ACCC

The Birth of the Birdie. In 1903 Ab(ner) Smith played a fine shot into the then 12th hole at Atlantic City Country Club. That shot was laid dead as to yield a score of one under the stern par of four. That green today exits as a practice just north of the 18th green. The plaque commemorating the event has been moved to its proper place from where it had been kept adjacent to the current 9th hole. The course has changed quite a bit since then. At the conclusion of the hole a fellow-competitor called it "a bird of a shot" and eventually as it developed and traveled it became birdie - one under par. There are many variations on this story some including William and George Trump as well as A.W. Tillinghast recanted in the club's 100 year History Birth of The Birdie. This version is considered by the club as most true.

As a take off point - a Birdie is one under par, an Eagle two under par and an Albatross three under par (NOT a “Double Eagle” as Americans are wont to say – that would be FOUR under par on a hole), Double Eagle is a very grating term to my ears – just as a hole-in-one. It’s an ACE. Another sticky point – the mis-belief that an ace must be in an 18 – hole round to be legitimate. That’s just wrong – it’s a perpetuation of the Golf Digest requirement for an ace to be a part of an 18-hole round to be recognized by their clearinghouse, lest our Honest Abe American brethren stand out on a par 3 with a bucket of balls and shoot at a par 3 flag all day to say that they holed-in-one. Funny one, that - I was recently in Arizona for a meeting and thanks to a friend was able to play the lovely little Adobe Course at the even lovelier Frank Lloyd Wright Masterpiece Biltmore Hotel. There was a special hole-in-one event going on taking up half the practice tee (hell, I don’t practice …) for the Fiesta Bowl Charities wherein one buys a number of balls and shoots at a 125 - 140 yard target to try and hole in one –apparently as many as three occur in a day. These are technically holed practice shots, but they do qualify the golfer (as well as the closest on any given day that no one holes) for a final event at the time of the actual Fiesta Bowl (Make that Doritos Fiesta Bowl?) in which each final qualifier tries one time to hole in one for who knows, a million bucks or a KIA Sedona or something else exciting.

Atlantic City Country Club – famous for the invention of the term birdie was renovated in 1876 by Tom Doak to the point that one might even consider it a new course at this point –is a fun little course that is clearly falling very hard on economic downturn. During Monopoly money boom times recently it was a very exclusive course that was almost like a secret society in how it was run and evident in how few had gotten to play it. Now under dire economic stress it is open to the public and last Sunday was available for the enjoyment of a slug-like 5 hour round for a very nice $45. But, sometimes it felt like going to jail without passing go. Slow play is killing golf, I just want to see courses policing pace of play more. 5 hours in mid-40 degree weather escapes me.

The preferred look of the lovely raggedy bunker style fits very well here and is still in place, it looks great in pictures, but the course is sadly getting beaten up Closely mown areas adjacent to greens is perhaps my favorite hazards as it is very egalitarian – foozlers pick their putters and stroke away whilst the skilled golfer considers every one of five or so choices before he makes a mess of it (sometimes). This was one of the great joys of ACCC as it is a windy site and it was a recovery shot often required. Soft, spongy pock-marked closely mown areas have little teeth and are very unattractive. Public golfers are notorious for not fixing ball marks on greens so they sure as hell aren’t going to do it on the approaches and runs-off. Once you fix offending marks on the line of your upcoming putt, the greens are putting very well – once you finally get to them. After waiting on every shot for the first three holes the waits got longer and longer despite the chilly temperatures the players out on Sunday could just not get the lead out. Not fixing these marks certainly didn’t add any time to the round.

The routing is generally lovely but on the 14th a long walk out to the tee on the marsh to wait for the green to clear (that almost no one can drive in cold weather) backs things up. Then from 15 to 17th tee, one feels a bit exposed. The design team cannot really be held accountable for this as the original mission of the re-design was for mostly walking and little play. Still, the routing is a nice one with a lovely bayside stretch from thirteen to seventeen.

The par 3’s are generally a little shorter than one usually sees today - a good thing considering the winds on the property. All five of them are lovely and challenging requiring very precise shot-making to small greens with many places to tuck a pin. Middle green and putting is not a bad option most of the time. The fully exposed wind-swept 15th is one of the more demanding par 3’s anywhere with a marsh in play and nearly always a cross wind or hurting wind never mind the season. It is a lovely hole by anyone’s standards with the skyline of Atlantic City across the marsh as the backdrop. The par 5’s are stout with only the water-guarded left turning dog legged 10th likely reachable in two shots. The par 4’s are quite varies from the very gentle and deceptive 2nd to the demanding 6th and seventeenth – they being barely reachable with very well-protected greens.

