The Good and The Bad...

I have been thinking lately about different features on golf courses and how they all work together to produce the final product. Ideally, the features should come together and produce something of high quality, often times they do not, but that is another matter. Of the times when the combination of features turns out to be of high quality, the course in question can be something like Heaven on Earth. However, this led me to ask why that is the case? And not only that, how many times does a person go into a course that has that other-worldly feel without some previously formed opinion on what they will think?

One course that comes immediately to mind is Pacific Dunes. I went there with the notion that this course would be pretty much perfect with no imperfections and that everything would be like playing golf in a fantasy land. After playing, after initial review, I agreed with that, I even had it down as a 10 on my course ranking page for quite a while. But upon further review, I am not sure if that is the case. The reason being, I don't feel like the entire product comes together as well as it should, or could. Places like the routing error from 11 to 12 and from 12 to 13 where the player has to walk a rather substantial distance to get to the next tee, in the case from 11 to 12 the player actually has to walk through the teeing ground of the 5th hole. Add this to the fact that the player has to walk roughly 75 yards directly back into the line of play on 13 upon leaving the green in order to begin the journey to the 14th tee and the routing comes off as a bit lacking. I have discovered some other things I felt lacking in the course as well, and this prompted me to downgrade it to a 9, rather than a 10. I do hope to make it back to Bandon reasonably soon (like within 2-3 years) and take another look.

But the course that prompted this thinking of how often do courses turn out to be great "because they were supposed to be great" was Sahalee in Washington. I have not played this course but an acquaintance of mine who has wrote a very detailed review about it and openly questioned how this course was rated among Golf Digest's Top 50 courses in the United States. My response to that was that I think most golfers are very susceptible to following their "conditioning" and saying that a course is great or very good simply because that was what they thought before and simply forced themselves to see the course that way. I also feel that many people might feel that Sahalee is a great course simply because it is said to be the finest course in the region (and in truth, probably is since the Pacific NW is not exactly known as a golf hotbed) and that, coupled with the fact that the vast majority of golfers play the vast majority of their golf in the same general area, can lead to possible skewing in the rating numbers. I know in my personal play, I have gone into courses with a biased opinion on what I was "supposed" to think and that has led to both good and bad things. But a previously formed opinion can most certainly cause a person to skew his "real" opinion of a course.

This, I think, is what happened to me at Pacific Dunes. I thought coming in that it would be straight out of a fantasy world and just looked past the small things. And in that way, how often do we look past small things when we play a golf course that is "supposed" to be great? How often does the golfer look past the routing oddities at Pacific Dunes, or the lack of (apparent) green contouring at Congressional, or the (apparent) lack of width and recover options at Sahalee simply because these courses are supposed to be great and that makes it all good? I am as guilty of this as anyone...but does that make it OK?

Overall, I think it is difficult to look past our previously formed opinions and come up with a true, unbiased opinion on a golf course that we have recently played. Sometimes this takes quite a bit of review and thought. In my case, with Pacific Dunes, it took a year of thought and playing about 40 more golf courses, some very poorly routed, for me to really think about how much the course routing meant to me and whether or not it was enough to bump Pacific Dunes from 10 down to 9. Perhaps in the case of Sahalee, the raters would be well served taking a step back and having a hard look at what, exactly, they feel makes a course great, perhaps not though.

In the end though, the only thing we can do as people, if we are to be in the "business" of rating courses on some particular scale, is to play as much golf as partical in as many different places such that we might have a better idea of what is good and what is bad and at the same time be able to get past our previous opinions based on supposition and form real, true opinions based on the facts as best we are able to see them.

Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Ross Bridge, Hoover, AL

This is a fantastic course. Better than this writer expected, to be honest. While the course plays nearly 8,200 yards from the back tees, it is quite playable for most players due to it's massive size and the fact that most fairway hazards are 300 yards or more off the tee. The only downside of the course is that it gets the massive yardage by keeping all the holes within what some would call an "acceptable" yardage range, with the par 3's ranging from 207 to 239 yards, the par 4's ranging from 454 to 518 yards, and the par 5's ranging from 571 to 698 yards (and the 698 hole plays 125 feet downhill). This writer would personally like to see more variety, perhaps with a par 3 of about 150 yards and also one of around 300. I'd also like to see a driveable par 3, or at least one that can be reached with a partial wedge, perhaps in the 350-360 range; this length could be offset by a par 4 in the 540-550 range. And it would have been nice for the 571 par 5 to be open enough to be attempted in two shots and one par 5 needing a mid to long iron approach would be cool. But these are standard arguments against many modern courses. Overall, this course has better variety for the long player than most, and of course, you can always move up on the tees to get additional variety if so desired.

