Ben Cowan

I hear good things about Lincoln Hills GC, used to be private. Hemlock is solid, it is riding only though. Haven’t heard of the other 2.

Brad,

You made a great video of your first get together! Very impressive and keep up the great work.

Ben

Bill, welcome to the board!

We had a Rhode Island Gathering about 3 Falls ago at Wannamoisett & Metacomet! Winter is a great time to plan a New England Gathering for 2021

“0-A course so contrived and unnatural that it may poison your mind, which I cannot recommend under any circumstances. Reserved for courses that wasted ridiculous sums of money in their construction, and probably shouldn’t have been built in the first place.

1-A very basic golf course, with clear architectural malpractice and/or poor maintenance. Avoid even if you’re desperate for a game.

2-A mediocre golf course with little or no architectural interest, but nothing really horrible. As my friend Dave Richards summed one up: “Play it in a scramble, and drink a lot of beer”.

3-About the level of the average golf course in the world. (Since I don’t go out of my way to see average courses, my scale is deliberately skewed to split hairs among the good, the better, and the best).

4-A modestly interesting course, with a couple of distinctive holes among the 18, or at least some scenic interest and decent golf. Also reserved for some very good courses that are much too short and narrow to provide sufficient challenge for accomplished players.

5-Well above the average golf course, but the middle of my scale. A good course to choose if you’re in the vicinity and looking for a game, but don’t spend another day away from home just to see it, unless your home is Alaska.

6-A very good course, definitely worth a game if you’re in town, but not necessarily worth a special trip to see. It shouldn’t disappoint you.

7-An excellent course, worth checking out if you get anywhere within 100 miles. You can expect to find soundly designed, interesting holes, good course conditioning, and a pretty setting, if not necessarily anything unique to the world of golf.

8-One of the very best courses in its region (although there are more 8’s in some places, and none in others), and worth a special trip to see. Could have some drawbacks, but these will clearly be spelled out, and it will make up for them with something really special in addition to the generally excellent layout.

9-An outstanding course – certainly one of the best in the world – with no weaknesses in regard to condition, length, or poor holes. You should see this course sometime in your life.

10-Nearly perfect; if you skipped even one hole, you would miss something worth seeing. If you haven’t seen all the courses in this category, you don’t know how good golf architecture can get. Drop the book and call your travel agent – immediately.”

IMO, it is better using 100 point Doak scale, 6.8 is better then 6.1. Reading Anatomy of a Golf Course and keep asking questions and learning is the best way to evaluate a Golf Course. Unfortunately many of the mags are about the raters gaining access. The rating criteria doesn’t foster individual critical thinking for rater. It facilitates ticking boxes off someone or group gives you to focus on. A course should be able to be written up in a few paragraphs too.

Bump, I’m surprised this topic hasn’t been commented on more?

MM,

I doubt you could build Askernish today for $50,000 (INFLATION). A big issue is that land values are expensive (Due to gov’t intervention). People shouldn’t have to drive 1-2 hrs to drive to play golf. Are you saying that you are against clay soil golf courses due to location? I don’t think anyone is advocating Sawgrass swamp like creation of golf courses. Are you against sand capping and drainage of heavy soil courses? Initial building of a golf course is expensive but it can be depreciated over the course of 15 years. You can build a minimalist course on sandy soil for $3M. Lot less drainage needed and if you avoid USGA greens a good deal of money can be saved.

The biggest issue with US courses driving prices up is F&B on the private side! Many affordable public courses in the US. Trees are Weeds, and people need to understand that. Trees can overtake interesting architecture and effect the way they play via reducing wind and firmness.

Having not been on property, I’ll go with the front 9. I think the par 5’s are superior. #2, Hard dog leg left rewards angles. The mounding around the 8th green looks great. 13th looks great but the trees left of the green ruin the firmness of the green. 15 has no bailout and the pond looks awful.

Par 3’s on the front I’ll give edge. 6th looks really cool, green looks wonderful. 4th edges out the 16th because putting ponds by greens is hackish imo, cool green.

The biggest omission on the front is the original 7th hole that looked incredible. It may have needed to of been tweaked just slightly.

The 14th looks the most interesting on the back side to play. The green is so bold and it’s bunkerless.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by Ben Cowan.

Going to post this on the twitter page!