Rater’s notebook: Merion
1. Routing: 9
Unusual “L-shaped” routing because of the 150-acre parcel’s shape and the need to cross a road for holes 2-12. Non-returning nines. Newly lengthened tees threaten to create a crossfire effect on some holes that marginally weakens the intimate routing. Course starts and ends at the clubhouse like no other.
2. Quality of shaping: 8
Tall fescue atop and around the rolled-down faces of these bunkers is a cleaner, more modern finish than the previous craggy edges. Tees – especially the newer, elongated ones – are a bit unwieldy and inconsistent in shape.
3. Overall land plan: 9
The whole place feels like an old heathlands park surrounded by small manor houses, with a creaky, circa 1824 farmstead that serves as the clubhouse and a scruffy, sepia-toned quality to the grounds. Locker room looks like it’s part of an elegant high school gym, with the best showerheads in golf.
4. Greens and surrounds: 10
Greens average 5,500 square feet, with good variance and ideal subtlety – without heavy decking. No monoculture stand here; six varieties of bent ensure healthy conditions in a climate that’s hard to manage. Greens at Nos. 5, 12 and 15 are overly steep ...
Hazeltine National
1. Routing: 8
Two returning contiguous nines, with a few awkward walk-backs created by the lengthened tees.
2. Quality of shaping: 7
Greenside tie-ins are well done, but too many bunkers look like inflated life jackets.
3. Overall land plan: 8
Ideal terrain that includes 75 feet of elevation change, with lodge-style clubhouse overlooking rolling ground.
4. Greens and surrounds: 8
Greens average 6,500 square feet, with every putting surface offering hole locations behind bunkers. Most are tipped gently from back to front and accessible via a ground-game shot.
5. Variety and memorability of par 3s: 8
Understated in their elegance and strength, running the gamut from a short-iron across water to a tiny target (No. 8) to the newly extended 13th (long-iron/fairway metal), where the back left half of the green falls away.
6. Variety and memorability of par 4s: 7
There used to be more pronounced doglegs, but plenty still abound, the bulk of them heavily bunkered on the inside and scarcely worth the gamble of cutting the corner.
7. Variety and memorability of par 5s: 6
You know you’re in for a long day when the shortest par 5 is 572 yards. The key ...
Fallen Oak
1. Routing: 9
Returning nines, each with an internal loop, and many holes virtually roll off/roll on to the next tee.
2. Quality of shaping: 8
The ground features tend to be soft and sharply contrasted with the aggressive bunkering throughout. The course has 84 steep bunkers, with meaty zoysiagrass faces that make these
hazards look like fists that are pulling you down.
3. Overall land plan: 9
Ideal rolling terrain, with 60 feet of elevation change across the site. A modest 12,000-square-foot, Southern Acadian-style brick clubhouse is surrounded by transplanted oaks and appears comfortably settled without excess. It looks out onto the course, with the 12-acre practice ground (and extensive short-game area) in a corner of the property.
4. Greens and surrounds: 8
Greens are large, averaging 7,500 square feet, with steady rolls rather than abrupt decks and plateaus.
5. Variety and memorability of par 3s: 8
Holes run the gamut, from a wedge-length 14th hole inspired by Riviera Country Club to the long, slightly elevated 17th, where an exceptionally deep green allows for safe or bold play by anyone.
6. Variety and memorability of par 4s: 7
The strength of the course is its long ...
Pete Dye River Course of Va. Tech
1. Ease and intimacy of routing: 7
Each of the returning nines is a bowtie-shaped double loop, with the water on both sides of play for par 3s, 4s and 5s and balance around the compass for each par category. The nines start from a 40-foot elevated tee, then stay low and climb out after the last hole on each side. The course is laid out between the river and a steep slope with housing atop; the course drains inward down the middle to a series of ponds that are in play.
2. Quality of feature shaping: 5
At times it’s literally overcooked, as if someone forgot to turn the flame down to simmer once the pudding came to a boil. And the bunkers are all underscaled – too much so for my taste on such a big site.
3. Natural setting and overall land plan: 7
Beautiful natural setting, with the front nine more elegant because of a bend in the river; the back nine is more linear and less defined in routing and scarred due to aggressive overclearing of an abutting hillside that fronts a real-estate development.
4. Interest of greens and surrounding chipping contours: 7
Simple surfaces ...
Biltmore
1. Ease and intimacy of routing: 7
Returning nines, easily walkable, and with the hotel in gyroscopic view. Practice range in the middle seems to clutter the place some.
2. Integrity of original design: 8
Hole corridors all preserved. Silva followed the original green contours along with the bunker angles and their offset positioning. By differentiating tees, Silva ensured that lowhandicappers get tested and high handicappers have room to play.
3. Natural setting and overall land plan: 5
Land plan is fine, with golf course and surrounding real estate (on perimeter of course) enveloping the hotel tower. Not a lot “natural” about it, and viewscapes are limited to the hotel. Abundant bird life has developed, and there’s a great iguana-filled mangrove tree near the ninth tee.
4. Interest of greens and surrounding contours: 8
Contours are ideal for modern green speeds and allow each green (average size 6,500 square feet) to be different, with edges rolled down to flow into bunkers and surrounding areas. Each provides some ground access but also has “tuck-able” hole locations.
5. Variety and memorability of par 3s: 6
Good variance; hit 6-iron, 3-hybrid, 5-iron, 9-iron. Tightness of bunkering is proportional to distance of ...
