[Tommy_Naccarato]

Well said Darren, well said!

Chip,
While many will tell you that the New is a better course, I find this to be very untrue.

I find that on the Old Course, you are in the best school known to man. It is up to you how much you want to learn, and how much you are going to apply yourself to it, IF you utilize it for exactly what it is--a historic textbook for the game that is both fun and humilitating. Shame on the golfer who goes out there to try to play the round for a silly number. These are exactly the type of people who should be playing the New Course ONLY!

Golf Architecture just doesn't get any better.

Now on the New Course, you will be challenged and even picked and prodded at. Its a fun course, but in my opinion anyone comparing the two just doesn't understand exactly what he or she is looking at in terms of GREATNESS.

Cheers.

[ChipOat]

Darren, Doug and Tommy:

Don't have enough time today to answer in detail BUT:

I don't mean to pick on TOC - even my personal Top 3 (PV, Cypress and Merion) could use some tweaking.  I also want to emphasize that I truly enjoy playing TOC and hope to get in 2-3 rounds there next year.  It's a great experience and has some truly marvelous holes.  Like National, figuring out how to play each hole just adds to the enjoyment.

I also hope to add TOC to the very short list of courses that I've played 15+ times in my life (I've played it 5 times under both ideal and "normal Scottish" conditions).  Since my wife prefers Dornoch to St. Andrews and I'm not permitted to go on golf trips without her, I'm not sure that will ever happen - but I'll try.

However, my own criteria for All World is (from the "championship" tees:

1) At least 9 "knock your socks off" holes (as I define the term, of course).  TOC comes up a tad short on that one.

2) A maximum of 1 hole that leaves me flat from either a strategic or aesthetic perspective.  Only PV and Cypress have zero, IMO.

3) A certain degree of difficulty under benign conditions - this precludes any "breather" holes under my rating system.
I'm surprised at how well I've scored at TOC despite being a lousy putter from outside 30 feet.

4) I PREFER a demanding par 4 finisher but CPC and Pebble are 2 exceptions to that one.

Damn few courses fit my All World criteria - there's certainly less than 10.  Since TOC and St. Andrews are such wonderful golf experiences, I would be thrilled to get to know TOC well enough to further develop my thoughts and review my opinion.  It's a tough job - but somebody's got to do it.

[D. Kilfara]

Chip, you're certainly welcome to form your own personal criteria of what constitutes greatness. I think yours are a bit narrow-minded, but that's my opinion of your opinion, which should mean diddly-squat to you!

My criteria, as I've just explained in the thread about the 11th hole at TOC, tend to emphasize how well a course works for all levels of golfers; I'm a six handicapper who hits the ball more like a 16, and I like a golf course which doesn't beat me over the head while still providing abundant interest. TOC can be plenty challenging to the best golfers in the world, but in benign conditions you can score really well on it if you avoid all of its many hazards. It does so happen that one can avoid all of the hazards by chance, particularly because wayward drives aren't automatically punished (you can easily play 18 holes without finding a bunker or thick rough off the tee), but to steal a concept from yet another thread, your fear factor will ultimately rise once you've had a few bad experiences at TOC, thereby making the entire course more difficult for you.

Anyway, TOC doesn't work for everyone - I think it should, once you get enough exposure to it, but it doesn't. You have spoken, as have I. Vive la difference!

Cheers,
Darren

[ChipOat]

Darren:

A number of overrated courses "work" for me just fine - including TOC.

I'm not tough to please or even to impress, but I AM tough to make awestruck.

TOC pleases me and many of the holes impress the hell out of me.

[Mike Hendren]

Great thread, made even more so by that fact that last week I won a trip to St. Andrews at a fund-raising event my wife and I chaired.  She is finally estopped from preventing my long awaited solo trip to Scotland.  While I'm dying to get to Cruden Bay, this thread, and Tommy's Eden Hole thread have convinced me to stay in St. Andrews and play TOC as many times as possible.  

Sheena and I have already exchanged e-mails.  Dornoch, Cruden Bay, Shiskine, North Berwick and Prestwick will have to wait.  

Bless you Tommy N.

Regards,

Mike

[D. Kilfara]

Great stuff, Mike! Make sure you let us know how it goes once you're done, OK?

[D. Kilfara]

Oh, and Mike, while I'm thinking about it, some practical advice for you: the Links Trust "season" runs from April 1 to March 31, so that's the period that your season pass will be good for regardless of when you purchase it. If you can make it back to St. Andrews before the end of the following March - possibly as part of your "other" Scottish golfing trip to Cruden Bay et al. - you can squeeze in another round or two in St. Andrews effectively for free, as it were. Very handy...and a good excuse for the wife!

Be aware that you'll have to go down to the Links Trust offices in person as soon as you get to St. Andrews to make your application for a season pass - I think they process them then and there, but you have to be there for your photo to be taken. Still, there's something eternally cool about having your own Links Trust photocard in your pocket...

Cheers,
Darren

[John_D._Bernhardt]

Turboe, that is the place. what started out as few pints after a round onYOC ended up in a 8 hour quality drunk. lol Tip hung the whole time.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mike,
For the narrow-minded like myself:) I can only suggest using St. Andrews as a base, and going to all other locales from there. If you feel like going to Carnoustie, go to Carnoustie; if you feel like going to Dornoch, go to Dornoch. and while that may seem a little unrealistic, that is exactly the way I did it back in 96' simply because I don't adhere very well to schedules. I might run into someone at a pub that said, have you ever heard of Lundin Golf Club, and 20 minutes and 3 pints later we were off to Lundin Golf Club. Or, you might meet that smae person walking off the Old Course after caddie duties where he says, "I'm tired of this looping, lets go play a round!" (Again on the Old Course) And I can tell you that those spontaneous rounds are the best in the game!

St. Andrews is the perfect place to let your hair down, so-to-speak. You can be a local with little problem, the people are that kind and friendly. You will meet people that you will want to spend the rest of your life calling "friends."  And do you know what? It is all because of that silly little unused piece of sandy wasteland called Pilmour Links. (The Old Course) where some shepards got the wild idea to start hitting rocks and counting how many times it took to hit them from one end of town, out to the point and back. It brings us all together, here on GCA. Lets us announce our opinions of the world in cyberspace. That silly little piece of sandy waste that some people could never respect as being the blueprint to our inner most passion.

I love St. Andrews, and even more, I love the Old Course.

You undoubtedly will too!

Truely amazing!

[ChipOat]

Tommy:

3 pints in 20 minutes??  I'm impressed.

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Ahh Mike,

I am jealous, and I am happy that you have contacted Sheena.  You will not be dissapointed with the hospitality.  

Please do me a favor when you are there having a pint at the Dunvegan tell Sheena hello for Daryl from South Carolina.  And tell her that last years Christmas card from the Dunvegan is hanging on my office wall right beside me as I type in this message.

Again I am jealous.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Chip,
When I was done, I felt like that Nepalize guy who was trying to outdrink Karen Allen in Raiders of the Lost Ark. (the one who ended up passing-out)

This still didn't prevent me from playing golf.

Actually, I think I have developed a pretty strong resistence to alcohol poisoning, simply by drinking a lot of margaritas. However I can't drink any type of martini. They bring out a side of me that know one would want to know.

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