[Jud_T]

Tom,

I have played the 14th at Lost Dunes 3 times.  It was my last selection and frankly I wanted one of your holes on my course.  I wanted to draft LD #4 earlier but it got snagged.  I know it's not your best hole but I like the scenic elevated tee shot and the water threatening the approach always made me a bit leary, as well as a decent green if I recall correctly...I'm a bit sentimental about Lost Dunes as not only was it the first one of your courses I had played but the day I had arranged to go out it was 40 and drizzly, my partner cancelled and I was literally alone on the course: they locked up and told me to let myself out.  Needless to say I got 27 in.  So give me a pass for a buttboy moment!

[Mac Plumart]

Eric...

HEY, my run up shot on the island green 17th at Secession yielded par!!!!!

My short game is BRILLIANT!!!! 

FYI...it was a total blast!!!!  Thanks Joel!!

[Chip Gaskins]

  I had noticed how panelists make these big trips and play every course once and rush on to the next, and if they don't play a hole well they can't remember it.  Just curious -- how many people picked a hole for this draft which they have only played ONCE?

Tom-  

Not for you, but for the rest of us, its hard enough to get on some of these great courses one time, more less ask to stay and play....   "Hey, thanks for the invite to play Oakmont but do you mind if stay in your guest bedroom and play again tomorrow, preferably with the super, pro, or club champion?"  That just isn't reality for most of us, so we take what we can get.

I only picked holes I had played.  I picked 9 holes that I only played once. I am sure that puts me even further in the unworthy category.  Though I do usually take 3-4 pictures of every hole I play (except for Piping Rock) and then talk about them in our rush to play another course or at dinner that night.

I saw you picked Crystal Downs #6.  At the risk of solidifying my cellar dwelling spot in this exercise....but I thought #6 was the most pedestrian hole on the course (maybe #4).  A fairly simple drive out to the left to clear the tree and a fairly short iron to a somewhat uninteresting green (at least by Crystal Downs standards).

Tee shot:


Green:


Respectfully,
Chip

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

Very interesting comments, I think they were all done in the fun spirit of the competition and I can't disagree with the hole I got called out on.  I admit I was coming up blanks for a great 1st hole and Pac Dunes was the best I could think of at the time....perhaps I just choked!!   

P.S.  Tim I did think about using the 1st at Ballyneal but in my opinion I think the 1st at Pacific Dunes is better.

[Sean Leary]

Too bad Mayhugh NEVER travels to play great courses....What a waste. 

I was fortunate to play in The Renaissance Cup at Tumble Creek a few years back. If invited and doable, it is not to be missed.

[Emil Weber]

Tom,

what's wrong with the 17th at SAB? I thought it's a great hole and suitable for a 17th.

I agree with the 12th though, I think it's the weakest hole at SAB

[Tom_Doak]

Emil:

I've never gotten to play the darned course since it opened, so you might know better than me.  We struggled in construction to get the central fairway bunker in the right place, and I was afraid the hole was going to be a short par-5 that if you didn't hit two perfect shots, left you a third to a green that was hard to see.  The green itself is pretty cool, and that bunker over the back left of the green, down a tightly-mowed slope, is one of the nastier hazards I've ever built.

But I still can't imagine it is one of the best 17th holes on earth.

[Tom_Doak]

I saw you picked Crystal Downs #6.  At the risk of solidifying my cellar dwelling spot in this exercise....but I thought #6 was the most pedestrian hole on the course (maybe #4).  A fairly simple drive out to the left to clear the tree and a fairly short iron to a somewhat uninteresting green (at least by Crystal Downs standards).

Tee shot:


Green:


Respectfully,
Chip

Chip:

I've never actually played Oakmont -- but I've walked it four times, and I'll bet I know it much better than most panelists.  Maybe at a top-ten course like that, they wouldn't let you out there to walk around it before or after you played -- but 99% of courses would, and you'd know them a lot better if you did.