Overall the design is an excellent one and the clubhouse is quite a bit of history, but the conditioning and care of the golf course and monitoring of pace of play sorely needs attention. The carts have a Plexiglas-covered pin sheet with summer left-over offers – proffering a mere $100 replay round and a suggested 4:15 to 4:30 pace of play admonishment - both out of reach given the experience Sunday.

ACCC is well-worth playing, but the pace of play needs attention.



Much of the history of the course is from Birth of the Birdie. The club has existed for more than 100 years, the original layout pre-dating 1900 laid out by John Reid the professional. He laid out nine holes at a time and the 5,900 yard par 72 course attracted the 1901 USGA Amateur contested by Charles Blair MacDonald and Walter Travis among others. Mr. Reid who later won the USGA Open for two consecutive years prior to Francis Ouimet's "Shot heard 'round the world" in 1913. Most of the Philadelphia School of Architects who collaborated on Pine Valley visited and played ACCC. However, it was Willie Park, Jr. who added the third nine which persisted through 1950 according to the club. Herbert J. Tweedie from Chicago also tinkered with the design pre-depression with no time frame given. In an interesting frame of reference the tome claims he drank Scotch Whisky heavily while creating deeper and deeper bunkers (none of which remain) on the course. Their recollection is actually quite humorous, unless you are a descendant of Mr. Tweedie! During the period from the Depression through 1950 not much change ensued. Prior to Tom Doak's acclaimed re-design in 2000, only some elevation of the most marshward holes occurred.

The design as it exists today follows the first nine footprint of Flynn fairly well with the exception of shortening the second and lengthening the fifth. Flynn's 10th and 11th were combined to make the par 5 tenth. The footprint of the routing again remains fairly intact through the added 14th, 15th and expanded sixteenth. 14-16 are reviewed in photos below.



Here's a short pictorial tour of the course as it existed while still private and after Doak revised Flynn's 18 hole version.

The approach to the lovely third - on the same footprint as Flynn's hole


The short 4th with Atlantic City across the brackwater marsh


The Par 3 Eighth - Aptly labeled Sycamore


The 9th when known as Adirondack for the viewing chairs and the penultimate (erroneous) resting place of the Birdie Plaque


An Original Doak Hole - #14 drivable under certain conditions


Another Doak Original - The demanding fifteenth par 3 snuck in between 14 & 16


Par 4 Sixteenth from the Tee


Sixteen approach - Tall seaoats encroach on the marsh to the right of the green today


The Hidden 17th - another marvelous hole

Bandon Clarification

Until I have cleared up the Asian Porn sites posting comments on my blog, I will keep "Comments Disabled". Please e-mail me if you wish. I really do want to enable comments, but I don't want any porn stuff.

I want to clarify a misunderstanding that I think occurred.

I am in no way was knocking Bandon, it is by far the most interesting architecture trip in the USA for most good courses at a resort except maybe for Pinehurst with #1, 2, arguably 3 for Ross, #5 for Ellis Maples and #6 (yes, I love #6) for Fazio. You can keep #4 Fazio (A travesty of Ross and even RTJ's works to me), my wife gets absolutely vitriolic about Rees #7 and I get a little riled myself about how hideous parts of Fazio's #8 are.

Don't even think of missing any trip to Bandon,just be prepared to take your time getting there. Even Portland and SF with the small planes are no picnic.

Me? With a Brother-in-law in Portland, Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley, just expect me to drive ...

Rowallan Castle

Writing coming. I'm sorry that the photos that I promised have not materialized. I'll see what I can do.

