[Mark Chaplin]

Deal has been/needs to be re bunkered to suit all players. A number of short bunkers have been removed as the course is pretty hard for weaker players and a few short bunkers were an unnecessary punishment and expensive to maintain.

Deal holds up pretty well when we have control of the pin positioning. Given a forecast 20mph prevailing wind the new back tee on the 18th is unplayable and not used, but any links courses requires a little wind to protect it.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I have never been to Deal...

All the love (and those photos) means I'll be making it a priority...

[Noel Freeman]

Deal has been/needs to be re bunkered to suit all players. A number of short bunkers have been removed as the course is pretty hard for weaker players and a few short bunkers were an unnecessary punishment and expensive to maintain.

Deal holds up pretty well when we have control of the pin positioning. Given a forecast 20mph prevailing wind the new back tee on the 18th is unplayable and not used, but any links courses requires a little wind to protect it.

If Deal was to hold an Open again, many of what Mark says could be rectified.

1) #1 Tee could go back easily 40-60 yards
2) #2 Tee could go back to near the boundary fence bringing the bunkers into play.
3) To me #9 defends itself at the green, it is very hard to read, I find it confounding or maybe it is just me
4) Unless the SW is really blowing, hell the second set of cross bunkers on #13 can come into play.. Certainly I've hit into them on a Northerly... I'm not sure if many of the foreign members here have visited as I do in the winter and played that wind.. It was also blowing this past May when I was there..
5) #12 tee could go back over the road as originally intended and play as a cracking long par 4 for low markers.. The club owns the land as well.
6) I see no reason why #15 tee could not be placed 10-15 yards behind the current one.  Also the blind approach and wonky lies on #15 fairway really are the hazard to me and holding that green can be difficult when slippery

David Dobby has always told me that Deal requires fine driving but also it defends itself with unlevel lies and the greens.. A few tee alterations are all that is needed.. Deal is never going to win a beauty contest but there is a reason after all of my travels I joined there..  

Most people live on a placid island of ignorance when it comes to evaluation of golf courses, if it looks pretty or plays near a beautiful place it gets all the kudos in the world (a famous dead architect helps, I note Deal has potentially Dunn, Hunter, Alison, CK Hutchinson, Morrison, Braid, Campbell and Ebert as lineage).  Our memories also make merciful deletions of the warts of any course.. That said, Deal is not pretty, Donald Steel said it reminded him of the Big Country (the novel, not the scottish rock band which was a one hit wonder) in that it required long hitting and was a cruel taskmaster.. Time and equipment changes have softened that view..

But I think Sir Peter Allen and Sir Guy Campbell are impeccable critics when it comes to golf courses and both said Deal was among the best in the world-- Sir Peter Allen singleing it out for a final round..  The only courses in the world (and my portfolio includes 80 of the top 100 which are as for fun to play for me as Deal are Yale (where I am also a member), Royal Melbourne and NGLA..  I'm talking fun, not championship experience (although Royal Mel is certainly full of that).

Sean-- North Berwick?-- Surely if one is to play the final round to a journey with an end, Berwick is not my place.  Quirky yes, but my enthusiam flags for the course around the turn and I do think the Redan is gulp overrated although I love #16..

The Downs (the water area by Deal full of shipwrecks) on an October cobalt blue sky with the sun setting lending pregnant shadows on the course and the larks singing (there is NO place where the larks sing louder) and sit on the sea wall by the 6th green/7th tee.. The white cliffs of Ramsgate in the distance and the outline of the French coast.. Magic..

  

[Mark Chaplin]

And there's me thinking I promote Deal!!

For a big event, you would start at the second, there is already a plan to take the tee back to the fence making the hole around 430, but usually down wind, the green requires a feed rather than a high approach.

The plan to put the tee back on the 5th to 604yds means only the tighest of tee shots down the right along the shelf would bring the green in reach. Anything down the left would hit into a big upslope and pull up leaving 280yds, uphill and blind.

As I said yesterday I agree with the idea of some low humps in the RHS semi on 9 to encourage a drawn tee shot holding the fairway. off the new back tee at Easter only 1 person hit the green in two and few made the fairway such was the wind and no run.

