Reserved

:-)

Black Rock

Silva's absolute smash hit from suburban Boston - amazingly still under the radar. Kudos to Tony Pioppi for making certain that I got up to play, I can't wait to play it again.

(coming)


......I don't get to Boston or my native New England nearly enough ....

Pound Ridge

The upscale Dye and Dye dye-sign from suburban NY/CT.

(coming) Ed Shearon worked on this one (see Oct 15th)

Quite a project $43-50 MM project of Vera Wang's brother that has terrific turf and a personality schism. The first five holes are so shaped that you think it a flashback to Timothy Leary's days. I know they wanted separation, but they way over-did it. Five, however is a fairly simple straight forward drivable par 4 where you just keep it right -DO NOT GO LEFT. Did I tell you not to go left on five, yet?

The food at the turn is OMFG good.

10-12 are like, well actually ARE a bit cramped, I'll post a very special "bunker shot". Eleven is a rather good three par. Fifteen is the one you've seen in photos and the finish just feels like a back and forth march to get home, once you're up the hill. I would have liked to see the land for 1-4 and 16-18 used a bit more imaginatively. Overall, it is a work of art and like all art it depends on your taste, but you will not snooze through this golf course and you cannot fake it. You must golf your ball. Given the neighborhood, I think they got exactly what they wanted. No shrinking violets in this neighborhood here, no shrinking violet golf, either.

Anyway for a quick summary, it is expensive, uber-conditioned, well-watered and fed (golfers, that is) and I'll need to explain some of the holes and routing for you, it is a bit complicated; I'll be back.

Trump Redux

MGWA at it again.

The Donald did not appear but the MGWA Cup was at Tommy Fazio's New Course. Highlight was CTP on #10 (8' 6") yielding a new Peter Millar (the best) shirt.


The New Course at Trump National Bedminster, as it is properly called, just opened in September 2008 for play. The Metropolitan Golf Writers Association had its season ending outing at the gracious extension of the Donald recently. It afforded a great media MGWA exposure as the host course for the season ending Shootout tourney. Sadly, it was not captured by the Jersey Golfer Team.

Starting on number five as part of a shotgun yielded a start and finish on some of the strongest most interesting holes. Tommy Fazio is a designer-builder and works in the field. He was responsible for the build of the first or Old Course but had complete control of the New.

What to think?

Nearby Saucon Valley CC hired Tom Fazio who did a hack job with the bunkering, completely ignored the heritage of Strong and went his merry own way bulldozing an old course as he usually does. They built orphan tees and made a big strong course, but not a Herbert Strong course.

Now is this a good golf course, absolutely by a number of definitions, most closely "a great test of golf" and "right there in front of you". Architecturally it is probably a crime, but considering the small number of people who really care about architecture and how it identifies greatness this is a mister spraying in a cyclone.

They had the opportunity to restore THIS at SVCC:


and chose not to, putting in the new Fazio course. Sure they saved some greens, but eliminated some angles and loads of interest that could have been restored was chucked out.



-all thanks or blame for copyright infringement as regards the above Hagley Aerials go to my good friend Mike Cirba aka the unreachable!