Architects Golf Club NJ

In the far western part of NJ, the Architects Golf Club authored by Steven Kay (with a consultant’s credit given to Golf Digest’s Ron Whitten) is a tribute course to a host of mostly ODG’s or “Old Dead Guys” as they are affectionately known to golf architecture aficionados. The holes are routed in a more or less chronological sequence starting with a tribute to Old Tom Morris at Hole #1 to Robert Trent Jones, Sr. at the 18th. The routing of the course is in two distinct returning nines and only really suffers from a tight spot at the 7th where the so-called Tillinghast hole is located. Hole by hole here’s my take on each hole as to authenticity and interest. Giving due to the original intent of the course being public access, the overall architecture was toned down, I have nick-named the course since its inception Architects’ Lite – reflecting that a certain restraint was necessary to get daily fee players around.
I must say that in its current iteration recently at visit, it was the best conditioned course within at least 30 miles and far more in some directions. Daily fee golfers according to the NGF are most concerned with good putting surfaces and “The Architect” comes in somewhere in the mid 20’s in importance behind such important factors a GPS, beverage cart, quality of carts and paths, restaurant quality and the like.
I’ll state my three biggest negatives at the start to get them out of the way and stick to highlights. After all, that’s what one expects from a critic, honest opinions.
1 – The architecture wasn’t intense enough in reflecting the individual Architects’ style
2 – The trio of C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor and Charles Banks were all given par 3’s and those holes in particular did very little to evoke the architects in question.
3- Harry Colt (with Charles Alison) was also given a par 3 which failed miserably to represent the style and character of perhaps the greatest ODG of them all.
Now here goes, no malice intended. I fist played AGC with a Colt expert and have played multiple times over the years. It architecturally has changed little since opening.
1 – Old Tom Morris (Par 5) A very nice revetted bunker fronts the green although not very menacingly and stone walls suggesting an ancient character are off to the side to give an old-timey feel. The hole is a straight-away affair with little to no strategic character. Old Tom is responsible for some of the most famous courses in early design including the sublime Muirfield (HCEG) but his inclusion (and assignment of two holes to Donald Ross) to the exclusion of James Braid and some of the other points noted below are compromises I wish had been avoided. Unfortunately including the customary low-stress Par 5 starter so commonly seen in America adds to glossing over this important man and era of architectural history.
2- C.B. Macdonald (Par 3) An elevated green with more contour than average for the course and a narrow-opening provide a mid iron to hybrid sort of shot early in the round. Again, a common component of an American golf course design encouraging a slow start following the par 5.
3-Hugh Wilson (Par 5)The hole evokes the second at Merion quite a bit but without the key O.B. right and with the green offset to the right rather than the left. Critically speaking, given that Hugh Wilson really uniquely designed little of what exists at Merion, I am not sure that I would have included him in this sequence. More William Flynn exists at Merion East than anyone else, but that’s a saga that has no end.
4-5 Devereux Emmet and Walter Travis (par 4’s) I pair these two holes together because of the distinct differences of the holes and the lack of good examples of said architects’ holes that anyone outside of a very well-connected golfer is likely to ever encounter. Four - A straightforward affair without much of the steeplechase character the course guide suggests, but a moderately stern par 4 nonetheless is not particularly distinctive while Five is really separated from virtually all of the other holes by its very distinct “CopBunker” style seen very commonly in the restoration of Devereaux Emmet’s courses but also some Donald Ross and Herbert Strong. While evoking Garden City Garden City Golf Club is likely to be seen by very few retail golfers (Mike Keiser’s term) and is an amalgam of at least three architects most distinctive style elements. Easily confused with Walter Travis and Jerome Travers by even those familiar with the architects Hole Five is a very interesting architectural reproduction and is visually perhaps the most distinct and memorable on the entire course. It is among my two most favorite holes architecturally and stylistically on the course. Yet, here is a point of significant confusion even for the knowledgeable.
6 – Harry Colt (Par 3) A hole with a comma-shaped green - a short hole of little distinction. I vividly remember the Colt expert on this tee cementing my early opinion of Architects Lite. I suggest that a wild & crazy Macdonald-Raynor “Short” might have done better at this point in the routing. .
7 – Albert Warren Tillinghast (Par 4) America’s “architect without a signature“ has three distinct bunkering styles on the hole. It is a relatively straightforward hole with a short elbow, formed of a valley to an elevated rather than built-up green. Here is a stern, but fairly uni-dimensional hole to represent an architect known for superior strategies.
8 – Seth Raynor(Par 3) A stepped green with several bunkers on the short left, not particularly representative, especially given just the spectacular template holes built on varied sited. A rather large missed opportunity for this bold and dynamic architect to have been better represented.
9 – Donald Ross (early) (Par 4) A stout hole loved by many golfers visiting Architects. One of the real winners. The water hazard’s blind nature is a bit unlike most of Ross’ use of water, but the character of the land and site of green lends a Ross feel better than many selected architects.
10 – George Thomas (Par 4) a version inspired by Riviera #10 with less penalty and reward. The added length for the homage prevents the possible thrill of a driven green for most players. A downwind shot for a bigger hitter is required and the unique feature of the original, a diagonal green is not reproduced. Fun nonetheless, this hole is likely Thomas’s most recognizable hole to most and a better choice than perhaps the sixth at Riviera with a mid-green bunker. Thomas along with Herbert Strong are the two architects towards whom America has been least kind.
11 – William Flynn (Par 5) Highly evocative from tee to green of Shinnecock Hills, Flynn’s most recognizable course to most – but unfortunately lacking a Flynn green. Flynn built a number of greens best described as being shaped similar to a potato chip - very easy to reproduce, even in a toned-down iteration. Eleven is indeed a very fun hole to play, but given that green contours so define Flynn’s work along with routing - impossible to convey in this format – makes a green complex so important.
12 – Charles Banks (Par 3 –“Redan”) Basically, all the parts are there – bunkering location, slope on green (mild) but angulation of green to line of play is absent. Banks was known as Steamshovel - his favorite construction device, he was a little less an architect a constructor. He finished several of Banks courses after Raynor's death. Very sharp, angular severe features normally characterize his work, often very fun to play, dramatic to see, but given the scope of this course three holes for this triumvirate mandatorily leaves out others.
13 – Alister Mackenzie (Par 5). Features culled from multiple holes at Augusta National and Pasatiempo are assembled here to create a rather odd hole. Here the fairway on the far side of the stream is rarely usable due to angle resulting in a three shot play for the norm. I’m not a particular fan of this hole as representative of Dr. Mac – rated the #1 Architect in Ian Andrew’s comprehensive and exquisite series on his older blog - The Caddie Shack. Mac is seemingly always mentioned on a short list of 3-5 great all-time architects.
14 – Perry Maxwell (Par 4) I think this is a great representation of many Maxwell principles and a reproduction of one of the two major green characters that one finds attributable to Maxwell – The “Maxwell Rolls”. The second, the pillows or “poofs” as Bill Coore calls them being would probably not transfer as well to the target audience as do the rolls. I also think Maxwellian style translates well to a very wide range of golfers. This is almost universally recognized as a favorite hole among Architects’ players.
15 – Donald Ross Redux (Par 4) Ross late in his life designed much later into the 20th century than most realize with several courses built in the mid-forties all laying claim to being “Donald Ross’s last course design”. Another long and difficult par 4, little makes this hole Ross specific. A long Par 3 for Ross was much more of a trademark, but not necessarily late in career as he always seemed to include one and often two right from his earliest designs.
16 – Dick Wilson (Par 4) Long considered the architect of Shinnecock Hills and even listed erroneously as the designer in the club history was a great force with his partner Joe Lee. Wilson and RTJ, Sr. being contemporaries shared a number of similarities and one will notice this at AOG with 16 & 18. Wilson doesn’t get enough credit likely because RTJ, Sr. was the first promoter of the Signature Architect. A strongly defended par here completes a 3-hole stretch of stern par 4’s.
17 – Stanley Thompson (Par 3) THE great Canadian architect also had some similarities to Wilson and Jones and probably can be called the best of the lot for strategy, balance and artistry – perhaps one reason this hole stands out so with its bunkering flair. Thompson was also a great router, something very important to an architect’s oeuvre, but impossible to convey in a tribute course.