The first played as the last could ideed go back (up to 100yds) at around 450yds - taking it back 60 yds - the drive would be at the narrowest point to OOB to leave 150 yards to the green. Lay up to take OOB out and you've 170 over a stream with a big contoured green so two putts would not be a certainty.

Deal isn't pretty compared with lots of links courses, there are no stunning views or high dunes. The reason it attracts good players and many GCA'ers as a first or second club is honest high quality links golf, traditional values and a good club atmosphere.

[Noel Freeman]

And there's me thinking I promote Deal!!

For a big event, you would start at the second, there is already a plan to take the tee back to the fence making the hole around 430, but usually down wind, the green requires a feed rather than a high approach.

The plan to put the tee back on the 5th to 604yds means only the tighest of tee shots down the right along the shelf would bring the green in reach. Anything down the left would hit into a big upslope and pull up leaving 280yds, uphill and blind.

As I said yesterday I agree with the idea of some low humps in the RHS semi on 9 to encourage a drawn tee shot holding the fairway. off the new back tee at Easter only 1 person hit the green in two and few made the fairway such was the wind and no run.

The first played as the last could ideed go back (up to 100yds) at around 450yds - taking it back 60 yds - the drive would be at the narrowest point to OOB to leave 150 yards to the green. Lay up to take OOB out and you've 170 over a stream with a big contoured green so two putts would not be a certainty.

Deal isn't pretty compared with lots of links courses, there are no stunning views or high dunes. The reason it attracts good players and many GCA'ers as a first or second club is honest high quality links golf, traditional values and a good club atmosphere.

Oh Chappers--

I dispute you on two levels my friend..

1) I don't like Ebert's idea, not from the strategy viewpoint but from an aesthetic.  I think the mounds (unless so subtle) will look wholely artificial as such an architectual device needs artistry of the highest caliber

2) Deal does have great views.. #7 seawall tee, #9 tee, # 11 tee and to my eyes the look down the 16th fairway from the 2nd shot!

[Scott Warren]

I'm with Noel on the mounds and the aesthetics.

If you can't see the beauty in the terrain of 3, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16 and 17 you must have a screw loose.

Re: the sea: you get glimpses from 3 tee, 4 tee, 5 tee, 6 green, 7 seawall tee, sections of 16, 17 fairway and 18 tee.

[Jamie Barber]

Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but I doubt we'll see another Open venue in Kent. RSG fits the bills in terms of the course and the infrastructure. I don't think Deal has the space (despite Mark's assertion that the "sea wall will be the best grandstand" ).

Personally I think Deal or Prince's could re-host (with some reworking of course). I know Deal can be stretched and there is even more room at Prince's, but I just can't see the R&A adding another course.

I had a quick 9 at Prince's today, pretty much straight off the plane from Muscat. Some smoke at RSG attracted my attention on the way out. The rough to the right of the 9th tee and down the right of 13 will be a little thinner!! Two fire engines were in attendance but the grass is tinderbox dry after weeks without rain.

[Sean_A]

I had a quick 9 at Prince's today, pretty much straight off the plane from Muscat. Some smoke at RSG attracted my attenion on the way out, looks like the rough to the right of 13 will be a little thinner!! Two fire engines were in attendance:

Jeepers!  Perhaps I forgot to stomp me cigar.

Scott & Tuco

Now I know you have Deal Disease.  To call Deal a place with good views is more than just a reach - and ahem, quite a bit different from saying "the beauty...".  That said, the course is far from ugly.  Its lovely to see guys acting as if they just had their first kiss and yet not having a clue at the delights beyond the kiss. 

I am not sure mounding is the answer for the 9th.  Why not just widen the fairway?

Ciao

[Scott Warren]

Sean,

I never said it had views to rival NSWGC or St Enodoc. It's the flat, stinky, brown English channel. Not sexy. My point is that you get to see it much more than people often think or say.

Internally, I maintain it's a beautiful links course.

[Jamie Barber]

It's the flat, stinky, brown English channel.

Oi, it's our English Channel and we're proud of it. If it wasn't there, we may be a nation of cheese-eating surrender monkeys, to quote a famous Scot's "greenkeeper".

