Fine Golf» Fine golf, guide to the finest golf courses

New Zealand

Lorne — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:08:31 +0000

Opened in 1895 on the Surrey sandbelt, the New Zealand golf course is a good example of Tom Simpson’s genius in creating strategic challenges to all levels of golfer.

The whole thrust of Simpson’s argument for strategic golf course design was that the running play was the key to the future of the game, but only if firm, fast conditions were retained.

Piltdown

Lorne — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:07:13 +0000

There are not many courses without bunkers, hills or ravines and only 6,000 yards in length that are of a significant enough challenge to justify the FineGolf ‘joy to be alive’ factor but Piltdown is certainly one.

This club has never wanted to be as famous as its ‘Royal’ neighbour, Ashdown Forest GC, or indeed the controversial Piltdown Man, a fossil discovered locally in 1912 that fooled most of the world’s greatest experts for 40 years into believing that a combination of a human cranium and an ape’s jaw was feasible Darwinian proof of a direct link between mankind and the apes.

Notts at Hollinwell

Lorne — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:32:25 +0000

Put alongside the flat Woodhall Spa, Notts vies to be the finest golf challenge in the Midlands, with Lindrick and Northamptonshire County equal third. When Ganton is added, only a little further north, we have the finest trio of inland courses in the British Isles, certainly competing with, if not fully putting into the shade, the wonderful heathland courses on the Surrey and Berkshire sand belt.

If they can develop their ‘fine’ profile, this course could be a wonderful host to The Walker Cup.

Seascale

Lorne — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:50:03 +0000

“We walk here on turf not grass” is a cerebral remark by Ron Brown, the Seascale greenkeeper. When he arrived here 32 years ago, the greens were pure poa annua (meadow grass) following a period of the course being managed by farmers!

Ron, a native of North Berwick, without the use of a large budget, now has greens that are 80% fescue/bent grasses, which provide firm, true, putting surfaces, all the year round.

From the high first green, views of the Isle of Man and the highest mountain in England, Scafell, only a few miles inland, can be enjoyed. This course offers a stunning seascape and I can confirm that it was a complete ‘joy to be alive’ out on this tumbling links.

Yelverton by Dartmoor

Lorne — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:16:38 +0000

Herbert Fowler, of Walton Heath fame, designed this fine moorland course on the edge of Dartmoor.

It is exciting that present-day golf architects, after the artificial bulldozered ‘target’ monstrosities of the 1980s and 1990s, are returning to the philosophy of Fowler’s era, whose most famous quote is “God builds golf links and the less man meddles the better for all concerned”.

A man of fifteen stone and 6′3″ in height, Fowler hit a long ball but put a premium on straightness, accuracy and fairness to all levels of golfer in his designs and this certainly shows at Yelverton.

West Lancashire

Lorne — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:44:45 +0000

The West Lancashire Golf Club at Blundellsands or ‘West Lancs’ in affectionate parlance, holds a special spot in my golfing heart along with Brancaster, Rye, Brora and Southerness, which all give that wonderful dry, shaggy feel of traditional links golf.

Royal Liverpool

Lorne — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:39:57 +0000

One always comes to Royal Liverpool at Hoylake with the warmest of feelings in the knowledge that the Club with such an illustrious history continues to be at the top of its game.

The friendly welcome, the quality of facilities, the professionalism and helpfulness of the staff maintained over time to give the backdrop to historic events and the finest golfing challenge in England, in which I am happy to concur with the revered golf architect, Tom Simpson.

Wentworth bucking fine golf trend

Lorne — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:45:00 +0000

There is an interesting juxtaposition

in this month’s Greenkeeping International magazine whose editorial suggests that perhaps classic golf courses of historical interest should be considered like a listed building, but also containing an article on the new Wentworth that maintains a scrupulously neutral position.

The editor, Scott MacCallum of the in-house magazine of BIGGA, the greenkeepers’ association, was taken around this Harry Colt designed course to see the latest changes Ernie Els is making.

The 100% poa annua (meadowgrass) greens were considered not good enough in May by some professionals playing in the PGA Championship and Wentworth’s millionaire owner, Richard Caring (a two-handicapper), who also owns among other businesses The Ivy and Soho House in London, decided to dig them all up and create a true ‘target’ style of course.

