[DBE]

I have played a few nine hole courses that are good.  These would include:  The Dunes, New Buffalo, MI; Asherwood, Carmel, IN; Madison GC, Madison, NJ; and White Oak Plantation (Cedar 3squared), Yulee, FL.  Surely there are other notable nine hole courses in the US.The Dunes is the best copy of Pine Valley I've ever seen.  There are no tee markers.  The winner of the previous hole selects where play from the next hole begins.  The two par threes can be played between 120 and 220 yards, the par fours between 330 and 450 yards and the two par fives between 480 and 550 yards.  There are many intimidating tee shots but the second time around you know there is lots of room in the fairways.  Greens are undulating, but fair.  Most difficult hole for me was the first.  Tight looking straight par four.  Tough to me because of the "no warm up rule".  It's been there ten years and is only ten minutes from Lost Dunes. If you can get on, it will be one of the neatest experiences ever.  If you can find it, you could hire yourself out as a guide for Tarzan.  Michigan has some wonderful courses and a perfect day would be The Dunes in the morning and Lost Dunes in the afternoon.  By the way, it shouldn't take more than three hours for a two-ball to play 18 holes there and there are no carts--caddies only.

[TEPaul]

Why only nine holes? Private or Public? Who are the people behind it and who is the designer? Thanks

[TEPaul]

David;     Having been with the USGA you would probably know if a regulation golf course used no tee markers as at The Dunes, could the course be rated and sloped and could a player turn in a score for handicap purposes sans any tee, slope or rating inclusion?

[DBE]

The Dunes is very, very private.  There are only 70 members.  $28k initiation/$4800 annual dues.  Started by a Chicagoan by the name of Mike Keiser--yep, the same guy behind Bandon Dunes.They are a Chicago District GA member club.  The CDGA rated the course from the middle of the various tees where they placed their metal disks.  The ratings can always be adjusted using a table (on page 26 of the USGA Handicap manual) that explains how much to add or subtract to the ratings for the nearest set of rated tees based on the yardage difference. The player would have to manually input their course and slope rating into the computer.  This is a fairly common occurance for good women golfers that play the men's tees.

[DBE]

Whoops, third glass of wine--Dick Nugent, also based out of Chicago, designed the course.

[David Staebler]

I have played Madison and Asherwood.  Madison is old, tight and a somewhat crowded by mature trees.  The greens are small and the shot values are wonderful. The 9th is the longest par 4 on the course.  The drive is played up and past the top of a steep hill.  If you start your drive right of the fairway and draw it back you can fly it over the roof of the clubhouse.  Less than 100 yards from the green is a wide mature tree dead in the middle of the fairway.  Just about every second shot to the green has to be played over the tree.Asherwood is a facinating course designed by Steve Smyers with two different routings (forward and backwards) and alternate routings within the two routings.  Perhaps my favorite hole on the course is the 6th.  A less than 300 yard par 4 with a shallow, wide plateaued green.  Bunkers are strewn left, right and center at various distances off the tee.  What ever club you decide to play from the tee you must choose your line carefully to avoid sand.The best nine hole I've played is Royal Worlington & Newmarket in England.  The "Sacred Nine" according to Bernard Darwin.  On an all together undramatic looking piece of ground.  The course has three par 4 - 1/2's (only one of which is a par 5), two great par 3's and wonderful members.  The green complexes are severe and fast.  The bunkering is excellent.  It was there that I found out what the seemingly oddly placed benches are for on British Isles courses while playing a foursome match.

[T_MacWood]

Although it would never be considered one of the best 9-holers,the Highland links at Truro would have to be one of the funnest.Dating from 1892 it is one of the oldest courses on Cape Cod. It sits on a bluff 200 feet above the Atlantic up against Highland Light. The turf is firm and it is very short,but you better have your wind game working. It might lack length and the condition is very spotty, but for shear enjoyment its hard to beat the links at Truro.