Like Crystal Downs.  I assume that you have only played it once, too, and so you are relying on some of your pictures for your memory of it, because you don't remember it that well.  For starters, the green is one of the most interesting and severe on the course ... it's divided left and right by a rolling spine, and then has front and back quadrants within each half.  Downwind, the tee shot is not so hard [if you don't play it from the back tee, which is 35 yards behind where you took your picture], and you can try to attack the correct quadrant of the green in order to have a birdie try [or at least avoid 3-putting].  But into the wind, which is fairly often, the tee shot is an absolute bear, and if you don't get it to the top of the slope you have to try to play a long iron or hybrid off a steeply uphill lie.

You are welcome to come back and play the hole sometime, and I'll gladly swallow your green fee if you use the word "pedestrian" again after playing this hole.  In the meantime, thanks for making my point about how panelists can't remember things very well.

[Patrick Hodgdon]

There were only two posters [besides me] who failed to pick a hole that I thought was a clunker -- Sean Arble and John Mayhugh.  Congrats to both.  Sean picked three holes I haven't seen, but I like the rest of his choices so much that he just put Beau Desert near the top of my list of courses to see.  And since neither of them stooped to picking a hole from one of my courses, I will have to call it a tie.  Thus, both will receive an invitation to this year's Renaissance Cup, once we decide where it will be.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Since when is a competition like this won with a "these two had no clunkers..." line??!?!? So you are saying someone else could have had the other very best 17 holes in the world but one bad one and therefore lost. The courses should clearly be rated for some combination of world class holes, mix of styles and designers, and then it should be factored in on whether they had a clunker in there.

If the "winners" are going to be decided by something simple and not complex (like rating 5 or 6 aspects of the dream courses) it should in my humble opinion be decided on how many 10 out of 10 world class holes they had and not based on 1 bad one.

Just my .02 since though since I finished without an invite.  

[Jim Colton]

Having been shamed publicly for picking the 15th at Bandon (at the advise of fellow competitor Wyatt Halliday), I'm switching it to the 15th at Kingston Heath.

Below is a routing for my composite course.  It should all be to scale, although I had to take some liberties on the direction of the holes to make them fit.  Hey, it's my dream!

We've had Ballysnoop...now behold Ballydre!

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

You should know better than to listen to Wyatt.  And it's AMAZING that the 15th at Kingston Heath went through the entire draft unpicked ... I guess we didn't have many Aussies participate.  [For that matter, nobody picked the 11th at Yarra Yarra or the 16th at Royal Melbourne (East), two more slam-dunk great par-3's.]

Patrick:

I took it for granted that nobody else snagged all of the greatest holes in the world.  Most of the holes taken were very, very good ones, and I did not think it made any sense to go through and try to rate all of them with 8's, 9's and 10's.  You are welcome to try if you are prepared to defend every single rating for the next two weeks.

[Patrick Hodgdon]

Patrick:

I took it for granted that nobody else snagged all of the greatest holes in the world.  Most of the holes taken were very, very good ones, and I did not think it made any sense to go through and try to rate all of them with 8's, 9's and 10's.  You are welcome to try if you are prepared to defend every single rating for the next two weeks.

Tom,

I know it would have been both a lot more work and a lot harder to try and parse which holes were 10's and which were 9's and 8's.

But it would have been more fun to know if you "won" by selecting 8-9 say World class holes (My contenders I thought were #2,#3,#4,#5, #7, #9,#11#12,#14, #16, #17) and then subtracted any "duds" from that number. And since you've played ~90% or so of these holes you could have been one of the very few individuals that could do it. (Although your time would obviously be much better spent, say routing that new FL golf course.  )

Just chalk it up to me being miffed at having Bandon #10 selected as a dud when I thought it was a sleeper short-4 that Ran compares in his review to the 10th at Riviera.

But for someone who had the handicap of only having played 1 of the holes on his dream course (Pasatiempo) I should have expected to drop the ball at least once if not twice (and you probably could have picked another if not that one) when selecting the best 18 holes possible. 

[JC Jones]

You can chalk up Patrick's being miffed to the drubbing he took at Jones-Hodgdon III.