Actually the waters of Sandwich Bay can look blue and quite lovely in the sunshine, like today.

[Scott Warren]

I was just being cheeky. It does offer views of France, which still gives me a thrill. Where I am from seeing another country requires a 3hr plane trip!

[Noel Freeman]

Call me crazy but this view is beautiful to me... And that is me and Jeff Silverman on the 5th tee-- btw, I had just eagled 3 and birdied 4..



And the water off Deal can be very BLUE...

[Brent Hutto]

Hey, the water is always a gorgeous azure and the sun is shining when you've just gone eagle-birdie.

[Mark Chaplin]

Jamie we'd be Krauts, the surrender monkeys would have beaten us years ago but come WW1 the French would have been waving their white hankies over the white cliffs and we'd have become German. Therefore there would't have been a WW2 so maybe beating the French did the world a dis-service all those years ago!

Noel - modest as ever!! 

[Scott Warren]

Reminds me of that great fake classified advert: "For sale, WW2-era French Army rifle. Never fired, dropped once."

[Bill_McBride]

Reminds me of that great fake classified advert: "For sale, WW2-era French Army rifle. Never fired, dropped once."

Or this query:  "How does the French admiral review the fleet?"

In a glass bottomed boat!   

[Mark Woodger]

oh how i love a good converation about Deal. I played what is currently my annual round there on Tuesday of this week whislt back in the UK and what a delight it was. As Sean also mentions we had the wind in the opposite direction to the prevailing wind. I can assure you Sean it is normally the other way but it was a treat to play it with a pleasant breeze as was the case on tuesday. It was really rolling with my father being particularly unlucky with balls rolling into the rough and not finding them.

My observations from Tuesday game were as follows:
1) The greens were great, very true and quick but not unpleasently fast. As always i loved the undulations. On this trip i also notice some more subtle breaks on the greens that i had missed in the past. Almost to the point there there were no straight putts and i like that.
2) Did not notice the new sea wall tees and to me that speaks to how well they have been blended in. Or maybe i was just day dreaming 
3) I actually really like the par threes on the course. Particularly 14 with the bunkers on one side and the fall away on the left making accuracy a premium if you are trying to make the green vs land shot and roll up. and with 4 i like the slight change in angle from holes 3 and 5 adding another part to the shot selection process
4) 10 a hole that looks straight forward but i find picking the line off the tee the hardest part. too far left and you are in the real hay and too far right there are bunkers and a fall away into the rough. not visually easy in my opinion.
5) In some places the rough was brutal and could probably do with being cut back for the average golfer but i beliive they have a big comp there in a few weeks (tillman trophy) so they may just have the rough up for that.

Regarding the comments on 9 and how the drive over the bunker gives you the 2nd shot over the bunkers i don't think those bunkers come into play too much as i think there is a decent amount of space behind them before the green to land a second shot in if the pin is on the left side of the green.

glad you all enjoy the course.
mark

[Mark Chaplin]

Mark after all this time did I let you go in front of us on the first in the afternoon and not meet for the first time??

[Mark Woodger]

Mark after all this time did I let you go in front of us on the first in the afternoon and not meet for the first time??

no that would not have been me Mark. I was on the tee at 7am. Unfortuantely i had to work in the afternoon so i was not able to stick around and spend the day.

[Mark Chaplin]

That's keen! We played on Tuesday at 1050 shame our paths didn't cross, let me know when you are next over.

[Noel Freeman]

Jamie we'd be Krauts, the surrender monkeys would have beaten us years ago but come WW1 the French would have been waving their white hankies over the white cliffs and we'd have become German. Therefore there would't have been a WW2 so maybe beating the French did the world a dis-service all those years ago!

Noel - modest as ever!! 

It doesnt matter chappers, I went out in 35 that day and home in 45... 80 with an eagle/birdie combo is not so hot..

Curiously of the 10 Eagles in my life, 5 are at Deal (#3 2x, #16 2x and #10)..

[Sean_A]

The fairway corridors average 45 yards so the premium on driving isn't extreme.

