What Makes a Great Golf Course?
What Makes a Great Golf Course?
So what makes a great golf course?
The world is full of good, average and even poor layouts over which to test ourselves, but few manage the accolade of ‘great’ which, in our view, means the sort of course you would try and play before you die, no matter the cost.
It’s a relevant question for two reasons.
First, because there are no written or objective criteria to define greatness. And second, because Kingsbarns, just outside St Andrews, has won so much in terms of accolades and recognition since it opened in 2000 that it has already earned the description ‘great’.
But while the criteria for such a label do not appear in a rule book anywhere, perhaps here at Mulligan we should consider our own terms.
First, a course must be memorable – no blandness in this list. If you have played a layout just once, and have difficulty recalling the difference between the 1st and 18th, or cannot instantly bring to mind the best holes, it’s not good enough.
Second, it should offer a proper golfing challenge, but that does not mean simply that it is tough – the Blue Monster at Doral is fiendishly difficult, but it’s not great. Pine Valley is both.
Third, it should be subtle, and require careful thought or a few visits to properly appreciate the test it represents, and probably the best example of a subtle test is the Old Course at St Andrews.
Fourth comes aesthetic splendour, although as with all things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To some, the rugged, wild landscape of Royal Dornoch or Carne is unattractive but to golfers, they represent the Mona Lisa.
Finally is the almost indefinable element of mood, or atmosphere or ambience or whatever other label you may want to apply. Some places spend millions of pounds and employ the best golfing brains in the world yet somehow disappoint, while others have that ‘wow’ factor almost permeating the soil, or so it seems.
Such a place is Kingsbarns. Although golf has been played over this stretch of Fife coastline since 1793, virtually nothing of the original course remained until co-owner Mark Parsinen and architect Kyle Phillips, moved 300,000 cubic metres of earth to create today’s course. In the process they uncovered a burn that no-one knew about (and which plays a significant part in the golfer’s approach to the 18th) but more remarkably, the Kingsbarns they created looks as if it has been there since time began.
Every single hole has a view of the sea, on more than half of them it is conspicuously in your eyeline as you play, and several run parallel to the shoreline but probably the most impressive thing is that Kingsbarns is, like Augusta National, equally enjoyable for high handicappers as for Tour pros. At 6,652 yards (par 72) from the visitors green tees it is not overlong and, like many other good tracks, it starts relatively gently before asking its more searching questions.
It is also, we are delighted to say, a fan of the good, short par four, which is in danger of becoming a neglected part of the golf architect’s armoury. This is exemplified at the 6th, which is only 287 yards but which, like all good shorter holes, offers you a choice and a decision. Knock a long iron or hybrid straight at the two bunkers and you’ll finish short of them with a relatively straightforward wedge to the green, which you cannot see, and which runs downhill, away from you. Take a big stick, aim to the right and carry the bunkers, however, and you will land on a narrow strip of fairway that feeds down to the putting surface, with a chance of eagle and likely birdie. But go a bit strong and you’ll be on a bank of heavy grass; underhit and you’ll be in sand – a classic risk/reward strategic hole.
Later in the round comes a quartet of holes 12-15, that stands comparison with anything in the world, and that includes Augusta National’s famed Amen Corner. It includes a stunning par five dogleg right-to-left that hugs the shoreline and is reminiscent of the 19th at Pebble Beach; a short but challenging par three that nestles against a dramatic rocky outcrop, a short par four that seems a pushover but flatters to deceive, and another par three, the green of which seems to be almost in the ocean.
The first time he set eyes on the place, Sir Michael Bonallack, former secretary of the R&A and British Amateur champion five times, said: ‘Kingsbarns might well be one of the last true seaside links sites capable of development in Scotland. Mere words cannot convey just how extraordinary the place is. It must be seen to be believed. And once seen it will never be forgotten.’ He is not a man given to hyperbole.
Kingsbarns has its share of bunkers but not too many, it deliberately has no gorse, because it is almost impossible to extract a golf ball from it, and no forced, heroic carries. Mark Parsinen studied several of Scotland’s greatest courses before settling down with Kyle Phillips to design his own layout and concluded that, above all, golfers should walk off the 18th with a smile on their face, not looking as if they had just gone 10 rounds with Lennox Lewis.
To further this philosophy he took the Augusta National approach which, in its simplest terms, means that getting from tee to green is relatively easy, but if you want to score, you have to be in the right part of the green. The putting surfaces are very large and are filled with subtle (and sometimes very obvious) undulations, which mean that a straight putt is a rarity and the first part of your game that has to be in good working order is your putting stroke. The greens are also in superb condition all year round – largely thanks to the course’s policy of closing at the end of November every year and re-opening at the end of March.
Kingsbarns does not have the rough, craggy, Neanderthal look of a Doonbeg or Royal County Down, with massive dunes and hillocks to negotiate, rather it is a gentler, softer landscape where it becomes easy to feel at one with your surroundings and where, as PG Wodehouse once wrote of another course: ‘The whole of nature seems to cry “Fore!”’ It is built by golfers for golfers, and nowhere is this more apparent than the understated clubhouse, which is everything a 19th hole should be – comfortable, companionable and welcoming. Oh, and none of your fancy nouveau cuisine, here you get the sort of grub that you need after a round of golf – solid burgers and chips the size of your thumb.
Kingsbarns is expensive – 2008 green fees are £130 in April and May, and £170 between June and November – but worth it, and if you get the chance, you should mug your granny to get there.
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