Interesting read, and I'm very glad that the GW review of Dismal River-Red spawned a 12-page, 300-post tread that seems to have kept pretty much to topic. I might have read it sooner and been tempted to comment earlier but for the fact that I was away on a much-needed break - though looking at golf courses, this time in Northern Scotland.
Having been doing this for a very long time, including what I think is 125 or so Raters Notebooks since the first one in late-2001, I am always worried about repeating myself or contradicting myself. For example, on the matter of a mile+ hike to the first tee (and back from the 18th green), I think my view is that on some courses it's worth it and other times an indulgent excess. It all depends upon what sits at the end of the road. There's no more exciting ride in golf than an early morning trip from the cabins at Sand Hills on the Dismal River (yes, the do use the river there!) a mile+ to the first time. Yet there's another another course, name escapes me, in northern Michigan, part of Boyne something, where roughly the same distance trip ends up being a waste of space and time.
I was very careful in that Dismal River-Red review not to compare it to Sand Hills. If someone is ridiculous enough to equate a single vote with an aggregate of multiple raters, then that's their problem and one of basic logic, not mine. As editor of the whole list and someone who monitors it I am not there in those reviews to report what the raters think -- that's the purpose of the annually published lists. In the case of Dismal River-Red the No. 39 ranking on the Modern list was the product of 17 votes. Contrary to what one or two posters seemed to suggest, we don't have a time line or waiting period for inclusion, just 15 votes. Usually those early votes are eagerly positive and it takes a while for a course to find its natural level once it gets in the neighborhood of 30 or more votes. Often that's a downward slide. But in other cases, as more raters see a place it climbs slowly or steadily. That was the case with Calusa Pines. If my vote was higher than what the raters cumulatively gave it that's because I thought more highly of it. But I disagree with them on some courses and agree with others. Nobody gets disciplined for disagreeing -- though we do monitor raters who indiscriminately hand out boatloads of 8s and 9s, just as i will ask raters to reconsider if all they give out is 3s, 4s and 5s. As for self-censorship or them following my own votes, I can't help if that happens. All I can do is adhere to the criteria and ask people to register their own judgments that help them make sense of what they are seeing.
I think the review is pretty well self contained. Okay, I erred on the distance of the entrance road -- it was 17 miles, not 27. But it still seemed ten miles too long.
The discussion of blind and double-blind shots was fascinating. For me, the problem of such routing schemes that allow for is not simply that you can't see where to aim or where the landforms are going; I also think an important issue is that once you get to multiple blind landing areas you start losing the sense of thrill involved in watching the ball roll out. And on the firm open fairways of prairie or links golf that's such a big part of the game and it can start to get lost.
I really welcomed Richard Choi's brief but revealing observation about not enjoying most caddies. As a former looper at multiple levels I find most caddies get in the way and tell me little more of the shot alignment than I can usually figure out by myself -- or that I'd like to try figuring out for myself. Sure, they can be very helpful reading greens. But when it comes to reading shots and holes and land I want to have that for myself and enjoy a golf course where there is something interesting to interpret or figure out -- what I call a literate golf course. And what most intrigued me about Dismal River-Red was not so much the definition of distinct options for getting from green-to-tee via path "A" or "B" but that each shot, each line, had consequences that you had to deal with and figure out.
I think Doak and his design/build team and Don Mahaffey and Chris Johnston have done a great job of making Dismal River a place that's worth visiting an staying out. What used to be a lone course to play 9with the White) is now a destination in its own right that deserves to be taken seriously. What used to be a curious stopover on the Nebraska Trail is now a place on the golf map with its own unique virtues and sense of place. Thus the "9."
If people want to turn that into the basis for a Kabbalistic torture signaling the course as better than or next to or a successor to some other, you are free to, but it's not what such a review is all about.
As for the "Dr." thing, I never use it or claim it but factually it's not improper, though it derives from a Ph.D. in a field (political science) whose utility in golf course architecture is not central, though it has proven helpful when it comes to land use issues, politics, regulation and the economy. I'd had worse nicknames.