Wentworth's new 1st green

Chris Kennedy, Wentworth’s course manager, is quoted as saying: “Modern equipment, the ball and clubs are designed for a through-the-air game and the new course takes account of this but that means that the opportunity to run the ball in, rather than fly it in, has been removed.”

Many of the greens have been raised, not like at Royal Dornoch but with extra bunkering at the front. The 18th has been made into a television spectacular with a new ‘creek’ running across in front of the green to create “Belfry-like” penal drama. Colt’s routing is the only element of his design that has been preserved.

GI’s article is headed: “Same name, different course”

(When I last played the West course at Wentworth quite a few years ago, it’s nick-name was “The Burma Road” to describe its toughness. A name that I am told was frowned on when Japanese money acquired the estate before Richard Caring.

Pugh and Lord’s well researched book Creating Classics published in 2008 that brilliantly describes Colt’s design heritage, (though they don’t seem to recognise the importance of agronomy to design) heads their Wentworth chapter “Let this be their Burma Road” and comments that Els’ re-bunkering and lengthening up to 2007 “remained true to Colt’s original shot values without loss of character”. It would be surprising if they are still of this view today.)

Wentworth's new 12th green

It sounds to me as though this iconic Harry Colt heathland course, with its wonderful natural strategic design using the movement in the ground, is being replaced by a television driven, artificial, bulldozer created, ‘International’, modern penal, design based on power, the mechanical precision of stopping the ball dead on the correct yardage button and fast putting.

Let’s hope Richard Caring has deep enough pockets to support the high cost maintenance and then Sky viewers can watch our own Augusta ‘target’ spectacular with the television coverage, boringly most likely focused on the tees and the greens, with each commentator vieing for the superlatives to describe how brilliant the players have been in flying the ball to stop on a button next to the flag!

The Dunhill joined The Open being played on ‘fine’ courses but most of the television money over the last twenty-five years has chased ‘target’ courses (that have quite often gone bankrupt a number of times).

To be honest this redesign seems inevitable if this course, that has had ‘target’ poa annua greens for some years, was going to test the Professional’s ‘target’ game and continue to attract PGA tournaments. It lost the World Matchplay, that was started here in the 1960s, (with all those Piccadilly tubed miroirs!) in 2007 and there has been speculation that BMW were considering suggesting a move of the PGA Championship.

But…

Did anybody even consider the option of laying new fescue greens?

This would have allowed some updating to the course without wholesale revision. It would also have been cheaper, with less future maintenance cost and less use of chemicals and water.

Importantly, the professionals’ imaginations and creativity, in having to play the low running fine game, would have been tested and it would have continued the

trend of new money seeking the holy grail of ‘fine golf’,

as seen at Castle Stuart, The Renaissance, Spey Valley and Dundonald Links, all championship courses developed in the last ten years with fine grasses. The new Wentworth is bucking this trend.

It seems that I shall, with much regret, have to consider removing it from the list of 200 ‘fine’ courses in the British Isles and Ireland. What do you think? Do make a comment below.

Historic Woking

Lorne — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:16:38 +0000

As the Old Course at St Andrews has influenced the design of links golf, so Woking’s has influenced the design of heathland golf.

Woking, built in 1893 and designed by Tom Dunn, was the first of the great Surrey heathland courses. Founded by a group of London barristers, the Club in its first years played an enormously important role in the development of English golf.

The new bunkers at Woking in 1901 had seismic implications and ’strategic’ golf architecture was born.

Temple

Lorne — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:28:45 +0000

In recent years Temple GC has been at the forefront of the trend back to sustainable fine golf. This story of restoration, which undoubtedly involved things becoming worse before they improved, is brilliantly chronicled by the then Chairman of Green, Malcolm Peake, in two STRI books “Confessions of a Chairman of Green” and “A Natural Course for Golf”. These two books should be required reading for all Green Committees and indeed all those golfers who like to complain ‘why can’t we have a course like I saw on television ?’

Willie Park Jnr, a double Open champion and architect of nearby Sunningdale Old and Huntercombe, was invited to create this course in 1909, that Donald Steel describes as “challenging enough to keep good players at full stretch without diminishing the enjoyment of the rank and file”…..