Pictures and Holes to Note follows (please note, I started on 10, and in the late afternoon, so the sun affects the pictures quite a bit in some cases, sorry) Also of note, no negative comments, yes, I took a cart, it was mandated, Ross Bridge allows no walking, and I took few pictures of greens because in most cases, the contouring was not much of note. There were a few small run-off areas in the front of greens, but these were limited, because, lets just face it, the main defense and draw here is the length.

Holes to note:
Hole #3: Par 4, 470 yards
Long, flat par 4 that plays along the lake and over it off the tee. The bunker in view on the right side is over 315 yards off the tee, so it does not come into play for most golfers, including ones good enough and long enough to play off the back markers.

The best play is to the left of the bunker, but as said before, the bunker is 315 yards from the tee so the player can take aim straight for it and likely take the water out of play.

The problem with aiming for the bunker is that the green is partially obscured, even if the tee shot is hit around 275 yards with a slight draw as this one was.

The look is better for the player who is capable of hitting a shot of about 320 yards off the tee and can thread it between the bunker and the water.

Hole #4: Par 3, 226 yards (note: picture take from 207 yard tees as the shading prevented a good image from the back markers)

This is a very scenic par 3, if not much else. This hole has no doubt been seen any number of other places and probably executed better than here, especially if the designer of a different hole allowed the player a run-up option. But all in all, this is a solid and scenic hole, playing back up towards the resort hotel and the halfway house. Note the run off area in the center of the green, an interesting addition here since the hole is obviously difficult enough without it, but a fair feature.

Hole #7: Par 5, 619 yards
This is a very scenic par 5 and probably the strongest of the 4, which is saying something because the par 5's here are all solid. The hole plays semi-blind off the tee. If the player decides to take his tee shot down the right hand side, he will likely not see where it stops. Up the left gives a clear view of the shot, but given this is a dogleg right, and all ready rather long, the player wouldn't want to go up the left if he could help it.

Of course, if the player could do exactly what he wanted off the tee, he'd likely be playing golf each week on top tier courses while you watched him on your television. The below picture is taken from about 285 yards off the tee, but in the left rough, leaving around 350 yards to the green; the stake you can see perhaps 1/4 the way in from the left side is a 300 yard stake, the first time this writer has ever seen such a yardage marker. Note the flag in the distance and how it would appear there are no hazards between the player and the flag.

Once the player crests over the hill, however, the player is greeted by a minefield of bunkers. The angle of the green prevents the player from knowing how far away from the green the bunkers down the left are (even just now, looking back at the picture I had to look at an aerial view to confirm that these bunkers do, in fact, go all the way to the green) The negative about this hole is that the player really has no chance to go for the green in two shots. The fairway between the bunkers and the rough slopes significantly towards the rough and the trees down below and any shot from 250 +/- yards would likely not be high enough to hold the green, in spite of the green being close to 50 yards deep. If this hole has a weakness, that is the one.

Hole 13: Par 5, 698 yards
This is the longest par 5 on the course and one of the few par 5's a golfer will see that exceeds the USGA maximum recommended length for a par 5, that being 690 yards; this writer does, however find it interesting that par 4's exceed the 470 maximum all the time and are accepted as normal, yet par 3's and par 5's almost never go over the maximum standard. But this plays significantly downhill so as to make it feel a little shorter. As a side note, any men who like to make the lewd joke about playing partners not hitting their tee shot past the "ladies" tee should go ahead and get over that on this hole as the forward tee requires a shot of 295 yards to reach from the back markers. This hole has no hazards in play off the tee, but it plays a significant dogleg to the left, so the player would be advised to play his shot down the center, to right-center of the fairway to avoid having to his a large hook on his second shot.

For the player finding the center of the fairway off the tee, this is the shot that awaits. The bunker on the left is about a 270 yard carry for the player who his a 290-295 yard tee shot. And, as you will notice in the image that follows this one, the best angle to the putting surface comes from a shot that flirts with the bunker as much as possible; this is quite probably the only time anything about angle of approach will be said here.

This shot taken from just over the bunker, looking down to the green. Note how this angle offers the best shot into any of the pin positions, while a second shot winding up down the right hand side would have to carry the bunker to a relatively narrow green were the pin cut on the right portion of the green.