[TEPaul]

Interesting posts by Dave Staebler and Tom MacWood. I'd like to know about any small acreage concepts that work well and why and those that don't and why, particularly as an addendum to a regulation course. Things like forward and backward routings and what they need to work properly (very large greens?)and also their drawbacks. Putting courses, par 3s etc. I sometimes hear other than good things about PV's short course. Why? Has anyone ever heard of a "circumference routing" that rings a regulation course and doesn't feel like you're turning right of left all day or anything like that?

[T_MacWood]

Another interesting,albeit quirky 9-holer is Little Marion. Just down the street from Kittansett this was the great George Thomas's 1st effort (1906) and it is a bizarre one.The par 34 2700 yard course features numerous stone walls,berms,hummocks,heavy rough and ultra small greens.The 9th is a par-3 of a little over 100 yards.Its green is completely blind due to two sand traps that rise up abruptly in front of the green. When you reach the putting surface you realize that these bunkers are resting against a stone wall directly in front of the green.

[Matt Jones]

I'm surprised that the name Whitinsville hasn't come up.  I haven't played it, but many say it's among the best nine holes that Ross designed.Is there anyone out there who's played it?

[John Morrissett]

David Staebler is right about Royal Worlington and Newmarket -- superb (see the write-up on this site).  I'm not sure if Asherwood would qualify as a nine-holer as there are something like 12 greens on the property that can lead to variations of 27 holes.  The key to such a concept is that a crowded day would have 12 rounds there -- it is therefore easy to play the holes backwards.  The impressive aspect of the course is not so much the routing (which, as you can imagine, takes a fair amount of thought), but the details in making the course look right forward and backwards.  Each hole "looks" like it was designed to be played in that direction, yet turn around and the hole looks fine going the other way.  It took some real work with the bunkering (one of Smyers's strengths) to get this right.

[Tom_Doak]

Several of my listings of the top nine-hole courses have recently added another nine and thus forfeited their position.  The two best:  Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier, PA [Brian Silva adding nine to Donald Ross], and Harrison Hills in Attica, IN [Tim Liddy adding to Langford and Moreau].Rolling Rock was wonderful -- some of Ross' wildest greens ever -- but they were threatening to make a rule that you had to play the new nine first, because many of the members just wanted to play the original nine.Prairie Dunes started as nine holes, too -- and they're the best nine holes on the final 18.  [That's 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17 and 18.]Whitinsville is terrific.  The first hole is a great three-shot opener, the 2nd and 7th are excellent par threes, and the finisher is one of the great holes in golf.  Two par-fours across the street, 3 and 4, aren't quite up to the rest, or it might even rate better than Royal Worlington & Newmarket.

[T_MacWood]

Can 9-hole courses be considered in any top-100 ranking? If not, should they be considered?

[John Morrissett]

In my view, yes.  They are difficult to rank, however, as it is somewhat troubling to rank, say, Royal Worlington and Newmarket ahead of another course that has a terrific nine and a not-so-terrific nine -- are we assuming that if the nine-holer were 18 holes that the other side would be just as good as the existing nine?  If so, that can be an awfully generous assumption.In the end, though, I suppose it all comes back to that all-encompassing criterion -- did the architect do as good a job as possible on that particular piece of land?  This will take into account 9, 12 and 18 hole courses.  

[Bill Vostinak]

I have gotten to the post a little late and have little experience with really good nine holers, but I would like to give my qualified vote to Whittinsville.  I critically evaluated it a year ago riding around in a cart and looked, rolled a few balls on the greens went backwards over the course as well.  I think one would have to go far to beat this kind of quality in nine holes and it must make the short list.1 the par 5 has a wonderfully heaving fairway as does 9.  Some of the grens are pretty sloped back to front and even though 3 and 4 do suffer from a similarity of length as they are sandwiched in an added piece of land, they require different shots due to 3 uphill to a shallow green and 4 downhill to a deeper green.  5 has a lovely blind tee shot with a nautical bell in the fairway, a touch far too absent from american golf, other than at say Old Marsh or Long Cove.Several sets of tees allow an 18 hole round of sorts, but I really enjoy a nine as I played yesterday in the chill of dusk.Here's another questionGood par 3 9 holers?  I seem to remember finding one on the West side of Chicago years ago near Oakbrook Mall.  Can't remember the name and can't find it on the map.  9 quality par 3's. Or did I imagine or dream it in one of my golf orgies on a day off in the middle of a week where I'd play up to 3 (sometimes regretably forgettable) courses in a day, right after I got bitten by the architecture bug.Any help?