[Eric Smith]

You can chalk up Patrick's being miffed to the drubbing he took at Jones-Hodgdon III.

Where was that btw? 

[John Mayhugh]

Too bad Mayhugh NEVER travels to play great courses....What a waste. 

The holes that I picked that I had only played a single time were:
7th at Rye
9th at Maidstone
11th at Belvedere
12th at Swinley Forest
13th at West Sussex
18th at Capilano (with Sean Leary, honor bar in the clubhouse afterwards)

[Patrick Hodgdon]

You can chalk up Patrick's being miffed to the drubbing he took at Jones-Hodgdon III.

I played well and was very happy with my score. You played even better when you factor in the 10 shots I had to surrender. If you had offered me playing as well as I did and losing the match or shooting 10 shots worse and winning I would have chosen the former everytime. It was great we both played well. Good win.

The only problem with today's match is figuring out how we might top it in IV.  

[JC Jones]

Change my #15 at Oakmont to #15 at Seminole

[Tim Bert]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Since when is a competition like this won with a "these two had no clunkers..." line??!?!?

I think the answer to your question is "Since Tom Doak dished out two invitations to the Renaissance Cup."

Or we could do like they do in sports and grade school these days and pretend -  "Everyone did a great job and we all had special drafts in one way or another.  We're all winners!"

Congrats to John and Sean!! 

[Patrick Hodgdon]

Oh boy, Tim laying the John Rawls 'Self-Esteem' philosophy down on us GCA folk. My bad guys everyone had a great draft, congrats to John and Sean on their 'wins.' Dibs on first alternate for the Renaissance Cup if John or Sean don't go.

[Ronald Montesano]

There was a contest?

[Garland Bayley]

There was a contest?

Had I known there was a contest, I would have had to sign up and pick from the holes I have played. Tom said that #12 has a weak set of candidate. Well my 12th is a great hole I think anyone would have appreciated. It would have been the 12th at Juniper in Redmond, OR. Tom couldn't have called that one a clunker! My 16th would have been the 16th at Hideout in Monticello, UT. Why Kalen didn't choose it or another of the best holes there for his Utah hole I don't know. Tom wouldn't have called it a clunker either. You get the drift, Tom wouldn't have called any of my holes a clunker.  Maybe I wouldn't have gotten the invite because I wouldn't pander to him and put any of his holes in my dream course. Oh wait, I haven't played a Doak so following the choose from what I've played paradigm would have prevented me from choosing any of his holes. 

[Cristian]

I have played 4 holes on my list multiple times:

 
1 5 - 490 - Haagsche
2 4 - 420 - Royal St Georges  
9 4 - 480 - Royal County Down
15 4 - 395 - Haagsche

6 holes only once:

7 4 - 430 - Morfontaine
8 3 - 180 - St George's Hill
10 4 - 495 - Pasatiempo
12 5 - 570 - Royal Ashdown
17 4 - 400 - Ballybunion (Old)
18 3 - 160 - Pasatiempo

And 8 holes have come from my must play list/ Ran's reviews/ TV and Kevin's final frontier posts:

3 3 - 180 - Pine Valley
4 4 - 400 - Old Macdonald  
5 4 - 355 - Crystal Downs  
6 4 - 390 - Pine Valley
11 3 - 170 - MPCC (Shore)
13 4 - 365 - Cypress Point  
14 4 - 420 - Augusta National
16 4 - 430 - Old Macdonald

So in which group is/are my clunker(s)?

By the way I was disgusted to see personal favourites, which I did not expect to go so early, like 1st Machrihanish, 13th County Down, 16th Deal being picked just before I wanted to do so.....Also if the routing would have permitted it, I would have loved to include De Pan 6, 8, Portrush 8, 13 and El Saler 17, 18 as well as Walton Heath Old no. 5, and Zoute 10 but I'll save those for next winter....

It was great fun anyway though, so thanks Jim for all the hard work as commissioner!

[Garland Bayley]

Is this the longest, non-contentious thread ever?

[Ronald Montesano]

Merion...

[Garland Bayley]

Merion...

You would not call Merion threads contentious?

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