Seminole Golf Club, Florida, USA   

Seminole's inspired setting with the Atlantic Ocean in the background.

'A good golf course . . . is not necessarily a course which appeals the first time one plays it, but one which grows on the player the more frequently he visits it,' proclaimed Alister MacKenzie. This principle holds particularly true to seaside courses, as no assessment of the design is complete without experiencing the course in all directions and strengths of wind. If the architect has done his job, the course will be a joy and challenge to play in the various conditions.

Bob Jones once said of St. Andrews, ' The more I studied the Old Course, the more I loved it; and the more I loved it the more I studied it.' The same could be said for David Eger, the 1988 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, and Seminole. Eger first played Seminole in the late 1970s and thought the course to be just fair, but his dozens of subsequent rounds have him now convinced of the course's greatness. As Jones might have added, the sure test of one's fondness of a course is to play it in competition. Eger has done just that at Seminole, capturing the Club's George Coleman Invitational (reserved for the country's leading mid-amateurs and senior amateurs) twice in the 1990s.

Seminole provides further testament to Donald Ross's talent. As many have observed, the genius behind Seminole lies in its routing. The course occupies a flat-bottomed bowl set between a high ridge of dunes to the west and the dunes along the Atlantic Ocean to the east. In the middle lie the necessary ponds to handle the drainage. Somehow Ross managed to have 14 holes touch these two lines of dunes (the 1^st, 8^th, 9^th and 10^th do not). Like Merion, Seminole is a course where one would be hard pressed to come up with a superior routing.

To design a course that reflected and complimented the sweep of this sandy property, Ross used bunkering that was not typical of his other work. Instead of the more standard low-profile bunkering, Ross used flashed-face bunkers that look like they belong more on a George Thomas course than on a Donald Ross work. Some have speculated that the different look of the bunkers is largely the 1960s work of Dick Wilson, but a recently unearthed photograph by Geoff Shackelford of the fifth hole from the 1920s disproves this theory (once and for all!).

Unlike some architects, Ross was not hell-bent on pulling Hole 44C from his desk drawer and forcing it onto the property. A player does not walk around here saying 'Oh, here is where Ross borrowed the so-and-so concept from this-and-that club.' True, the 18^th hugs the land in a similar fashion to 3-5 at Royal Dornoch, but one of Seminole's most enduring aspects is that it is an original. Much in the same manner as a Pine Valley or National Golf Links of America, it reminds you of no other course.

Holes to Note

4^th hole, 450 yards: This strong two-shotter runs along the crest of the dunes on the western part of the property and in that regard is reminiscent of the 4^th at Rye. Aside from its length, the primary feature of the hole is the cross bunker that juts out into the fairway some 30 yards short of the green and is the start of a series of bunkers that works its way up to the left side of the green. Eger calls this first bunker one of the greatest in the game as it plays so well regardless of the wind direction. But how could a bunker a full 30 yards shy of the green be so important? Into the wind, the hole plays like a gambling par five, as the player is confronted with the decision of whether he can carry this bunker with his second. If he decides not to do so, he must lay back a full 100 yards, providing just further incentive to risk a bold second. With the wind helping, the player needs to land his approach well short of the green, not too far over the bunker. An eclectic list of the world's best 18 holes is remiss in not including this one.

The great sprawling bunkers that come out to greet the golfer on the 4th.

6^th hole, 385 yards: Perhaps the mystery of this hole is what appealed to Mr. Hogan so much. The left-to-right angle of the green and its bunkering would suggest that the left side of the fairway is the best way to attack the green. The player is foiled, though, as the left side slopes to the right, making it quite difficult to position the drive there and perhaps undesirable because of the awkward stance. The alternative is to play the hole down the right, which affords one a level stance for his approach. However, there is little margin for error from that side as the green is set at such a diagonal that it is quite shallow from that angle of attack. Eger notes its similarity to the 14^th at Muirfield Village in that it is that rare approach where distance and direction carry equal importance. With the hole in the back of the green, the player in the right half of the fairway wonders if the hole is indeed on the green as all he can see is a flagstick in a sea of sand.

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