Dove Mountain
1. Ease and intimacy of routing: 8
Surprisingly walkable for a desert course in foothills terrain. Saguaro nine is a big clockwise loop through lower-lying ground; Tortolita is more elevated and more scenic, with one awkwardly long crossover. Best section of the course is where Nos. 14-16 snuggle into a cove in the foothills.
2. Quality of feature shaping: 8
Playing platform pops out of the desert landscape in ways that are naturalistic, not abrupt.
3. Natural setting and overall land plan: 9
Holes are not encumbered with homesites and allow for long views into the foothills and west onto the flats and beyond.
4. Greens and surrounds: 3
When the “yikes meter” goes off, the rating goes down. Putting surfaces are hyperactive in the middle and convex at the perimeter to repel anything not flighted on the trajectory of a perfect lob wedge.
5. Variety and memorability of par 3s: 6
The 208-yard third across the course’s only pond is a bad cliché, but the other par 3s are engaging, especially the slightly uphill 186-yard sixth to a diagonally perched green and the downhill, 247-yard 16th to a wide but shallow green beyond a barranca.
6. Variety and ...
Encanterra
1. Ease and intimacy of routing: 6
Basic pattern of returning nines, arrayed around a central practice range, with the front nine looped clockwise and the back nine counterclockwise.
2. Quality of feature shaping: 7
Everything had to be created – fairway drainage slopes as well as greenside contours. An additional foot or two – no more – of elevation on tees would make a world of difference in presenting the holes better. Best touch – intentional or not – is how the occasional bunker behind a green is shaped to provide a softer version of the basic mountain outline in the distant background.
3. Natural setting and overall land plan: 5
There can’t be anything natural about a featureless site like this, but the core routing helps create interior space for golf.
4. Interest of greens and surrounding chipping contours: 8
There’s a decided preference for contour, with noticeable sectioning off of putting surfaces into decks, hollows and transitions. It works on an otherwise flat parcel to provide considerable interest and demand, though the occasional diversionary off slope can be maddening. The putting surfaces generally allow for ground-game access, and there also are plenty of greenside recovery options.
5. Variety and memorability ...
The Club at Irish Creek
1. Routing: 8
Tight, economical core front nine and expansive back nine, with lake on various sides of play. Ninth hole doesn’t quite return to clubhouse and seems to linger by the lake for a special effect that works.
2. Quality of shaping: 8
Lines flow gracefully, with features tied in well and the occasional abruptness where appropriate for drama.
3. Overall land plan: 6
Flow of course around lake is spectacular, but the clubhouse, parking lot, access road and practice range compromise the expansiveness. It will help when the dated, 1960s-looking, brick-style clubhouse (architecturally, it’s between a roadside hotel and a funeral home) gets its planned renovation.
4. Greens and surrounds: 10
Excellent variety and range of contours; interesting recovery when ball rolls over.
5. Variety and memorability of par 3s: 8
What a pleasure to end on a par 3 – in this case, a long uphill one that’s unbunkered. From 6,489 yards, the shots ranged from a downhill 8-iron at the eighth hole to a 3-hybrid on that last hole.
6. Variety and memorability of par 4s: 6
Wonderful short par 4s at the outset (Nos. 1-2, 4-5). Back-nine par 4s are, on average ...
TPC Scottsdale
1. Ease and intimacy of routing: 8
Compact returning nines, with a counterclockwise front and a clockwise back. Desert floor and a central drainage wash with cottonwood trees provide plenty of separation between holes.
2. Integrity of design: 8
No discordant elements or piling of features. Course has a softer, more settled look than most new desert courses, and there are well-designed areas for the ball to roll into without the nuisance of catch basins.
3. Overall land plan: 5
Hotel intrudes between Nos. 8 and 13, leading to the lone unduly long mid-round walk. A constant stream of air traffic from adjoining Scottsdale Municipal Airport is amusingly annoying. Holes sit low enough that the round isn’t affected by neighboring office buildings. Clubhouse anchoring start and finish of each nine is a powerful presence.
4. Greens and surrounds: 8
Generous greens average 6,500 square feet, with the occasional fall away or devilish sideswipe roll. Great attention paid to angles of approach, with greenside bunkering appearing ominous but there is more room behind them than it first seems.
5. Variety and memorability of par 3s: 6
Good mix of shots and lengths. From the 6,653-yard tees, I hit ...
Chambers Bay
Chambers Bay is the most carefully crafted and well-designed municipal golf course to open since Bethpage State Park’s Black Course in 1936. The big difference is that Chambers Bay, perched on the windy shoreline of Washington’s lower Puget Sound, has a better natural setting and makes for a more exciting walk.
Like Whistling Straits, it’s a manufactured links, but like Bandon Dunes or Pacific Dunes, it looks entirely natural. Here’s how it stands on the criteria established by Golfweek’s Best national course rating system:
1. Ease and intimacy of routing: 8
Returning nines, with both looping from low point to high point of the 250-acre quarry/bowl. The back nine is routed on more dramatically elevated exterior land and culminates with three holes along the coastline. The only limitation is a tight squeeze where the nines cross over at the far end of the property, a spot where the course seems momentarily to come to a halt.
2. Quality of feature shaping: 7
Beautiful outflow of golf features into lateral dunes, as well as some steep features in the middle of lines of play. The uneven, irregular teeing grounds are a throwback element intended to ...
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