Chappers

I just noticed this line and have to wonder if you really believe 45 yards (which is essentially the width of the corridors because a wall of rough meets the fairways on many holes) is wide enough considering wind and keen conditions?  I don't think so and this has been an ongoing battle with links in general.  Corridors are narrowing because rough isn't properly controlled.  IMO, 45 yards is fairly narrow most links should have at least 60 yard corridors.  The configuration of light rough/fairway is what should change depending on location and slope of the land. BTW, I feel the same anout parkland courses with mature trees lining fairways or heathland courses with trees and heather lining fairways.  Playing St Georgess Hill and comparing it to the other heathland courses convinced me of this.  Plus, saying the fairways average 45 yards wide isn't quite the same when bunkers are on the wings and corners of fairways.  I fear you have totally fallen for the trap of setting up courses for players who show up once a year rather than for the regular Joe markers who play the course day in and day out.  Say it ain't so.

Ciao

[Mark Chaplin]

I fear you have totally fallen for the trap of setting up courses for players who show up once a year rather than for the regular Joe markers who play the course day in and day out.  Say it ain't so.

Sean the average Joe is about 60 hits it straight down the middle and loves the run to give him some length. He hates seeing his younger mate who flashes it a bit wandering into the rough and having a simple short shot to the green. The chap who turns up once a year wants it wide not narrow!

[Scott Warren]

IMO, 45 yards is fairly narrow most links should have at least 60 yard corridors.

Sean,

Jump on GoogleMaps and measure the corridors at your beloved St Enodoc and Prince's. Many of the corridors at those two courses max out at 40-45 yards.

I just got back from Deal and after hearing the story of narrowing after my most recent round there, I was keen to have a good look today. It is definitely narrower than it was last summer, but it is still far wider than many other links.

Add to that the generally low, whispy rough to the right of 3-9 and to the left of 15-17.

There are some vicious spots in the rough, so I'd guess a visitor's perception of how bad Deal's rough is will greatly depend on where they hit their bad shots and on which side they hit them.

But as for the corridor widths, I think you are marking Deal very tough there, not to mention this being an example of where your broad principles of what makes for good golf not always matching up with the courses you love.

[Sean_A]

IMO, 45 yards is fairly narrow most links should have at least 60 yard corridors.

Sean,

Jump on GoogleMaps and measure the corridors at your beloved St Enodoc and Prince's. Many of the corridors at those two courses max out at 40-45 yards.

I just got back from Deal and after hearing the story of narrowing after my most recent round there, I was keen to have a good look today. It is definitely narrower than it was last summer, but it is still far wider than many other links.

Add to that the generally low, whispy rough to the right of 3-9 and to the left of 15-17.

There are some vicious spots in the rough, so I'd guess a visitor's perception of how bad Deal's rough is will greatly depend on where they hit their bad shots and on which side they hit them.

But as for the corridor widths, I think you are marking Deal very tough there, not to mention this being an example of where your broad principles of what makes for good golf not always matching up with the courses you love.

Scott

Rough is always a thing of the day.  Sometimes its up and sometimes it isn't.  But it seems as though rough is up far more than it used to be 20 years ago.  The difference in the main at Princes is they have many areas of old fashioned proper whispy rough.  For sure there are areas which are out of control, but in general I could go into the rough, find my ball quickly and kick on.  However, on the second day with cross winds, the corridors couldn't handle it.  This is the fault of the course owners, not golfers.  Its no secret I play more more winter golf because I hate rough and will always struggle to comprehend why people want to grow it.  Its right up there with planting gorse, willow trees and practically any kind of evergreen/fir tree.  I have no time for that nonsense on a golf course. 
 

I would also make the point that fairway corridors should be dependent on the type of course.  Hilly, tree/heather-lined, dune lined and humpty bumpty courses need wider fairways to cope with summer keenness and wind.  It is only my opinon, but I think most links should be widened and Deal would be included in most links.  I understand the penchant for "championship" difficulty, I just don't agree wiith it.  I can't recall the last time I enjoyed looking for a ball.  That said, Deal is clever to keep two ball play because it does help keep things moving even in difficult conditions.  Don't tell Chappers, but I played with a guy who's handicap is so high he isn't even close to qualifying for one - tee hee.  We were a bit slow, but considering the rough, I thought getting a 50 capper round Deal in 3:30 wasn't bad at all. 

Ciao

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