires. But I think all golfers would agree that if the opportunity to play Augusta National was afforded them tomorrow, this being a course that virtually all golfers would consider a 10 and the rest would surely consider a 9, they would do and pay whatever was necessary (while still being legal of course) toplay. That is the real definition of a 10 in terms of cost. Everything else just falls into place from there.

Fishhook Golf Course- Palmer, AK

This course is certainly from a mold formed in times past. The course is routed simply over the land. the  greens and tees are simply closely mown areas rather than expensively maintained and completely manufactured. This course, while not being anything special or unique to the world of golf, is a lot of fun to play and gives the golfer a look into how golf might have been played and courses designed years ago prior to the widespread use of heavy equipment.

Holes to Note

Hole #1: Par 5, 509 yards
This is a very good opening hole. The tee shot plays uphill and into the wind to a blind fairway. The best play off the tee will be for the player to play up the right hand side of the fairway. That will given him a chance to see the green. However, the green is tucked around a sharp corner and is very small, making for a very difficult target to hit with a fairway wood or long iron. This hole sets the pace for the rest of the round with the blind shots, small greens and difficult angles.

 From the tee, the hole spreads out nicely in front of the player. The center of the fairway lies where the high, unmaintained grass intersects  with the standard rough grass in the center of the image. The best line off the tee is slightly right of that point.

 With this hole playing into the prevailing wind, a 260 yard tee shot is a fair blast. From the left side of the fairway (obviously this writer does not possess the skill to execute the shot as directed) the green is still completely obscured.

Now, from around 125 yards, the green is plainly in view and easily accessed. Bunkers flank the green on both sides and the green is somewhat rectangular, giving a bit of a biarritz green set-up...though without the requisite depression.

Hole #3: Par 3, 150 yards

This green site is nicely shelved into the hillside beyond the green. The bunkers add quality framing features to the hole. The only problem on this hole is the routing. The player walks from two green to three tee, then to the green, but from the third green the player must double back the entire length of the hole, walk directly past the teeing ground and over a hill in order to get to the fourth tee. Given the old time, homely nature of the course though, perhaps it deserves a pass.

Hole #7: Par 4, 504 yards

Upon a non-exhaustive review, this appears to be the longest par 4 hole in Alaska. It plays slightly downhill off the tee, generally downwind and to a firm fairway. On a warm day like when this writer played, the hole can be rather easy. But on a day with temps in the mid-50's and lacking a helping wind, this hole must be a real beast. The hole plays with a slight dogleg left, downhill off the tee and slightly back uphill to the green. The bunker that lies on a line just left of the forward tee markers works as a strategic aim point. Left of the bunker is going to be severely penalized, as would going in the bunker. But playing close would cut some of the significant distance off the hole.

 As with Palmer Golf Course, located just a few miles away, the open nature of the course coupled with the mountains in the distance really skew the player's perspective. Those mountains are roughly five miles distant and the red roof marking the clubhouse is about 1,000 yards from this tee.

This green complex is, without doubt, the best on the course. It is guarded by no bunkers and is open in the front, but features significant run-off areas on the other three sides. Any golfer missing this green will be faced with a difficult recovery. 

Overall, this is a fun little golf course. It doesn't compete with the full eighteen hole courses in the area in terms of quality, but it shouldn't. It manages to carve out a niche in the market and promotes itself as such. This is an old style course with an old style feel. It does not try to be something it is not. It is simply a fun course to play. 2 out of 10.

Shell's Wonderful World of Golf @ Pine Valley Golf Club

This is an old, but still outstanding, tour around Pine Valley Golf Club in New Jersey. Pine Valley is a perennial Top 2 or 3 golf course in the world and has changed surprisingly little since this episode was shot in 1962. Enjoy.