I've sat on this for weeks now.
As the resident champion of Rolling Oaks (I don't think I'm sticking my neck out in saying I've played it more frequently than most anyone on here) I watched from both afar and somewhat close with some trepidation as this beloved-by-me golf course went under the knife.
Since conversation about The Roost hasn't quite gotten off the ground, I'll start...
I don't get it.
After playing The Roost I laconically texted another regular on here that it is with great irony that a Tom Fazio golf course in Florida was renovated and somehow removed great uphill approaches and put more water into play.
The golf course is certainly improved but I'm not sure the whole is necessarily better. Or perhaps that's the other way around.
I think it's fair in a renovation to evaluate the subsequent effort through the lens of the previous effort. After all, a golf architect has made a statement about the golfing vaue of the property before and a new one has come in and made a different statement knowing what the previous architect felt or did.
Thus dissecting:
Holes #1 and 2: Definite improvement. The Rolling Oaks opening duo weren't necessarily bad but they weren't particularly noteworthy. The new holes close a few gaps in the routing and push the golfer into the property in a more authoritative manner. I stand on the 3rd tee, now, feeling like the round has started. Previously I only felt like the round was about to begin.
Hole #3: This is, at best, a wash. Pushing the green back to the property line added some distance to appeal to the modern distance requirement. It was a great hole before. The current version is also great.
Hole #4: A step backwards. The Fazio hole had some intrigue at the corner of the dogleg. In the same manner of a William Flynn hole being outside the dogleg and trading some distance for position was ideal. It wasn't obvious strategy. The green also demanded distance control. The current bi-level hole is fine, it's just not a better statement of golf than what was there.
Hole #5: HARD no. Losing the excellent old Par 5 fifth for a long Par 4? Why? It is rare enough that a Par 5 has an interesting second shot but the Fazio version actually had intrigue without flash. The first in a them of the current hole is fine but the previous was also fine. And in context, now we have back-to-back long-ish Par 4s instead of a Drive and Pitch Par 4 and a sometimes reachable with two great shots Par 5.
Hole #6: Another no from me. A driveable Par 4 with a big bunker down the left? I've seen this movie before. But it also replaces a unique hole in the Fazio ouevre. Why replace a unique and dare I say quirky drive and pitch hole that used nice trees to great effect I'm calling this one a loss.
Hole #7: Where the routing begins to divert from Rolling Oaks. This is a reverse of the original 11th hole. This office will regret the loss of the "Umbro" mowing pattern in the fairway but the reverse hole here works just fine. I like it as a hole and it's an improved use of the corridor for golf.
Hole #8: Again jumping around the old Rolling Oaks routing as this was the original 16th. It's, by far, my favorite of the new greens and I am happy the longer yardage was preserved. A favorite.
Hole #9: Once again, the campaign to remove any sort of quirk from the Tom Fazio course marches on. The corridor was the old 17th on Rolling Oaks and gone is the tee shot over the hill leaving a ticklish pitch to a green that fell away from the player. Now we have an okay Par 5.
Hole #10: I recognize that I am in the only one in the Western (and Southern) Hemisphere that liked loved the original 18th at Rolling Oaks. So, my jarring feelings on this hole are indeed quite biased. The table top green is neat.
Hole #11: The original RO 10th. I like the newer version better for a few reasons, not the least of which is the decision to remove the old drainage infrastructure that was buried by Fazio and return open ditches (even ravines!) that restore some of the pre-golf character to the land. As this course ages and Rolling Oaks becomes but a distant memory I suspect these are the kinds of changes which will keep the The Roost in higher esteem than the predecessor course.
Hole #12: Here's where the course loses me. This is a reverse of the Rolling Oaks 15th. I liked the old 15th, especially the difficulty from the tee. This hole... seems to have a lot of ideas. I don't understand the shaping in front of the green at all. It's well-exectued but feels out of place - as though Streamsong decided to become an arboretum.
Hole #13: It certainly is grand from the tee. Going back to my text message - a renovated a Fazio in Florida took out a wonderful uphill all the way Par 4 that required precise decision making off the tee and replaced it with a downhill vista of a golf hole with water in play. Ironic, to say the least. The theme of building good golf holes at the expense of other good-to-great golf holes continues.
Hole #14: It's a great Par 3. It's a great hole. And it's certainly an improvement from Rolling Oaks's 13th in the other direction. However, and I'll take Ran to task here for his rhetoric... we lament that the sink hole was not used effectively in the previous routing but then we make the golfer play over it with a short and high shot as a penal hazard. That's not exactly integrating the sinkhole with the golfer in any strategic sense because...
Hole #15: ...the sinkhole was very much on the mind of any golfer playing from the original Rolling Oaks 12th tee - a candidate for best hole on the Rolling Oaks version of the property. Hole #15 reversed the direction of play and puts all of the uphill nature of the hole under the tee shot. I do like this hole but I liked the old version -and the original routing through this portion of the property- much better.
Hole #16: I once heard the opinion that the original Rolling Oaks 7th was actually the closest hole to the Augusta National feel. Either way, the original 7th was a brutally hard golf hole whose fairway seemed to move after you struck your tee shot. I feel the new hole is the single biggest improvement over the equivalent Rolling Oaks offering apart from the opening two holes Wonderful work all around in shaping, too.
Hole #17: The original 8th with a much needed makeover. I can't help but wonder what if the sensibilities shown on improving the 8th were shown on the rest of the golf course...
Hole #18: I liked the original 9th. I like this one, too. See above statement about sensibilities.
The Roost is a fine golf course and I will return with pleasure. As Rolling Oaks disappears in the rearview mirror perhaps I will soften some of my feelings about what once was. But my current view is that The Roost represents, not so much a golf course, but a collection of ideas to appeal to the modern golfer as though we were ticking off a list of concepts that work well elsewhere. They work well here, too, but do they represent an improvement over what was?