High Quality Nine Hole Golf Courses: A Rarity

Everyone has played a nine hole golf course from time to time. But how often are those courses really that good? While these little courses certainly have a place in the world of golf, most of the time they are nothing special and simply give golfers a place to play. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that. Golf Digest published a list of the top 25 nine hole golf courses two years ago. If we are to assume the list does, indeed, rank the true top 25 nine hole courses, then it is rather indicative of the average quality of these courses nationwide. This writer has played two of them: #3 ranked Northwood and #24 ranked Annapolis Golf Course.

Northwood is an old Alister MacKenzie design in northern California. This course does have some interesting greens and some of the holes have quality shot values. But in other places, the trees have encroached on the course so much that it is virtually unplayable. The playing corridor on 9 is 25 yards wide. Not the fairway, the entire playing corridor, from the trees on the right to the out of bounds stakes on the left. The trees greatly effect turf quality as well. This course is not bad, just average; 3 out of 10 on the Johnny B. scale.

Annapolis Golf Course...well, to put it as nicely as possible, this just is not a course you would recommend to your friends. The fairways have no turf grass, only weeds mown to an inch in height. The greens are near perfect circles occupying the otherwise huge original green pads. Bunkers no longer have sand, only weeds. For the real student of architecture, the course is so good as to nearly brings tears to the eyes. But for a normal golfer, this might be the worst course he will ever see. The course was designed by Charles Banks, who learned design from Seth Raynor. The pedigree is outstanding. But the course has fallen into such disrepair as to completely prevent any interface with the architecture as it sits. Again, I fully assume due justice was done in coming to the conclusion that this is the 24th best 9 hole golf course in America. Given that is the case, it speaks volumes to the mediocrity of 9 hole courses in America.

One other course off that list worth a note is Pottawatomie Golf Course in Illinois. While this writer has not played it, another writer on Wegoblogger31.blogspot.com has ranked the course #305 out of 330 courses played as of this writing. Pottawatomie was ranked #15 on the 9 hole courses ranking.

Given these three examples and other 9 hole courses played, it would seem to be, sadly, the case that 9 hole courses are generally of a lower quality. That is not to say there are not good ones, indeed The Dunes Club in Michigan and Royal Worlington and Newmarket are widely acclaimed by a large number of people. But those seem to be great outliers.

This is quite sad really. 9 hole golf courses that are of high quality would be a great way to get golfers onto high quality golf courses without having to spend 4 or 5 hours on the course. The courses would also take up less land, making them cheaper to own, which should lead to lower costs passed on to the golfer. That would seem to be a winning combination, lower cost to the golfer and faster play.

Of course 9 hole courses exist everywhere. Some were originally designed that way. Some, like Annapolis, were designed to be part of an 18 hole facility, but only 9 were built. Some are what remains of a course that once had 18 holes, but for whatever reason had to close the other nine holes. But few are of solid quality.

Indeed, Northwoods is the finest 9 hole course this writer has played. But in an overall ranking, probably fits somewhere around 125 of 183. The other courses fall below that, some far below. It's quite sad that so few of these courses are built and maintained at even an average quality. Of course, the market yields this, few people want to play 9 hole courses, they even have a stigma, deserved these days, of being low quality courses. It would be great to see attitudes from golfers and operators change to allow for more of these little courses. The game would not suffer if that happened.