Hole 14: Par 3, 239 yards (picture taken from 219 markers, by this time in the day I had all ready played 58 holes and had a blister on my left foot, I simply did not have the desire to walk back to the back markers as an aerial view of the hole will show they are nowhere close to the cart path)

This is a straight forward hole, as most par 3's are. That being said, it's rather scenic and could certainly be worse. The 15th tee is up on the highest part of the hill that is visible behind the green.

Hole #18: Par 4, 487 yards
And finally we come to the home hole. While it is probably a bit excessive having water running down the entire right side, having to be carried off the tee and on the approach on a 487 yard hole, it still photographs very well. In this writer's time in Alabama so far, he has discovered that Roger Rulewich, the designer of record here and the "real" designer of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, is very capable of making holes that photograph very well, yet they have less substance than many other "ugly" holes that he has played. This coupled with the fact that the Trail courses are typically poorly routed. But, back to the evaluation of the hole, the bunker down the right side might be in play from the tee given that it is 295 yards off the back blocks; the bunker to the right is 350 yards from the tee and this writer can't figure out any legitimate reason for it being there, other than to look cool in a picture. The obvious play from the tee is to get the ball in the fairway that tops out at 75 yards wide, with the preferred line being down the right side.

The shot to the green is very difficult, having to play over the corner of the water, over a bunker and must guard against going long because there is a stream/waterfall behind the green. This writer will freely admit he made no effort to try and hit a ball on the green from the fairway, choosing to basically play the hole as a par 5, hit his second shot in the bunker to the left and try to get up and down from there.

Overall, while there have been limited positive comments about this course in the hole reviews, it really is a solid, and very good, course. The negatives are the routing which is unwalkable for all but the most physically fit individuals even if walking were allowed (I commented to the Pro in the shop after the round that if they allowed walking in the summertime, I thought someone would  die, and I meant it) The course also seems a bit repetitive at times, the par 5's have pretty good variety, but the par 4's all require mid-to-long iron approach shots, with 9 actually requiring 3 metal to reach the green; 9 is the longest par 4 on the course at 518 yards, keep in mind that this writer had played 71 holes in one day by the time he got to #9. Being required to his a 3 metal into a par 4 is not a negative in and of itself, but coupled with several 2 and 3 iron approaches and no approach with less than a 7 iron, it became slightly repetitive. Same goes for the par 3's, tee clubs were 3h, 3h, 2h, 3h. Perhaps a 3 metal shot as well as a 9i-PW shot would have been preferred as well. But all in all, the course was very good. It was very difficult from the back tees, but the width of the course prevented it from becoming a slog. It really is quite playable. This is certainly the best course on the RTJ Golf Trail that I have played so far and probably not to be overtaken.

One other thing I enjoyed, and I know some of my friends will hate it, was the bagpiper who came out at 7pm and played until around 7:30. That was pretty cool, even though I know it's nothing more than a creation of false "atmosphere."

Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Oxmoor Valley and Ross Bridge

June 20th at Capitol Hill didn't work out. One of the courses was closed for green maintenance, so I drove on past there and went to Oxmoor Valley outside of Birmingham. Oxmoor Valley has 2 full length courses and an 18 hole short course. I walked all three courses, which was very difficult. These courses were not designed with walking golfers in mind, not even as an after-thought.

The Ridge course is, as one might expect, designed over the highest ground on the property. It has some extreme elevation changes but had some fairly solid holes. But in general is was nothing special, my overall review was 4 out of 10, which is solid.

The Valley course is much more easily walked. The first hole plays sharply downhill and then 17 and 18 play sharply uphill, but in between, the holes are reasonably flat. Flat enough to be a decent walk. But as is standard, there are sometimes huge distances between green and tee. Once again, course is decent, but nothing special. 4 of 10.

The routing of the short course is even worse than the other two. The hills are really out of hand. The course is decent, but there is a lack of variety in the holes. Not terrible, but not great. 3 of 10.

Ross Bridge, however, was very, very good. There is a decent variety in the holes, doglegs of different directions, straight holes, the par 3's are solid, par 5's are quite nice, and very good variety in the par 4's. Some differing lengths in the par 4's would be nice, such as one or two 300-350 yard holes, and perhaps make one of the par 3's a bit longer and a par 5 longer, but overall, the course was quite nice and varied to be nearly 8,200 yards long from the back tees. This course is, so far, the best on the Trail by a wide margin at 6 out of 10.

Individual reviews upcoming for these with pictures.

As a side note, I did walk the 54 holes at Oxmoor Valley. It was a very good "warm-up" for my Hundred Hole Hike on July 9th. Showed me that I will need to change socks more often than I expected and also change shoes. But in general, my hike should be a major success if I take time to make sure my feet and other body parts are doing well.