[Joel_Stewart]

I'm bringing this back up in relation to Tom's post about whats next.   I believe high quality 9 hole courses can be a successful business in this day and age.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Nine-hole courses? Damn, that sounds like  a great idea for a book.

Anthony

[Ken Fry]

Anthony, didn't someone beat you to that idea..., oh nevermind....  

I believe the biggest obstacle for nine hole courses is the need to overcome the general belief they can't be as good as 18 hole courses.

I spent four years at a small private 9 hole club not far from The Dunes Club that was wonderful.  Selling the concept to most people was a challenge.  In their eyes, 9 holes meant an easy course and too much repetion as a member course.

If 9 hole courses are to be successful in the new age of the golf business, some old steroetypes will have to somehow be overcome.

Ken

[Tom_Doak]

Joel:

I appreciate your bringing this back up.  It's a good business model for a small-town property -- BUT most American developers are not thinking small.

We did do a renovation of the nine-hole course at Aetna Springs in California, mentioned briefly here last summer.  It opens for play next spring.  We have no pretensions that it's going to be ranked or anything, and that made it a fun project to do.  There's some edgy stuff that we wouldn't build on a "big" project (tiny greens, trees in play) but there are only 14 small bunkers on the whole thing.

[Joel_Stewart]

I'm looking forward to playing Aetna Springs as Merrill who was the head assistant at Olympic is now the head pro.

The point is they are family freindly and most important they don't take all day to play.  In a great situation you could hit balls and play nine holes and be out and home within 2 or 3 hours.

If the hard core want to play 18 holes, then you could play the nines twice, hopefully from different tees.

[Ken Fry]

Joel,

A 9 hole course offers advantages for less acreage, but why couldn't someone go to a regulation course, hit balls for an hour, play 9 holes and head home if time is a constraint?  Wouldn't that be the same as you're suggesting?

Not unlike the 2nd hole at The Dunes Club or the 9th at Kingsley Club, par 3's with two different teeing grounds set 90 degrees apart from each other to the green, our 9 hole course had different teeing grounds providing different angles into fairways, then had two pins in each green.  The course would play quite different from the "front 9" to the "back 9."  Despite hitting different irons to greens and to different locations, some just felt bored they were playing the same hole again.

Ken

[ward peyronnin]

Dunes Club as in either Golf or Golfweek's top 100. The other great faeture is the ~30 x 30 "clubhouse" with honor system sandwich/beverage kitchennette and three tables and a 6x14 lockker cubby. The logo is cool as well. a club bent ino a D arc that they have fashioned their push/pull door hardware like as well.

Maybe not an architectural gem but a way cool nine holer is the egutty/hickory rediscovered Oak Hall down by the green briar

[Joe Bausch]

Any discussions of excellent 9-hole clubs would have to include Phoenixville, right?  I think TDoak has it ranked in his top 10 nine-holers in his Confidential Guide.  I've played there a few times and if your irons aren't precise, you're not breaking 40.  

http://www.phoenixvillecc.com/

[Ken Fry]

Maybe not an architectural gem but a way cool nine holer is the egutty/hickory rediscovered Oak Hall down by the green briar

That's Oakhurst.  Bob Cupp worked with the current owner to uncover the original 9 hole course that was layed out in 1884.

[Mike_Cirba]

Interesting that the history of Phoenixville doesn't mention Hugh Wilson as the designer.  

http://www.phoenixvillecc.com/history.html

Does anyone know the source of this attribution?

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