New Jersey State Update

Here's a revisit to an Old Post

Americans are by and large fascinated if not obsessed with lists and of course "The Best". I've rated courses for years, contributed to lists and defined groups of my own, finding it hard to say that course A is better than B if they are of similar merit. Top 100 lists for the world and the US more or less come out reasonably correct in the wash if many people contribute to them and biases go mostly by the wayside. Individual lists are to be taken with a grain of salt, they always reflect positive and negative preferences of the compiler.

The lists that are the most suspect are state by state lists as they are compiled for the major US magazines. The biggest fault is that they are far too heavily weighted by where the voters are A) Told to go and B) Choose to go. Choice A because someone has pre-selected the choices and B because of three separate but not so distinct reasons. One is that newer courses get disproportionate visits by first or casual visitors to an area and then those with established histories of being great and/or preferred architects get disproportionate endorsement.

Here’s a state I know pretty well my playlist is probably over 130

Golf Digest panelists (Must find latest iteration and edit)
(1) Pine Valley G.C.
(2) Baltusrol G.C. (Lower)
(3) Baltusrol G.C. (Upper)
(5) Somerset Hills C.C.
(4) Plainfield C.C.
(6) Ridgewood C.C.
(7) Galloway National G.C.
(9) Bayonne G.C.
(8) Liberty National G.C.
(16) Mountain Ridge C.C.
(12) The Ridge at Back Brook
(10) Essex County C.C.
(11) Trump National G.C., Bedminster (Old)
(14) Metedeconk National G.C.
(17) Hollywood G.C.
(13) Hidden Creek G.C.
(18) Trump National G.C. - Bedminster New
(15) Hamilton Farm G.C.
(19) Forsgate C.C. (Banks)
(20) New - Arcola C.C.,

2010 - Genesis of original topic
Pine Valley
Baltusrol Lower
Galloway National
Plainfield
Sommersett Hills
Ridge at Back Brook
Ridgewood (E&W)
Baltusrol Upper
Bayonne
Hidden Creek
Liberty National
Trump (Old)
Metedeconk
Hamilton Farms
Hollywood
Atlantic City
Mountain Ridge
Pine Hill
Neshantic Valley
Shore Gate

This Humble Observer's View:
Pine Valley – inarguable world #1?

Plainfield – most unappreciated great course in America even with the maligned Tunnel Holes. Perhaps Ross's best set of greens, blows away the unending tedium of Mountain Ridge's Greens

(2a?) Sommersett Hills – Tillie’s quirkiest - but for me the second nine has a certain repetitive flow twice and #12 just doesn't thrill me at all so for me takes #3

Essex Coounty CC
Ridgewood (Championship)- below R@BB??? In what universe?
Hollywood – among very best “flat” courses
Galloway National – uneven but solid, worst greenhead flies in USA
Morris County - nice template course done in a very effective manner, a joy
Atlantic City – nice interpretive restoration - #GreenheadCentral
Hidden Creek – You've played them ...

(Now by alpha)
Alpine – deserves more respect
Arcola
Baltusrol Upper – far more interesting than more famous bottom half
Bayonne – engineering feat. So what? Biggest US Flag anywhere?
Forsgate Banks - (Would be better with fairway bunkering)
Trump (Old) –Trump’s best, very good Fazio
Canoe Brook (N) – sorta fits in about here
Manasquan River
Montclair – four (4!) “nines”
Mountain Ridge – has its fans, wild unendingly tedious greens, overall uneven, 2nd nine blech land
Royce Brook West

Better than below +/- equal to above

Baltusrol Lower - famous and maladapted to 2018
Canoe Brook (S)
Deal
Echo Lake
Metedeconk – 27 holes of “Hard”


Better than below:
Fiddler’s Elbow (Forest)
Royce Brook East
Sand Barrens – 27 solid holes at shore
Scotland Run - somewhat modest public, far better than Shore Gate

- Others (ALL original top 25 GD)
Hamilton Farms – incredible mish-mash of design - very posh
Liberty National – nearly universally panned despite very posh
Neshantic Valley – nice neighborhood public Doak 3
Pine Hill (Now Trump NJ) – every Fazio cliché in the book Doak 4 at best
Ridge at Back Brook – very posh, Doak 4, but posh
Trump Bedminster New - Joyless - modern, politically correct tournament design

Booby Prize:
Shore Gate – definition of hideous - not posh, don't get this one at all

Update and Upcoming

Streamsong - Black 

Coming this week or next.

Gil Hanse gets to add his work next to the enfant terrible and the Gods of Architecture from a shared routing adventure.  Gil's Courses and the opinions of them are all over the map. I've known him almost 20 years, been a member of one of his best clubs, think he truly revels in pushing the envelope and creating controversy. He does it well.

I'm most looking forward to finding the plethora of unfairness that reportedly exists on the Black Course.

Concept of the Day: Non-Linear Punishment -  lack of proportionality for missing a shot. Miss little, punish little, miss a lot, punish a lot. Golf isn't meant to be fair, a part of its charm is the greatness of the recovery shot. I have five aces, but I'd prefer to tell you the story of my five best recovery shots (Given my game, there is way more than those five). But I digress as I often do.

Hanse along with Steve Smyers to a lesser degree each has probably taken the mantle of proponent of this concept from Pete and Alice Dye. Sometimes Steve's course are just plain hard, but often I say that Hanse and Smyers build the hardest courses yard for yard today.  Gil is on fire with business, Smyers, less so although Hanse has been doing a ton of renovation/restoration/re-interpretation work. At the other end of the spectrum is the all there in front of you/linear punishment which is ironically shared by Tom Fazio and The Gods of Design, whose names cannot be spoken.

Just kidding, it's Bill Coore - Ben Crenshaw. Their names can be spoken. And of course you knew who I meant. What each of these two design teams provide you with is a lack of controversy, a certain safeness, predictability, linear punishment, and a modicum of boredom because of all that. I rarely dislike any of their courses, but rarely does the blood boil or the heart stir. One moves too much dirt, one moves too little. Gil moves it so you cannot tell it's been moved.

Much dirt moved to build this:

What I expect to find at Streamsong Black is non-linear punishment.

Here is some Pete and Alice Dye for you. I don't have anything from L.A.C.C. for you, they don't like that.

Cheers.