18 – Robert Trent Jones, Sr. (Par 4) He was added late, chronologically dying after conception and before completion of this course. Some of the hole designs might have changed as a result, but such a giant of modern architecture one must honor here. Thought of universally with cloverleaf bunkering , it is of great interest to view some of the Golf Channel Big Three shows from the Mauna Kea course just after opening. The bunkering there was more akin George Thomas than what we normally attribute to RTJ, Sr. I for one would like to know why he changed. Undeniably, RTJ brought golf course architecture as a profession to attention in the 1960’s .
Overall, I normally don’t like the blow-by-hole description as I have done here, but this sort of amalgam truly deserves it. My own personal preference in the design would have been for more attention to green complexes, appropriateness of hole type to designer and more overall depth of character per hole. The experience of playing the Architects of Golf is a heady one nonetheless and I wholeheartedly endorse it. Certainly more than a collection of famous holes from disparate private courses, Tour Courses or self-tribute for any one architect’s own oeuvre it is a rewarding experience. I reiterate that very few if any will be as critical as I have been but I really want players to be more aware of their architects similar as we are aware of our painters. I would like to help advance thought about design. My sole reason to be so critical is to hopefully encourage one to continue thinking about the role of the architect after the round is done.

Ratings and Rankings

There are those that pooh-poo the creation of lists that reflect an average opinion of variously qualified "Raters" to create "Rankings". Golf Digest has been infamous for starting that process with their "200 Toughest Courses" (based upon Rating & Slope) which morphed into Golf Digest's Top 100 USA - America's Oldest Ranking or something like that - massaged by "Tradition" among other things.

For those that do not think that rankings are taken seriously, I'll save 1000 words now...


Case Closed. But, remember "Tradition".

BTW, Eugene does not scare my top 100. The trees are majestic and don't intrude on turf nor play as much as one might suspect, but the course is far too ordinary. It just happens to have a long history with the USGA.